<<As for Israel-as-America's-baby arguments: I hear all the time about, for ex., Israel's three rockets fired at Hamas. I never hear about the ten fired at Israel before that to prompt the reaction. >>
With all due respect, that's a very shallow analysis of a struggle that started in 1948 and ended up with 3 million Arabs living under a military occupation for 40 years. And you want to reduce the whole conflict down to the last rocket exchange? Gimme a break.
Israeli propaganda has worked overtime to produce the perspective that you just gave us an example of.
It's like analyzing World War Two by picking any particular day during the war and saying "Well sure we heard about the 20,000 tons of bombs dropped on London today but nobody ever mentions the 70,000 tons dropped on Hamburg."
The injustice of the Middle East is not how many rockets were fired last week or last month. The Arabs don't hate America because the Jews fired five rockets into Gaza last week. The central injustice of the Middle East is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the fact that millions of Arabs have been living under Israeli occupation for 40 years. The Arabs are getting fucked and every fucking Arab in the world knows that. But in America, nobody knows that. The MSM and the politicians do not focus on the Occupation, on life under the Occupation, on houses bulldozed, on people detained for hours at checkpoints, on walls separating farmers from markets and pregnant mothers from hospitals - - they focus on bombs - five from this side, ten from that side. The Occupation, of course, continues.
In terms of hope and change, the old-style politicians, Hillary, Bush, etc., are kind of like you; they pretend not to notice the Occupation at all; they talk about rockets, bombs, "terrorism," etc. That three million human beings eke out a miserable existence under Israeli military occupation just doesn't register. It's not a part of the conversation. And that's not surprising. Hillary, Bush, Kerry, Pelosi - - all of them have been regular speakers at Jewish events, pledged undying friendship to the people of Israel and continued a policy of military support to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars a year.
Obama really is a different man, a real break with the past. He has not pledged undying friendship to the state of Israel, has not spoken at AIPAC dinners, has not committed; and the HOPE is that Obama will break with the old policies, will not automatically support Israel in every atrocity, such as the Lebanon war and the killing of thousands of Lebanese civilians; that maybe, just maybe, Obama can break free of domestic Zionist pressure and tell the Israelis: No more for you. No more for you, pal, unless you end the Occupation and give the Arabs their land and their lives back.