Palestinians try to use a retarded boy to blow up ........

[Brandon]

No, Kevin, a "straw man" makes an opponent or his argument into an extreme, easy to attack substitute. You turned a tongue-in-cheek quip about the Islamic Gandhi into a full-scale condemnation of muslims everywhere. That's a straw man.

And Max, I'm sorry if I'm getting hostile, but I was sensing that I was starting to get painted with the "psycho hawk" brush, and it couldn't be further from the truth.

I'm usually with you on foreign policy; I believe peaceful solutions are inherently better than violent ones, and I always think that military action should be the last resort or only used in extreme cases. The problem with the Israeli/Palestinian issue, though, is that since 1948, Israel has used every conceivable method of ending the conflict; some of the peaceful, some of them not. Israel has dealt with fairly regular instances of terrorism, as well as fighting five or so wars in its short history, so I just can't condemn them morally when I hear they're assasinating terrorist leaders. Bloodshed is never "glorious" by any means, but Israel is really in dire straits. They've been in dire straits since the founding of the country.

And I think it may be fallacious reasoning to suggest that the logical consequence of these new policies is the wholesale elimination of all Palestinians. Granted, new terrorists will surface, but every Palestinian won't inevitably turn into a terrorist.