It would be silly to “equally criticize the Palestinian violence that has led to those actions” because
a) the Palestinian violence has harmed Israel far less than the Israeli actions have harmed Palestinians
and
b) the Israeli land thefts and murders led to the Palestinian violence. Does anyone really think some Palestinians do those things for no reason? Well, Israeli propagandists and the US media have gone a long way to get the American public to think like that but it’s nonsense, as you realize when you think about it.
and
c) the immense amount of blind US support for Israel has hurt us a lot while what little support we give the Palestinians hasn’t hurt us and if we’d just be even-handed or leave the Middle East alone it would solve some real problems for us
so
d) Israel and some of the Palestinians are both to blame but the Palestinians were pretty much innocently living their lives when they lost some land to Israel and Israel has continued to take it, which is the ultimate cause of this problem.
Obviously the things Germany and Austria did before and during WWII were awful and a big part of why Israel was put where it was, but who noticed that Germany, the guilty party, didn’t pay the price of losing land for the Jews to settle on – the Palestinians did. Germans, being European, were treated a whole lot better than the Palestinians who weren’t like most Americans’ ancestors at the time.
So while the resolution could perhaps have been written better, it should have been passed, for whatever good it would do. We can be pretty sure prayer won’t have any effect. If it did our State Department and Defense Department could save a bundle on personnel and equipment.

Always a “pleasure” to see a real Jew-hater/Junior Nazi in action.
Now go listen to some Wagner.

Pah! That’s the usual smear for anyone who puts America before Israel, fairness for the Palestinians before kowtowing to the Israeli lobby.

Yes God forbid that anyone should “offend” Israel by telling them not to steal Palestinian land, murder Palestinians or destroy their homes. Yes it’s best to just keep quiet and let them practice their slow genocide of the Palestinian people. After all, they are “God’s chosen” right?
Let’s face the facts of the matter. Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank and Gaza for over 40 yrs now. They brutalize the Palestinian people and keep sending in “settlers”—colonists actually–to steal Palestinian land. (There are almost 500,000 colonists there now and the number keeps growing.)
What Israel is doing is no different than what China is doing to Tibet. As people of faith we must stand up for those who are oppressed.
As for you “Scott R” I get tired of hearing people like you scream “anti-semitism” every time someone criticizes Israel. It is no different than the yahoos who call anyone who criticizes America as “traitors.”

Criticism of Israel could be motivated by anti-Semitism OR by legitimate disagreement with Israel’s actions. Let’s focus on actions.
nnmns says that the Palestinians have been harmed more by Israel than Israelis have been harmed by the Palestinians. With respect, I don’t think that is relevant to the morality or the resolution of the issue. Moral condemnation would be based on the commission of unprovoked violence (and I’ll get to the matter of “provoked” vs “unprovoked” shortly). Even if the victim of unprovoked violence responds in a way that causes greater harm to the attacker, the attack was still immoral. And in the interest of honesty, let’s acknowledge that much of the damage done by Israel to the Palestinians is related to the fact that attacks against Israel have been routinely launched from crowded civilian areas — and using civilians as a shield behind which military attacks are launched is a black-letter violation of the Geneva Conventions. No, this circumstance does not account for all of the civilian casualties that the Palestinians have suffered, but it does account for some. Where is the honesty in ignoring this fact and condemning Israeli actions as if attacks on civilian areas were entirely unprovoked?
Next, we hear that the Palestinians were living peaceably before the first Israeli settlers arrived in the aftermath of World War II. All right. Native populations were living in North America before the first European explorers and conquerors arrived; shall we vacate the continent and restore it to its original occupants? Can you name ANY nation that has come into existence WITHOUT displacing people who had been living there before? Is the ONLY legitimate nation on Earth the one that was founded on a previously uninhabited island? How far back do we turn the clock, given that conquest and colonization have been taking place throughout human history?
I see a disconnect between acknowledging that Israel has a right to exist while simultaneously talking about the grievances of Palestinians who were displaced as the new nation was formed six decades ago. If critics of Israel want to focus on specific policies and actions that they perceive to have been immoral, we can have an honest discussion. My stance is not that Israel can do no wrong but that we must distinguish between existance and morality. If the very existance of Israel is deemed immoral and thus unacceptable, no discussion is possible; if it is accepted that Israel has a right to exist, then let’s stop talking about the fact that Palestinians were displaced as the nation came into existence. In fact, I would recommend that instead of tallying up who has been hurt more over the past 60 years (as if it were some kind of pissing contest), it would be far more constructive to acknowledge that both sides have been hurt, that both sides have grievances, and that the best chance for a peace that will serve both sides well is to focus on resolution of current issues instead of wallowing in Who-Did-What-To-Whom-First moral condemnation.

Criticism of Israel could be motivated by anti-Semitism OR by legitimate disagreement with Israel’s actions. Let’s focus on actions.
nnmns says that the Palestinians have been harmed more by Israel than Israelis have been harmed by the Palestinians. With respect, I don’t think that is relevant to the morality or the resolution of the issue. Moral condemnation would be based on the commission of unprovoked violence (and I’ll get to the matter of “provoked” vs “unprovoked” shortly). Even if the victim of unprovoked violence responds in a way that causes greater harm to the attacker, the attack was still immoral. And in the interest of honesty, let’s acknowledge that much of the damage done by Israel to the Palestinians is related to the fact that attacks against Israel have been routinely launched from crowded civilian areas — and using civilians as a shield from behind which military attacks are launched is a black-letter violation of the Geneva Conventions (rhymes with “war crime”). No, this circumstance does not account for all of the civilian casualties that the Palestinians have suffered, but it does account for some. Where is the honesty in ignoring this fact and condemning Israeli actions as if attacks on civilian areas were entirely unprovoked?
Next, we hear that the Palestinians were living peaceably before the first Israeli settlers arrived in the aftermath of World War II. All right. Native populations were living in North America before the first European explorers and conquerors arrived; shall we therefore vacate the continent and restore it to its original occupants? Can you name ANY nation that has come into existence WITHOUT displacing people who had been living there before? Is the ONLY legitimate nation on Earth the one that was founded on a previously uninhabited island? How far back do we turn the clock, given that conquest and colonization have been taking place throughout human history?
I see a disconnect between acknowledging that Israel has a right to exist while simultaneously talking about the grievances of Palestinians who were displaced as the new nation was formed six decades ago. If critics of Israel want to focus on specific policies and actions that they perceive to have been immoral, we can have an honest discussion. My stance is not that Israel can do no wrong but that we must distinguish between existence and morality. If the very existence of Israel is deemed immoral and thus unacceptable, no discussion is possible; if it is accepted that Israel has a right to exist, then let’s stop talking about the fact that Palestinians were displaced as the nation came into existence. In fact, I would recommend that instead of tallying up who has been hurt more over the past 60 years as if it were some kind of pissing contest, it would be far more constructive to acknowledge that both sides have been hurt, that both sides have grievances, and that the best chance for a peace that will serve both sides well is to focus on resolution of current issues instead of wallowing in Who-Did-What-To-Whom-First moral condemnation.

Sorry for the double-post — I received an automated message that it did not go through so I tried again.

Well the article is about a resolution on the Middle East based on morality so I think a brief discussion of the morality is relevant.
Yes, to solve the problem one would need to take the present situation as a given and try to proceed in a way as fair as possible to each side, always difficult and surely more difficult in a case like this. But some brave, hardy people need to step up to the plate and they need to be appreciated for their efforts.
As to Israel having “a right to exist” I’m not sure what that means. It does exist and I see little chance of it going away. No doubt the US and probably other countries would massively defend Israel against an unprovoked invasion and indeed given the arms we’ve given them they don’t need much defense. I hope we would stay out of a conflict provoked by Israel but I’m pessimistic on that.
Our Middle Eastern policies, heavily pro-Israeli, have hurt us in many ways. I think the best thing we have any chance of doing would be to just leave that area to those who live there. If we could be an honest broker we might accomplish more but the odds of our being “honest” in that conflict are between slim and none.

“Right to exist” means exactly what it says — it goes beyond the fact that Israel does exist and is likely to continue to exist. Those who preach the destruction of Israel would agree that the nation exists but they deny that the nation has a moral or contractual right to exist.
As to the prospects of America actually accomplishing something in this region, I don’t know how small the chances may be at this point but I believe the chances are larger now, under Pres. Obama, than they were under the previous administration with its ceaseless belligerence against the Islamic world.

Agreed on the Obama vs Bush point, but by how much remains to be seen.
Who or what gives a nation a “right to exist”? The UN? Powerful friends? A powerful imaginary friend?
Does the US have a right to exist? Does Pakistan? Great Britain? The Vatican? Belugistan? What nations don’t have a right to exist?

We are not talking about official “legal” rights. As you yourself ask, what extant nation does NOT have the right to exist? But that is precisely the point: to some hard-line elements in the PLO and Hezbollah, Israel does NOT have the right to exist, and they are doing their best/worst to try to make Israel un-exist. In this sense, the right to exist is not a matter of international law but of intercultural agreement.

There are people who would like to make the US un-exist, India un-exist, Pakistan un-exist. Israel is a small nation that has made a lot of enemies, some bitter and some rich, so they are probably in greater danger than, say, we are but qualitatively I don’t see it as different.
Would we refuse to deal with Mexico if there were a minor political party there that wanted us overthrown? I don’t think so.
I don’t see it as productive to quibble over that when they could be working at settling their problems, but then I’m not busy stealing Palestinian land either.

Oh please don’t object to our land grabbing we have the right, please support us while we steal land from “those people.”