It is a fact that the United States is Israel's mainstay and gives Israel far more military aid than anybody. So we get the joy of seeing our tax dollars at work on Gaza's children. It is a fact that Israel could not operate without massive U.S. aid. Period.The idea that European countries are operating independent of U.S. strong-arming is just naive.

It doesn't take a lot of looking into the issue to understand that there will be no peace deal without Hamas, which is supported by the majority of the Palestinian people as evidenced by the fact of the free and fair election they won which was closely monitored by Jimmy Carter's organization among others, of which he said it was the cleanest election he has ever seen, and which the West with the U.S. in the lead proceeded to ignore. Since the death of Arafat, Fatah has lost most of its credibility, not only with people in the region but pretty much universally, except for here in the U.S. and in Israel. Ayinde certainly didn't make that up.

As Disciple said, this was Israel's version of rolling out the red carpet for Obama, a carpet of Gazan blood.It was timed precisely to end a couple days before his inauguration. Those peace talks and what-not were a sham. Israel did exactly what it wanted when it wanted. I hope Obama was enraged.

Closing Guantanamo is a separate issue from bringing up these people on war crime charges. The UN is working on it, appropriately. I understand Obama's desire to hold himself above the argument. I don't think he should necessarily initiate it, but I hope he isn't discouraging the members of Congress who are working on holding Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld accountable.