The smallest Quassam warhead is 5 kg. The Grad’s is 20 kg. The Fajr-5 has a 90 kg warhead and is 6.5 meters long. Often these contain ball bearings or other shrapnel, which are not weapons designed for military targets.

These are artillery rockets. None of them have guidance for specific targets. They are fired randomly at cities, not military targets, and have been for years. Hamas does not drop leaflets warning people to evacuate target sites.

The Israelis gave Gaza to the Palestinians, and the Palestinians immediately ruined the infrastructure, chose to put Hamas in charge, and chose to make the Strip an arsenal and launch pad wrapped in civilians.

Tell your friends eyes and ears are important, but so are brains.

And, AND, the Palestinians are living under a brutal military occupation, have rocks and rockets with 3 pound warheads with which to fight the Israeli army. Which robs Palestinian bands at will, which commits war crimes and atrocities at will, and is protected by Americans who will not see anything wrong with Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

Even my Jewish friends regret the way Israel behaves. But their eyes and ears are open.

A few additional notes (just for the record):

Ten percent of the Israeli Knesset (12 members) are Arab/Palestinian. Over time, there have been 69 such members.

Over 20 percent of Israeli voting citizens are Arab/Palestinian. This is about 1.7 million people.

Compare this to the number of Jewish citizens in nations controlled by Arabs and Palestinians. Almost none.

The Palestinian population in the Gaza strip and the West Bank is over 4.4 million, about twice what it was 20 years ago. By 2035, this number is predicted to be over 7 million. (Note that Palestinians seem to be quite fervent that eventually there should be no Jews living on the West Bank.)

Israel has a powerful military, and advanced weapons. If this is the result of the decades of the Israeli War of Extermination you keep insisting it is, I have to say it’s the most incompetent one in human history. Or maybe that’s just you, too.

Having said that, the Palestinians on the West Bank are living under a brutal military occupation. When the commander of the occupying military says they “will continue living like dogs” and “it’s possible that in 5 years there will be 200,000 fewer people” it does not take much to figure out what he means. And he doesn’t mean travelling.

Sadly, I described their actions rather than what they said. I wish it were otherwise. And, AND I wish Americans could be aware of the propaganda techniques which are being used on them. They are classic, stolen from Goebells, and have been very effective.

As with many other memes you repeat, you have a tendency to “edit” them as time goes on.

Chomsky’s quote, endlessly repeated by himself and other progressives who reference Chomsky, is:

We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.

Chomsky got this quote second hand from the Israeli author Yossi Beilin in the book Mehiro shel Ihud The book is in Hebrew.

The full quote (translated from Hebrew) is from an RAFI secretariat meeting in September of 1967. During an argument between Dayan and Shimon Perez. Dayan says:

“let’s say ‘we don’t have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and whoever wants will go, and we’ll see how this procedure will work out.’ For now, it works out. Let’s say the truth. We want peace. If there is no peace, we will maintain military rule and we will have four to five military compounds on the mountains, and they will sit ten years under the Israeli military regime. Whoever wants to go, will want. It’s possible that in five years, there will be 200,000 fewer people, and that’s an enormous thing.”

He was talking about Palestinian refugees on the West Bank. Not all Palestinians, or even all Palestinians on the West Bank.

Since this is a translation, Chomsky’s quote is accurate enough, but missing context.

“Kill them all” isn’t even from Chomsky. It’s just you, altering facts to something you prefer.

And that’s just one thing you’ve been throwing around loosely. There are more examples.

You really have no business being smug on the subject of “ignorance.” Seriously.

Every once in a while I question my assumptions. For example, at one time I absolutely didn’t believe the US would leave POWs behind. I was wrong. The US has frequently abandoned it’s military personnel.

The existence of Jesus. Whatever one things of Christianity, at least there was a Jesus. Not so quickly. There is a very suasive body of thought that says Jesus was invented.

And I was fervently pro-Israel. Reading the history I have to agree with every one of my Jewish friends, maybe 15 in all. Israel is a brutal rogue nation hell-bent on treating Palestinians like dogs until they can kill them all. Per Moshe Dayan.

Speaking personally, I feel that Israel should not exist, but I do support its existence and have done so, per its historical record. The birth of Israel occurred shortly after World War II, a useless, barren, largely unoccupied “land,” apparently a parcel promised to the Jewish people 3000 years ago by God. I do not recall any literature wherein God actually handed this “Promised Land” over, but I do recall reading where the United Nations voted to accept the State of Israel, with its defined borders, to its charter, which provoked angst among the few Palestinians in the area. This being the case, Israel now exists and should therefore enjoy all the rights, freedoms and privileges of any other accepted UN nation, including protection from and the deterrence of unprovoked outside aggression. Israel attempted to extend its meager borders to further develop unoccupied sectors of desert land. Palestine moved in and said the land had always been theirs, and the war was underway. Israel backed off, and Palestine, unhappy with its claim to arid land, was further angered, demanding restitution for — something or other. The shooting continued. Any argument Palestine might have against the State of Israel should be taken up with the UN, not with Israel, for it is the UN which permits the existence of both nations in their current form.

Two facts any critic needs to get over:

UN Member-State Israel is a done deal.

UN Nonmember-State Palestine is angry at this and has conniption fits unbecoming of any true nation.

And that’s it.

…Ain’t life a bitch?

My philosophy is that we should withdraw from the Middle East, but at the same time continue to provide material support for our allies in their obvious war against IS militants.

Let me repeat:

“Our focus should be on assistance to Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in defeating a shared enemy. This is their backyard, they know the culture, and the Islamic State’s (IS) threat toward Western civilization strikes directly at their main interests. The West is where all that tasty, decadent money lies. We should be directing engagements with the local forces (listed above), not blocking them. If they are prepared to strike, even within the sovereignty of Syria, let ‘em loose. I have no problem with our allies attacking our enemies.

“Pretty cut-n-dried.”

From ER’s “I’ve been thinking it over” thread at CurrentEvents.