Sadly, the seemingly pervasive attitude in the liberal press against Israel accuses any supporters of Israel or unbiased reporters as either Zionist or right-wing. I am neither. Likewise, any broadcasts that portray a balanced report of the issue are, in their minds, due to Jewish-controlled media. The reality is that the Jews in entertainment do not have the power to completely control journalism and, therefore, information; the corporations that own the media broadcasting (like GE) do, and they will do what is good for business, not what they think is right for either side. Also, I am seeing a swelling support from this mindset to identify and persecute Jewish owned or controlled companies in an effort to find a target for their hostility. This is the very same kind of persecution that gave rise and gave focus to the Nazi movement, which I find frightening. Likewise, holocaust deniers are propagandizing to increasingly uneducated youth who respond to their lies.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. -- George Santayana

As for victims, the Palestinians are willing victims of their own design. They continue to elect and support Islamic extremists like Hamas. If they didn’t bomb Israel daily, Israel would not be retaliating in defense. Likewise, the women and children killed in Israeli attacks are pawns in a game for Hamas, who deliberately uses them as human shields to create a picture for the world of dead Palestinian children “slaughtered” by Israeli bombs, causing the desired outcry of support for the poor Palestinians and anger and hostility toward Israel. And the worst part is that the liberal press throughout the world is too blinded by their own gullibility to see how they are being used to create this sympathy and support for terrorists who would, ironically enough, be happy to kill them if given a chance. Remember the numerous beheadings of journalists by Islamic extremists?

1. The chief suspect in the September 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, confessed to beheading US journalist Daniel Pearl “with my blessed right hand,” the Pentagon said Thursday. (http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/mar/17/yehey/world/...

2. Sun Nov 11, 2007 3:04am EST-- KHARTOUM, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Ten Darfuris convicted of beheading a Sudanese journalist have been sentenced to death by hanging, state media said on Sunday, contradicting an earlier account by their lawyer that they would be shot.
"The criminal court in Khartoum North presided over by Judge Osama Osman issued a judgment of death by hanging for all 10 accused in the case of the murder of journalist Mohamed Taha," the state-owned Sudanese Media Centre said.

The beheading of al-Wifaq editor Taha last year shocked Sudan's media. Taha, himself an Islamist, had angered other Islamists by reprinting articles questioning the roots of the Prophet Mohammed.

Authorities also said he had provoked Darfuris with unflattering articles about Darfuri women. All the accused were from the Darfuri Fur tribe. (Reporting by Opheera McDoom; editing by Philippa Fletcher; http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL11152692)

3. Monday, April 9, 2007, at 3:00 PM ET -- The beheading of Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi Sunday afternoon may well be remembered as the first casualty in a new wave of violence against journalists in Afghanistan. Naqshbandi was the translator working with Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo when they were kidnapped by Taliban forces last month; Mastrogiacomo was later freed in exchange for the release of five Taliban prisoners. The Taliban then demanded further prisoner releases in exchange for his translator. The Afghan government refused to negotiate, so the Taliban chopped off his head.

Within the last two weeks, at least 13 more Afghans and two French aid workers have been kidnapped, and the Taliban warn of more to come. Many in Washington and Kabul blame the abduction spree on the prisoner-exchange deal arranged by the Afghan and Italian governments. "These kind of deals are Pandora's boxes," Afghan parliamentarian Daoud Sultanzoy told me. "Once we open them, anything can happen." (http://www.slate.com/id/2163793/fr/rss/)

2007-04-09 04:59 (KST) -- Taliban militants in Afghanistan announced on Sunday that they had killed the Afghan interpreter who was kidnapped with an Italian journalist while traveling in the country's southern Helmand province on March 6.

According to a purported Taliban spokesman, who telephoned to media offices and correspondents in Kabul Sunday afternoon, they beheaded the Afghan translator, Ajmal Naqshbandi, around 3 p.m. (local time). (http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?art...

4. Aljazeera Broadcasts Report with Video of Italian Journalist Hostage: August 24, 2004 ... claiming to offer a link to the beheading video of Nicholas Berg. .(http://www.camerairaq.com/beheading/index.html)

It’s no wonder journalists are afraid to publish the truth about Islamic terrorism.

Nor does anyone seem to care that Hamas uses hospitals and schools to store weapons and as safe houses, even launching rockets into Israel from these positions. And they do not find it reprehensible that madrassas program children from kindergarten on to hate the Western world and embrace jihad by, for example, becoming suicide bombers. This, more than anything, indicates Palestinian priorities are not their children, but their ideology.

Neither is the liberal press fretting over all the bombs Hamas lobs at Israel daily, which has been going on for years now. What about the Israeli children who live in fear? No one seems to care about them.

I suggest to the liberal press lamenting the bloodshed and, believe it or not, “ethnic cleansing” allegedly waged by Israel and suffered by the “innocent” Palestinians the following:

YOU plant YOUR ass in Israel in one of the Israeli border towns. Perhaps you might feel differently when a Hamas rocket (supplied most likely by Iranian funding) lands in YOUR living room or YOUR child’s school. Or an Islamic suicide bomber gets on a bus and blows your wife up on her way to work or your child on his or her way to school. Or maybe a few weeks spent running to and from a bomb shelter while trying to carry on work, school and life might change your perspective….

Likewise, Israel’s so-called “control” of the Palestinian territory apparently does not extend to any human being outside the Palestinian territory, because Palestinian guards will shoot you without question if you so much as set foot on Palestinian soil. If, perchance, you are invited in, you can guarantee you will see what THEY want you to see when THEY want you to see it. And should you report it in a way unpleasing to them: WATCH OUT! It might be you losing your head….

Yes, unfortunately, the liberal press (and this is coming from a moderate Democrat) has been hoodwinked by the clever Islamic extremists once again. Hamas controls access to virtually all territory and all information coming out of the territories it controls. It shows journalists what it wants them to see. Islamic groups all over Europe and in America are capitalizing on Western “guilt” and outrage at their “plight.” This victimization is largely a myth created by Islamic extremists in order to put political pressure on pro-Israel governments and organizations.

The reality is, and I think it was Bill Clinton who said it (please someone, if you know give the exact quote):

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will never be resolved so long as Palestinians choose their ideology over their children’s future.

I do not hate Muslims. I hate what Muslim extremists do with the passive acquiescence of moderate Muslims. But I do acknowledge the reality that Islam, as it is currently PRACTICED, is, by and large, intolerant of other religions and dedicated toward the obliteration of Western culture, other religions and, finally, world domination under the Caliphate. And women do not now nor will they get the freedom and protection under Shariah law, which has invaded Western government in England, Denmark, Sweden and other Western countries in an effort to broker a peace between Muslims in their countries.

If Israel were to leave the Holy Land tomorrow, internecine war would ensue between Hamas and Fatah or whatever group might rise up in the wake of total anarchy. Hezbollah could conceivably invade and assume title. And there goes the neighborhood....

They are not victims as much of Israel expansionism as of Arab intransigence.

That again, is cultural, not even so much a political position. And when you are living by enshrined religious zealotry, Lord help your opponent. Suicide is inculcated within that doctrine. -- Marilyn A.F.

One thing we learned about terrorists in the sixties is that when one terrorist cause was taken off the table, most of the core group migrated to other causes. What does this say? Terrorists are in it for the violence, destruction and power. They achieve power through fear. They will use whatever cause célèbre to recruit supporters, but, at their core they are addicted to the violence and destruction because it creates fear, which gives them power. So, achieving power through fear is their pay-off.

Hamas, Hezbollah and all the other Iran-supported terrorism is designed to accomplish several goals:

1. to keep the Middle East in turmoil, which raises the price of oil and empowers their countries and the terrorists they fund;
2. to keep their people united against a common enemy (just like Hitler—remember Neimöller’s poem?); and
3. to keep their own region united with each other instead of fighting each other (which, given the tribal structure of most of these countries, would likely happen internally and regionally).

Israel is an excuse - the Western lifestyle is an excuse—for their terrorist activities, their recruiting, their funding solicitations, etc. If Israel were to cease to exist tomorrow, another cause would take its place very quickly. It would have to. Otherwise, these countries and this region would quickly descend into tribal wars against each other. This region has been marked by chaos for centuries. We in the Western world did not create it, and we cannot fix it. Selling the idea that we can somehow fix it to Westerners is a means of manipulating us into a delusional compliant state where we will do anything to appease these guys in order to achieve peace.

We tried that once already with Hitler. Neville Chamberlain is the poster boy for appeasement. And where did that get us?

Wake up to the reality. If moderate Muslims are the majority and they do not support this violence and terrorism, why don’t they rise up and defeat it? Or at least vote these guys out? They didn’t. They voted them in.

One of the reasons I opposed the war in Iraq was because I believe that no government can exist against its people’s will. If the majority of the Iraqis were truly committed to getting rid of Saddam, they would have done it without us.

The same is true for Palestine. If they did not see Hamas as representing their best interests, Hamas would be out, terrorism would be over, and Israel and Palestine could coexist peacefully.

Such is not the case.

The Palestinian people have had a number of opportunities to resolve the conflict. Israel has given back land won during several wars and settled by Israelis, uprooting the settlers at Israel’s expense. They left greenhouses in tact which could have provided food and income to the Palestinians, but the Palestinians CHOSE to destroy them instead, and now they whine about starvation and poor living conditions. But it is never enough. Islamic extremists elected by the Palestinian people, which (though Hamas is more so and Fatah less so) run Gaza and the West Bank, for all practical purposes, will not be content to have their own country ADJACENT to Israel. They will only be happy if Israel ceases to exist. This has been clearly stated by Hamas from the outset.

Given that reality, there is nothing of substance that Israel can do to permanently resolve the conflict short of conquest.

To the whining liberal press I say, “Give me a break!” Save the outrage for unwilling victims, like the persecuted people enduring real ethnic cleansing in Darfur.