onenewsnow is such a website and Walid Shoebat is a phony.

Some good advice from Aaron David Miller, an adviser for Democratic and Republican administrations and author of “The Much Too Promised Land,”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/177716?from=rss
excerpts:

In 25 years of working on this issue for six secretaries of state, I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity—including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions—does to the peacemaking process. There is a need to impose some accountability. And this can only come from the president. But Obama should make it clear that America will not lend its auspices to a peacemaking process in which the actions of either side willfully undermine the chances of an agreement America is trying to broker. No process at all would be better than a dishonest one that hurts America's credibility.

Second, Obama will have to maintain his independence and tactical flexibility to play the mediator's role. This means not road testing everything with Israel first before previewing it to the other side, a practice we followed scrupulously during the Clinton and Bush 43 years. America must also not agree to every idea proposed by an Israeli prime minister. Our willingness to go along with Ehud Barak's make-or-break strategy at the Camp David summit proved very costly where more disciplined critical thinking on our part might have helped preempt the catastrophe that followed. Coordinating with Israel on matters relating to its security is one thing. Giving Israel a veto over American negotiating tactics and positions, particularly when it comes to bridging gaps between the two sides, is quite another.

If the new president adjusts his thinking when it comes to Israel, and is prepared to be tough with the Arabs as well, the next several years could be fascinating and productive ones. I hope so, because the national interest demands it. The process of American mediation will be excruciatingly painful for Arabs, Israelis and Americans. But if done right, with toughness and fairness, it could produce the first real opportunity for a peace deal in many years.

What we are seeing in Gaza is the latest battle in the oldest family quarrel on record. Open your Bible: the sons of the patriarch Abraham become Arab and Jew. Go to the Book of Deuteronomy. When the ancient Israelites entered Canaan their leaders urged violence against its inhabitants. The very Moses who had brought down the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” now proclaimed, “You must destroy completely all the places where the nations have served their gods. You must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their name from that place.”

So God-soaked violence became genetically coded. A radical stream of Islam now seeks to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. Israel misses no opportunity to humiliate the Palestinians with checkpoints, concrete walls, routine insults, and the onslaught in Gaza. As if boasting of their might, Israel defense forces even put up video of the explosions on YouTube for all the world to see. A Norwegian doctor there tells CBS, “It's like Dante's Inferno. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage.”

America has officially chosen sides. We supply Israel with money, F-16s, winks and tacit signals. Our Christian right links arms with the religious extremists there who claim divine sanctions for Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Our political elites show neither independence nor courage by challenging the consensus that Israel can do no wrong. Although one recent poll found Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive by a 24-point margin, Democratic Party leaders in Congress nonetheless march in lockstep to the hardliners in Israel and the White House.

If you find hypocrisy fascinating, focus on the pathetic, post election soul searching within the Republican party.
You won't be disappointed.

As for foreign support, I would agree that we should not be pouring money and weapons into Israel. But we should cut off all foreign aid, give that money back to the people of America by cutting taxes and allow individuals to decide if they want to support foreign mission work/operations.

The US government should remove itself from all foreign entanglements as soon as possible. Our economy is about to fail as a result of bad foreign and domestic policies. When that happens, there will be nothing left for foreign aid.

As for the deprived Palestinians, they elected Hamas of their own free will. Have you forgotten that the Egyptians refuse to help the Palestinians as well. They are surrounded by “friends”, i.e.Iran, Egypt, Syria…other Muslim nations, and these nations neither give the Palestinians land or enough food and aid to live more comfortably where they are. Iran could easily absorb the Palestinian population and end this. The other Muslim nations though use the Palestinian people to antagonize Israel and keep the entire region unstable.

However, I must make clear, even though we should hope for peace in that region, our government should not be politically involved in applying pressure to either Israel or the Palestinians. They are grown men and can figure this out for themselves.

I've often wondered the same thing, savvyguy. Listening to most of the media, you'd never know that over the last 3 years Hamas has launched 6,464 (column by Charles Krauthammer 1-6-09) rocket and mortar attacks against unarmed Israeli civilians. No one would tolerate that if it were done against their country. Also, no one talks about the arms stored in mosques, schools and so forth by Hamas. Both sides have committed war crimes. But we hear more about the Israeli's war crimes than those of Hamas.

I think the short answer to your question is simply political correctness.

Excerpts:

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's ­doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush ­presidency's ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation…

The Guardian has spoken to three ­people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start ­contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

Obama has frustrated and confused those who had been looking for a more evenhanded approach to the Israeli-­Palestinian conflict by his refusal to make any substantive comment on Israel's ­military campaign on Gaza, nearly two weeks on.

He said on Wednesday: “We cannot be sending a message to the world that there are two different administrations conducting foreign policy.
Until I take office, it would be ­imprudent of me to start sending out ­signals that somehow we are running ­foreign policy when I am not legally authorised to do so.”

“Include use of outlawed weapons; intentionally bombing schools, hospitals, mosques and churches; killing after a cease-fire; and starvation of citizens.”

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...

excerpts:

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

This war will only create more suicide bombers.

I think it's important to remember that the Jews and Muslims did not make the boundary lines in the Middle East. The same is true for Saudi Arabia, and I think also Iran and Iraq. Great Britain and France created the boundaries. And I think we should not ask Israel to make itself vulnerable to destruction – especially when they have so many Muslim haters in their vicinity – by asking them to give up the West Bank.

I'd like to see the Palestinians governing themselves, and thriving, too – but they just (in my opinion – correct me if I'm wrong) would have to give up the idea of destroying Israel, and separate themselves from other Islamic violence-mongers, and put their energies into building a real state for themselves. That – I think – would be the kind of attitude change that would give the Israels enough trust and faith to “give back” the West Bank.

Or – maybe the people of the region need to draw their own boundaries, not based on European or American ideas but based on the needs of the people who actually live there in the Middle East. If only they could be agreed-upon without violence, the way our states are! We, too, started out with states based on religion – Quakers (Pennsylvania), Puritans (Massachusetts), Anglican (Virginia), Catholic (Maryland) – and only later became united, with freedom of worship… I wish the Middle East could do that, too. Maybe they will, after this violent interpretation of Islam has come and gone.

Until Hamas is ready to amend their founding documents and recognize the right of Israel to exist, the violence will continue, and no solution will ever be found.

Peace. (in our time…)

Please, Jim, why is not Sojourners sending an action alert on this and asking us to contact President Bush and our representatives? Sojourners silence on this has been deafening to me. American politicians and mainstream media are so one-sided on Middle East peace issues. Surely the American religious community can do more.