It would be better just to document it, and urge that the shepherd's rights be affirmed.

The "Breaking the Silence" group are also Zionist.

Your audience here is NOT on-the-fence Jews, but some opinionated "activists" and some opinionated fascists, largely.

There are many unique conditions that support must-not-be rationalizing.

Israel's foremost invasion camouflage may be that the Palestinians did not have an independent government of their own in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before Israel took over from Jordan. Then there is the "seamless" aspect of Israel seeming to do "more of the same" when adding the last 22% of Palestinian homeland to their 60 year old conquest: nobody complained the first time; si there any reason to start now?

The holocaust excuse still works for many as long as they don't think about it. If you think about it the settlements are MORE likely to bring on another (nuclear) holocaust (or new diaspora now that other Mid-Eastern nations are getting in range of possession of nuclear arms): leaving lebensraum (living space) for 10% of Israel's people at the expense of 100% of Palestinians the only possible motive left for Israelis asserting eminent domain over the historic real estate of helpless Palestinians.

Let's hope "Big Brother" figures all this out and starts to pressure little sister to vacate the rightful Palestinian premises before he has to trade anymore skyscrapers for settlements over appearing to be little sister's chief backer.

Did you ever hear of self-destructive behavior?

Just from the self-interested (wholly immoral) viewpoint: 1930's Germany was short farm land (when that was more important) and very short minerals (iron, etc.): giving Germany an important strategic interest in moving in next door.

Israel has what (decent morals aside) strategic interest in moving in next door: real estate on which to prop spacious housing developments, swimming pools and all? For, which Israel risks the wrath of the entire globe (what are you going to do when the people of the USA finally find out — are you going to call them all anti-semitic if they don't play along — see what that gets Israel: it wont be more F-16s).

About the only strategic resource Israel — steals — from the Palestinians is half their water supply (while forbidding drilling new wells when old dry up for over 2 years now — via the old permit refusal dodge, of course). Head up: it would be cheaper to desalinate the Mediterranean than to maintain twice the US Army's tank numbers on 2% of the population base (you could even — buy — water from Palestinians).

Why tell me about the Arabs supposed will to destroy Israel no matter what? Let suppose that against evidence that convinces most informed observers otherwise that this were every bit true. WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ROLLING OUT HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS ON OTHER PEOPLE'S SOIL, MAN?

Think — use your brain. One moment the nicest people in the world (me) are stone anti-Semites; the next, the world is expected to leniently forgive Israel anything (short of genocide of course): two sides of a very warped (if DESPERATELY self-serving) motivational equation.

In a Dec. 31st article, Haaretz reported that PM Olmert ordered that no West Bank construction (i.e., settlements) is to be authorized without his approval.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940166.html

This is one of the rare instances when Israel has offered even a gesture of cooperation toward U.S. policy. But unfortunately and characteristically, the announcement was undermined by the fine print:

"However, government spokesman Mark Regev said that 'these orders do not apply to construction that already has been approved. They do not apply to East Jerusalem either, because from the Israeli perspective, the West Bank is not Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is not the West Bank.'"

The international character of Jerusalem, including traditionally Palestinian East Jerusalem, has been a bedrock principle of UN policy for decades.

Philip Weiss has got it right: Judaism is going to have to divorce itself from the secular heresy of zionism. Apartheid is just as incompatible with Judaism as it is with Christianity. The denunciations of religious leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were instrumental in dismantling U.S. and South African apartheid.

Today, many individual Jews have realized that zionist apartheid is doing incalculable damage to the moral standing of Judaism. A few sects such as Neturei Karta are willing to say so. But where are the rabbinical voices from mainstream Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed Judaism, dissociating themselves from the brutality of Israeli behavior in the occupied territories? The lack of dissent is very, very surprising and distressing, at this late hour. But I do not think, ultimately, that Judaism is going to continue to tolerate being dragged into a cesspool by the inhuman excesses of secular zionism. DECISION TIME!

Richard, how many details must accumulate before you allow yourself to draw a conclusion? You are stuck in a fantasy world of an imagined Zionism which may or may not be possible one day, but definitely has no relationship to the Zionism that the world is stuck with today. Finkelstein was right, Israel is just a stage for you to play out your perverse fantasies.

Don't you ever ask yourself why it is you have never made "aliyah"?

Do you seriously think Germany was short on farmland in the Interwar? Do give me your source for that bit of radical revision!

Let's not hold our breath about the end to Israeli-American military cooperation–Israel is the innovator in this relationship and the US would likely be finished by such a proposal.

By the way, there are millions of Jews in Israel who came there from Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, etc. I wonder if Jim and David and Drew ever ask themselves how they got there?