"Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable"

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton told a Senate committee that the US would not talk to Israel until Hamas renounced violence. She did not enunciate any requirement that Israel renounce violence. Personally, I would have no problem with both Israeli and Hamas leaders being shipped off to the International Criminal Court, given their mutual disregard for international law with regard to civilians. Though it's worth noting that the biggest difference between the two parties is that the weaponry with which Hamas commits its war crimes was not paid for with billions of my tax dollars.

One of my favorite quotes is from former US president John F. Kennedy who said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable." I said before that as long as Israel continues to occupy the Conquered Territories, there WILL be resistance. Every colonial power in history has found out that the people don't like to be ruled by outsiders, no matter how righteous the latter consider themselves.

Standard Israeli rhetoric is that they would be more thrilled that a 11 year old girl at a Jonas Brothers' concert if the Palestinians would simply renounce violence and try to solve the region's difference through peaceful, democratic means. There's one major problem. The Israeli state has pretty much made that impossible. And you can refer to the JFK quote to figure out what will happen next.

Israel's Central Elections Committee has banned the two leading Arab parties from contesting the next election. The majority of Arab members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) belong to these two parties.

The ruling Kadima Party (which is actually moderate in the Israeli context) has made its racism clear by opposing demands of one of the banned parties that (gasp) all Israeli citizens be treated equal under the law. Kadima claimed that such equality would "undermine Israel’s identity as a Jewish state." Such naked tribalism is something most westerners stereotype to darkest Africa, not the country that repeatedly pats itself on the back as 'only democracy in the Middle East.'

So Israel's message is that Arabs and Palestinians are not permitted to be part of the 'democratic' process and they are 'terrorists' if they resort to violence. So how exactly are they supposed to express themselves?

Some fanatical pro-Israeli demonstrators in New York City have an answer: the Palestinians should simply be wiped out.

Now, if some random US Muslim called for Israel to be wiped out, it would be news in this country on every major news outlet as well as Fox News. But when it's made by an Israeli supporter about Palestinians, it barely gets a mention even in the alternative media.

One young fanatic said of Hamas, "They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children. Those who die are suffering God’s wrath."

Given the high percentage of women and children killed in the aggression against Gaza, this gives some insight into the dementia suffered by religious extremists. But really, what rational person can have any comment on such inhuman bile except to shake one's head in disgust?

The only hope is that, according to this article, progressive Jews are trying to take over the American Jewish lobby from the militarists. That's a battle worth fighting.