I don’t think, incidentally, that the line by Judge Goldstone necessarily requires the meaning Ambassador Oren imputes to it (although certainly many anti-Israel critics are happily making the ascription). But nor is it a wholly unreasonable interpretation of what it means to say Israel targeted “the people of Gaza as a whole” in distinction to engaging in valid self-defense.

The problem is that there are way too many people on the internet who are. It is hard enough to signify jokes on the internet without trying to do so on such a contentious topic.

Hamas is a monster. Maybe the original incarnation that was a charity wasn’t, but the current one is. That being said, some Israel soldiers went out of their way to knowingly kill civilians (ie – old people, women & children) during the Gaza invasion (Operation Cast Lead or whatever). Some far right Israeli groups openly pushed for the Israeli Defense forces to indescrimiately(?) kill the Palesinians in Gaza. Why do I say this? I read it in the Jerusalem Post.

At this point in time, I think the only way out is an inclusive one state solution. Have Israel annex the West Bank and Gaza and make everyone there Israeli citizens. That’ll never happen, I know that. But that doesn’t stop me from believing it’s the only way out.

Stuff like Oren’s post shows how easy it is for me to support Israel without giving all it’s factions similar credence. Sadly, it’s all too apparent that there are some in this world, including here in the US and in Israel that learned the wrong lessons from the Nazi’s.

Yeh, so-called friends of Israel have played the anti-Semitism card so often that it has worn through to blood libel. I wonder where they will go when they have worn out that slander. Seemingly, Israelis are not exasperated by politicians who start wars, that kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians, as an election gimmick.

Israel worked hard to minimize collateral death and gets slammed for it.

The didn’t get slammed for working hard “to minimize collateral death” – they get slammed because they didn’t work hard just as they have never worked hard. Every Israeli killing of a Palestinian is an accident. Countries working hard to “to minimize collateral death” don’t fire chemical weapons in built-up areas just as they don’t drop thousand of cluster bombs in withdrawing as Israel did in Lebanon.

There is potential that the Report will harm Israel and the peace process.

The reality is precisely the opposite. The peace process has been badly damaged by decades of appeasement of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. What has most damaged the peace process in this case is the US acquiescence to the Israeli desire to bury the report. This has demonstrated once again the US is not an honest broker in this conflict and that there is unlikely to be a solution as long as the US holds a leadership role. I believe the most likely tipping point towards a solution will be the arrest in Europe on war crime charges of a senior Israeli offical. Such an arrest would force the US to make moral choices it has so far shown itself unwilling to make.

Cries of “War Crime” will trigger kangaroo courts, et cetera …

Israel has settled 400,000 citizens in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in an action that is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention. What turns international tribunals into a kangaroo court is our refusal to prosecute the very serious violations of international humanitarian laws by the State of Israel. If the citizens of israel seek to avoid accusations of war crimes then they should stop committing them.

There is potential that the Report will harm Israel and the peace process. Cries of “War Crime” will trigger kangaroo courts, et cetera…