ctrl-z, You're a fine one to talk about spewing trash. Hamas admitted in November of last year that between 600 and 700 of its militants were killed during Operation Cast Lead – a figure consistent with that reported by the Israel Defense Forces. The figure is several times higher than the previous number of fatalities that Hamas claimed it sustained during the operation. Hamas’ military wing had previously claimed that only 49 of its militants were killed during the three-week operation that the IDF launched in December 2008. Israel had put the figure at 709 by getting the name of each of the casualties and looking in to whether he was a member of Hamas or not. . In an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat daily in November 2010 however, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad detailed the heavy price his group had paid during the war. "They say that it was the people who were harmed in the last war," said Hamad. "Are we not part of the people nation? On the first day of the war, Israel attacked the police command and killed 250 martyrs, from Hamas and other factions." "This was in addition to the 200-300 members of the Al-Qassam Brigade [Hamas' military wing] and 150 security personnel," Hamad added. "The rest of the fatalities were from among the civilian population." Even with the inflated figure for total casualties provided by Hamas initially, the civilian toll was less than one out of two. Compare this to civilian casualties in German and Japan during WWII and you will find that it is a very modest number. It is no wonder that Col. Richard Kemp of the British military forces, a specialist in asymetric warfare, had said "Never in the history of warfare has an army taken more care in avoiding civilian casualties than the IDF during Operation Cast Lead. You ask why I post here. I am trying to feed the progressives some facts. I was a liberal Democrat since 1948 until I started, in my retirement, in looking in to them. Apparently you don't like the facts I have presented. I could also tell you the facts about Rachel Corrie but you wouldn't be interested any more than your would be interested in the facts about the many Israeli girls named Rachel who died from Arab terrorism. Here's the facts about one of them: On March 29, 2002, a young Arab girl named Ayat al-Akhras was driven to the Kiryat HaYovel supermarket in Jerusalem by the recently recruited Tanzim member Ibrahim Sarahne, who had once worked in the supermarket. The neighborhood is home to a mostly young population, young couples, students at the Ein Kerem medical campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, professors and teachers. The two crossed an Israeli checkpoint with the bomb in a bag on the car floor at Akhras' feet. In the aftermath of the bombing, Sarahne said that during the drive he suggested that he just throw the bomb, which would allow her to return home. Yet, she replied 'I'm not afraid. I want to kill people.' Akhras detonated her explosives and killed two people: a 17 year-old Israeli girl named Rachel Levy and a 55 year-old security guard named Haim Smadar who had attempted to stop Akhras from entering the supermarket. Smadar, who spoke Arabic, caught suspicion after two Arabic women who usually sold vegetables outside the shop entrance had been told by Akhras to leave. Smadar's actions saved the lives of many, as Akhras would otherwise have exploded the device inside the supermarket. Rachel Levy's mother and Akhras' mother are both featured in the HBO documentary "To Die in Jerusalem" about the effects of the bombing on their families. If you want to know what disproportionate force is, look into it. It is not the number killed by one side versus the number killed by the other. I am a retired lawyer and I can tell you that the test, under international law, is whether, in the mind of the commander of the defensive force, the force used was more than was reasonable to accomplish the mission. Here the mission was to stop the thousands of rockets the Arabs were firing at Israeli civilians. Actually I agree with you that it doesn't meet that test because the Arabs are still firing rockets at Israel although they are much fewer. A much greater force for a much longer time might have done it. But Israel, afraid of world opinion that was being coopted by the Arabs PR, decided to agree to an armistice before Obama took office. It looks like they were right to do so. Finally, the reporter that wrote that the Israelis were sniping at children with silencers didn't realize that the devices on the end of the barrel of the Israeli rifles were devices that propelled rubber batons, a method used for crowd control by police departments all over the world. I doubt it is possible to silence a rifle even though a short barreled weapon can be silenced. The reporter didn't look into it. I don't remember his name now, but I googled his name at the time and found 100% of his stories were anti Israel.

CNTRL-Z, If money talks, petrodollars gallop. Fortunately, while the petrodollar propaganda has convinced you, most Americans have not fallen for it. The Saudis’ well-paid American agents have been making the same arguments for 60 years. The reason their message is not getting through is NOT that most Americans wear rose colored glasses or are stupid and susceptible to Zionist propaganda or that the Jews who “control” Congress and the media are blocking access to the truth. The majority of Americans haven’t yet joined in the chorus led by Walt, Mearsheimer, and their cohorts and echoed by you. Most Americans, but apparently not you, simply do not like to be threatened by extortionists. Extortionists who warn that if you don’t do what we say we will turn off your lights and shut down your car enginesl. If you don’t change your position on Israel, we will kill you. If you print cartoons with Mohammed we will kill 50 people. If you burn a Koran, we will kill thousands. If you criticize us in any way we will label you Islamophobic and kill you if we can find you. And when we destroy your great monuments of commerce or worship, we will build a great mosque to celebrate our victory just as we did in Cordoba, and on the Temple Mount, and as we are proposing to do in New York City. See: Bard, The Arab Lobby, reviewed by Lee Smith - http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/44096/the-arab-lobby/ Ruth Wisse - http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2010/9/8/main-feature/1/a...