I have said over and over again that they DO have the right to defend themselves. Print it out and stick it on your monitor, please, so you don't forget I said that.

Everyone has a right to defend themselves.

However, I do not regard a 2000-year-old claim on lands as sane or sensible in today's world...or in any era. I regard it as an exercise in religious and fanaticism and cultural megalomania.

Now that they ARE there, however, I accept it as an accomplished fact, and I support their right to exist as a Jewish state within the 1948 borders without interference. I support the right of Palestians to either peacefully share that land without interference...or to be given a decent amount of bordering land in the region where they can be self-supporting, without interference.

I do not support either side's vicious attacks on the other, specially when entire national armed forces are involved, because that does far more damage to people than scattered attacks by terrorist cells.

You make much over the fact that Israel is small, both in land and in population.

So? England is small, but they dominated the world during the glory days of the British Empire. Spain is small, but they were once THE military power in the world, with the biggest empire by far. Prussia is small, but they once cowed the rest of Europe. The same is true of Sweden, Holland, Poland, and a number of other small countries which had their day in the sun.

Size is no indication of strength when it comes to harnessing and using elite military power. Besides, the Israelis get $2 billion worth of military assistance a year from the USA, and they are the only nation on Earth that gets away with having about 100 or more nukes, and being questioned by no one about it, despite the fact that it's technically illegal for them to do that.

I don't see them as weak. I see them as mighty, and they see themselves that way too. They began to think they were simply invincible, and that's what got them into that last fiasco in Lebanon...the feeling that they were so militarily superior to any Muslin opponent that nothing could possibly go wrong. That's hubris. That's what eventually happens when you're used to being unstoppable on the field of battle...you get overconfident and you make mistakes.