Hey Joe

Conservatives basically concede at the outset that Palestinains are a step down from humanity on the simian scales, and thus fair game. In this opinion, they are loudly, extravagantly joined by the Peretz-Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party, which is a lot bigger than the proggle-wogglesphere is willing to admit. Our more Progressive friends, meanwhile, stick to a loud line of contentless sympathy for the Palestinian "plight." This usually resolves itself into the tired "honest broker" palaver, in which the United States assumes the role of the FMCS, the Israelis play management, and the Palestinians play the aggrieved minor union. Eventually everyone agress on a wage freeze in the first year, 3% after that, and some relief on minimum hours. Democratic politicians must walk the line between these positions, and so they engage in a lot of one-hand-or-otherism that invariably comes down on the side of overloud reaffirmations of Israel's "right to defend itself."

But from Old MacDonald's farm to the disputed frontiers of central Asia, the "right to defend" oneself is basically taken for granted, so you can be sure when you hear the phrase spoken aloud that something is up. In ol' Fayette County of rural Southwestern PA--coal country--where your IOZ was born and raised, the right to defend oneself was every gun yaboo's phrase for "shoot that nigger crackhead when he strays to close to my property line." The insistence on reassuring ourselves and the Israelis and the world that Israel possesses this right is the giveaway. The mediator is always on the side of management, fellows.