Israel proper is not occupied territory. I’m not going to argue about this point.

I don’t think anyone could argue this “point,” as it were. You have stumbled up to the brink and looked down into the abyss which is the lie that sustains Israel and you are about to fall off the edge.

Of course you’re not going to argue about this point. I don’t think you can. I don’t think anyone can argue this point who has any intellectual integrity.

Israel was created by means of genocide and it must be maintained on-going by means of genocide. What do you think those settlements are for, E? Are those settler-only highways just temporary? Are those check points which harass Palestinians moving from point A in Palestine to point B in Palestine – aren’t those check points simply designed to make life as miserable as possible for Palestinians on the 22% of Palestine that remains after we subtract Israel from original Palestine?

You are very noble to get right up and look the problem in its face and acknowledge the logical and rhetorical difficulties which Israel creates for itself by its very existence. Why not go all the way? Why not be completely logical instead of self-serving logical? Why not stop lying to yourself?

I’m glad that Ann is patient with you for the benefit of her other readers. I do not read or respond to anything that you write because you have no intellectual integrity and no credibility. Everything you say is a perversion of reason, except where you can pretend to be reasonable. But you will only go so far toward reason. Then you turn back.

You have to turn back from reason. You have no choice.

Israelis aren’t supporting a massacre, they’re supporting a fight against a terrorist group hell-bent on destroying our country. I wish we could destroy Hamas without harming civilians, but that is impossible under the current circumstances.

Covered before: Most of Gaza support Hamas, their elected government, are they therefore all terrorists? Are all of Israeli citizens terrorists or terror supporters for supporting government policies that brought terror to Lebanon and killed over 1200 people in 33 days all for a few combatants killed or captured?

If you support the current Israeli government policy of militarily “destroying terror”, I contend that it does effectively mean you are supporting a massacre. You may disagree with this but that is what we outside of and critical of Israel see as the clear result.

Again, you keep repeating Hamas wants to destroy Israel, though it has offered ceasefires and implicit recognition (references supplied in earlier responses) yet it is Israel that is actually doing the destroying, actively and repeatedly. These are people, take off your “terrorist”-label blinkers. You are demonising them and acting out the very charge you implied in your other comment that protested that Israelis weren’t ‘Evil Ones’.

You say negotiation is the way yet you expressly support military means to counter “terror” rather than direct negotiation which “emboldens” Hamas by talking to it, now there’s a contradiction. Hamas has wanted to destroy Israel because Israel wants to destroy Palestine as it is doing daily, this not chicken and egg, there’s a discernible start point here and Israel has been primarily responsible for continuing this cycle when it is within its capacity to end it, and save lives on both sides.

Hamas has in effect changed its stance as most groups do as they evolve in governance mode and yet the Israeli state has spurned any and all ceasefires and offers with variations of the “no partner to negotiate with” excuse it has repeatedly used before.

I’ll take the qualifier of the occupation is in its fourth decade and further qualify that Israel proper has not been defined, and that all the West Bank is Palestine proper, where illegal settlements currently take up 50% of the land and that continue to be built.

You can not destroy Hamas and certainly not with the means your government has used. These have served moreover to strengthen them, not weaken them, and dramatically worsens the already deteriorating situation as we have seen.

This is all material covered before, and if further comment seems likely only to repeat previous statements, I see no reason to keep arguing in circles, unless it raises factual error or evidence.

I don’t doubt that Israeli media has reported on the massacre extensively [...] There has been great opposition from Israelis of conscience but this has not, I would contend, permeated into the mainstream.

You’re contradicting yourself here. There’s been extensive reporting and criticism in the mainstream media, yet it isn’t in the mainstream? It is not the majority opinion but it isn’t a fringe opinion either.

The analogy is imprecise as most are, nevertheless illustrates that the Israeli military’s operations in Gaza that have massacred hundreds in the past year alone, a majority civilians, does have far more support in the mainstream than they might elsewhere.

Saying most analogies are imprecise is an excuse so you can use baseless analogies. There is a huge difference between a country’s own citizens who aren’t fighting the country and people who are fighting their neighbor. Israelis aren’t supporting a massacre, they’re supporting a fight against a terrorist group hell-bent on destroying our country. I wish we could destroy Hamas without harming civilians, but that is impossible under the current circumstances.

the same could not be said of Israel as the occupation wears on into its sixth decade rather than sixth year

The occupation is 40 years old. Israel proper is not occupied territory. I’m not going to argue about this point.

Re: Hamas – as I have said before, there is no speculation here. Hamas wants to destroy us. As long as it doesn’t change its stance, we need to weaken them in every way possible.

Israel’s history with Lebanon is problematic. Israel should not have been there during 1982-2000. The operations in the 1990′s and in 1978 were the results of attacks against Israeli civilians. Neither side was righteous. Again, I was referring to wars only – there have been smaller operations that Israel should never have launched (as well as many other operations that it was well in its right to launch).