In order to win a ‘heart and minds’ campeign, one has to actually remove Hamas from effective controll of Gaza, or that campeign is doomed to failor. Larry’s suggestion is akin to trying to ‘win hearts and minds’ in Iraq while Saddam is still in power.

I would say that is a tad naive.

“Point 1: Filed a complaint with the United Nations/National Security Council after every rocket launch.”

Utterly meaningless. Israel has attempted to sit back and complain to the UN every time its citizens were bombed. You know what happened? The UN was supportive in speech but the international community overall ignored Israel, and Hamas freely continued firing rockets, thus this tactic is an easy verbal escape from actually defending one’s civilians from rocket fire.

“2: Deployed counter battery units with international observes and members of the media to establish that Israel is retaliating only against specific rocket/mortar sites. Israel would fire counter battery at every source for a rocket/missile. This is called “proportionate” response.”

Again, counter battery has been tried before. Unfortunately, if you were aware of Gaza’s urban environment and Hamas’s use of urban areas to fire rockets, counter battery fire is a sure way to cause an immedurable number of Palestinian civilian casualties. Last time Israel tried it, one artillary shot accidentally killed a whole family. The international community would totally ignore the fact that this was ‘counter battery fire’ and focus on pictures of dead and wounded Palestinians. In addition, since Hamas fires its rockets and runs for its life, counter battery fire will be lucky to ever hit a Hamas individual.

The US may have employed such tactics in Fallujah, but this resulted in thousands of civilian dead, far more than Israel ever inflicted in an urban engagement.

3: “Now, if those Hamas rockets were causing significant Israeli casualties–let’s say 50% of the rockets killed or wounded someone–then you could make a case to escalate the Israeli response.”

Since when is war a mathematical equation? The basic objective of any warring party is to inflict maximal damage on the enemy while minimizing its own casualties. Was there anything proportional about the US war in Iraq? Or about Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait for that matter? Israel is doing exactly what any other country has done in the past. This is how war works.
Would a British citizen complain that too few British soldiers are being killed in Iraq? Probably not.
Should Israel wait for 500 or 1000 casualties before we have the ‘moral’ right to defend ourselves? Bullshit.

“4: Promoted internationally supervised aid/healthcare missions. Yes, a hearts and mind campaign. Ensure that Israel and the Palestinians cooperating with her are the source for food and medical care. As it stands now, Hamas is that source.”

That’s a false assumption for two reasons.

A: Hamas is not the source of aid to the Palestinians. Everything it distributes comes from foreign aid.
B: Israel, if you havent noticed, has been supplying Gaza with food, electricity, water and even pro-bono health-care for years, despite its civilians being constantly bombed by Gaza’s government. That is unprecedented in modern history. No country, even the US, would have done so while 15% of its country was under bombardment.

I have read the same information New Hampster put forward from Jeiwsh, American and Isreali sources. I do not thave time right now to find all the links – Just google history of Zionism – lots of reading there.

As far as historic homeland – sorry I do not buy that at an inalienable right. I do beleive what was apportioned by Britain was fair after WWII.

However, how many other peoples have also lost their homeland? Although a real American with mixed European ancestory, I am predomininently Irish and went there to do some research. After the Briitish took over Ireland, they also took the family farms and gave them to Brisitsh peerage who settled in Ireland. The original Irish were forced to work as serfs on land htey once owned. With the potatoe famine in 1854, many, including my direct ancestors, were allowed to work 1 more havest. In liew of money they were given one way tickets via ship and in steerage to either America or Australia.

Be realistic – What do yout hink my chances, or any other Irish decendents are, of EVER going back and saying “thats my hisotrical land” so cough up the damn deed then get out?

He sure is SILENT – Where the HELL is the so called leadership?

Silence in Bambi’s case is aquiesence as we learned about the constant misogyny in 2008!

When did Islam begin?