Time to Test the Arab Peace Offer - The Middle East Blog - TIME.com is an excellent post. But I feel it is missing on a few points....

Even after a decades old peace agreement with Israel, Egypt has allowed Hamas to arms itself to the teeth. Egypt is guilty of the current events happening in Gaza/Israel right now. Egypt´s border police is responsible for aiding and abetting the Palestinians who seek Israel´s destruction.

Egypt is also the prime supplier of antisemitic literature for the entire Arab World.

With "friends" like this Israel doesn´t need any enemies.

Karim stated that "the first terrorist organizations in the middle east were Irgun and Haganah". What an incredible mixture of information and misinformation in a single sentence! Wouldn't an unsophisticated reader be convinced? First of all, Haganah never was a terrorist organization. As to Irgun, it was formed in 1931, ten years after the massacres Jews in 1921 and two years after the infamous the Hebron and Safed massacres in 1929. Irgun splintered from Haganah exactly for the reason that Haganah was manifestly against any action that might resemble terrorism. Haganah's policy was to only defend Jewish communities and not initiate counter attacks against Arab gangs or their communities. So, Kerim's allusion that Jews started terrorism in the Middle East is just a lie. By the way, Irgun remained, for all the time of its existence, a marginalized group in the Zionist movement. Haganah itself worked with the British to kidnap, interrogate, and deport Irgun members.

Then, Kerim states that "some of the Irgun members later became Prime Ministers, like Begin and Sharon". Ariel Sharon (b. 1928 - seven years after the beginning of massacres of Jews in 1921) has never been an Irgun member. Menachem Begin (b. 1913) arrived in Palestine in 1941 (20 years after 1921) and yes, he joined Irgun in 1942 and even became its leader in 1944. And yes, he became the Prime Minister of Israel in 1977, almost 30 years after the Irgun activities were stopped. He negotiated the peace deal with Egypt. People change, you know. Mahmoud Abbas once was Yasser Arafat's deputy, and as such could be considered Terrorist No. 2, but now he is apparently willing to negotiate a peace deal with Israel.

A detailed analysis of Kerim's writings would take many pages, because almost every sentence of his is a mixture of information and misinformation. I just don't want to embark on that project, because I am not sure many people are reading this forum.

What kind of perverse logic is it? Israel doesn't fire rockets from its schoolyards. Israel digs shelters for its population, while Hamas digs tunnels for weapon smuggling. I wonder if Hamas can do anything at all, so that you would consider it responsible, or IDF is always responsible just by (your) definition?

> With all of Israel's sophisticated weaponry and Intelligence might, it's a shame that it has killed more civilians than their “targets”.

matahari8: First, it is simply wrong that more civilians than Hamas militants have been killed. Second, where have you got your military training? On the campus of the University of Berkeley? On what grounds do you decide which proportion of the civilian casualties is "OK" and which is "shame"? Have you ever been into a situation that someone is firing at your children while hiding behind his own children? Have you ever been in a street combat? Do you know what it takes to make a decision in a split second, when you are fired at, but if you return the fire, you may be hitting a human shield that you don't have time to notice?

I have been to Germany. I saw aerial photographs in their museums, showing the devastation to German cities inflicted by the allied bombing at the end of the WW2. Nazi Germany was doomed at that time, the Soviet Army was approaching Berlin. Nevertheless, the Allies bombed some cities to such an extent that no single home was left intact. It was not retaliation, mind you. The reason for the carpet bombing was entirely practical. The Allies were just protecting lives of their soldiers, so that they could take German cities without street combat. Has anybody, anytime, dared to say that the Allies used excess force or targeted civilians? -- No, and rightfully so. You know why. Then show some damn respect to Israel, which, under mortal danger to its existence, holds itself to a higher moral standard than the victorious Allies, by sending its 18 year-old boys into the street combat, in order to save Gazan civilians.