Eli, you do not even mention the Romaniotes Jews oldest Jews, older even than Sephardic Jews.

Trying to crush guerrillas/terrorists with conventional forces is akin to swatting a swarm of bees with a sledgehammer - fatiguing and futile.

A better approach by far is targetted assassination: Smile; you’re on Hellfire camera!

> But Gaza is the most crowded
> slum in the world …

(a) Gaza has about half the population density of Tel Aviv.

(b) See those pictures of crowds in Gaza, with kids etc? They are wearing ok clothes, nice shoes, look well fed, etc.

Might not be the best place in the world to live (especially if you’re on a Hamas hit list) but it is a fair site better than most.

I’m most impressed by Gary’s prediction that the Israeli offensive would turn into a pumpkin on Inauguration Day. Sure enough, the IDF declares victory and goes home. Meanwhile, hundreds of Hamas criminals responsible for firing rockets at Israel cheer, maybe a dozen of the criminals got killed, the rest were all innocent teachers and postmen and street cops and women and chldren and such not involved in the war crime of shooting rockets at Israel. So it turns out this was all just a cynical election stunt by Israeli pols after all. But hey, let’s just ignore those 1,000+ innocents killed to improve the electoral chances of Anybody But Likud, it’s not like they’re *real* people, they’re just untermenschen, unseemly mud people, right? Right?!

And the criminals — on both sides of the Gaza border — rejoice. Bah.

I suspect Hamas has been marginalized for the time being, regardless of the post-cease fire chest thumping and perceived victimization, at least until Israel can take the temperature of the Obama administration. What I don’t know is the long-term propaganda cost of the shelling of the UN compound, two UN sponsored schools, and the killing of Dr. Az A-Din Abu al-Ayash’s daughters. These four actions may have undercut all of Israel’s tactical and strategic gains in the past month.

Your comment shows utter lack of understanding, which forces me to re-explain myself (as I think there is just too many people like you, or more ignorant, out there).

So, your first paragraph is some pompous pretend-philosophical-context-giving comment about me revealing that Petkov is just another Slavic anti-semite (and I’ve known these personally).

Basically, I was speaking Petkov’s language; and I am against cutting American aid to Israel for several reasons: 1) Israel is the only normal country among the sea of fundamentalist apes; 2) the Jewish people need ways to deal with threats to its survival (Israel will survive even without aid - but will have to resort to much more serious means of defense, because limited funds require drastic and primitive measures (and the “Palestinians” will be the ones ultimately to suffer)); 3) Israel is an important military, political and cultural ally of America.

Your “lighter note” is also not interesting, and *completely* misleading.

Actually, I misstated myself. In fact, overwhelming majority of Arabs in the region *are not* descendants of those Biblical Jews (only the ones living in Hebron, Samaria & Nablus are). The Arabs living there *now* are actually relative newcomers (many of whom came during the Ottomans from Syria and Jordan - being more related to Aramaic etc. tribes, some of which aren’t even Semitic). Interestingly most of Arabs living there *can’t* claim that they are descendants of the Arabs that lived there since (even) Crusaders’ or the Caliphate times - the territory had been vacated and re-populated over many of these centuries - and for various reasons - which is a big reason of why “Palestinian” is a made-up concept.

There are even some Yemeni Bedouins living there (who are nice folks really), whose ancestors don’t go back more than a century in Israel.

Mizrahim are not genetically Jewish. Most of them are uncultured Moroccan Berbers, who converted to Judaism a long while back and brought to Israel by overzealous founders. Only Sephards and Ashkenazis are true genetic Jews. Stating what you just stated shows that you have no idea what the hell you are blubbering about.

The “Palestinian identity” truly only started after the Six Day War - before that, they were just Arabs.

There is *much* more facts to state, but I’ve got no time (nor appropriate audience).