Now this DASS *^%##%^#. Blinders on....unbelievable.... 

"This broad is dumb, thick as a brick."

That's just what I was thinking.  I wonder how she would feel if, say, someone kept shooting at her house every day?  I mean, really, would she want it to stop completely, or would she settle with only being shot at once or twice a week?

Obama: My job is above my pay grade

You have hit the nut of the whole thing, BT.  Here it is, put another way:

Sallai Meridor:  "And the Palestinians, instead of making Gaza into a beginning of a state, made it a terror base, attacking Israeli civilians every day."(my emphasis)

Making it a base of operations has been their intent since the beginning, i.e. long before the Israelis left.  The Palestinians have a large diaspora community with the education and financial resources to turn the whole thing around quickly.  But that is not what their leaders want.  It goes back to the beginning of Islam:

The Legacy of Jihad in Historical Palestine (Part I)

 Violent jihad warfare on infidels is the norm, not the exception, in Islamic history. Once successful, jihad leads to the imposition of humiliating, degrading, violent, and expensive oppression under dhimmitude, the institutionalized imposition of lowly status upon those who refuse to abandon their faith and adopt Islam. Among the worst victims of jihad and dhimmitude have been the Jews and Christians who lived in historic Palestine...

The Great Jihad and the Muslim Conquest of Palestine

September 622 C.E. marks a defining event in Islam— the hijra. Muhammad and a coterie of followers (the Muhajirun), persecuted by fellow Banu Quraysh tribesmen who rejected Muhammad's authenticity as a divine messenger, fled from Mecca to Yathrib, later known as Al—Medina (Medina). The Muslim sources described Yathrib as having been a Jewish city founded by a Palestinian diaspora population which had survived the revolt against the Romans. Distinct from the nomadic Arab tribes, the Jews of the north Arabian peninsula were highly productive oasis farmers. These Jews were eventually joined by itinerant Arab tribes from southern Arabia who settled adjacent to them and transitioned to a sedentary existence. [13]

Following Muhammad's arrival, he re—ordered Medinan society, eventually imposing his authority on each tribe. The Jewish tribes were isolated, some were then expelled, and the remainder attacked and exterminated. Muhammad distributed among his followers as "booty" the vanquished Jews property—plantations, fields, and houses—and also used this "booty" to establish a well—equipped jihadist cavalry corps. [14] Muhammad's subsequent interactions with the Christians of northern Arabia followed a similar pattern, noted by Richard Bell. The "relationship with the Christians ended as that with the Jews (ended) — in war", because Islam as presented by Muhammad was a divine truth, and unless Christians accepted this formulation, which included Muhammad's authority, "conflict was inevitable, and there could have been no real peace while he [Muhammad] lived." [15]

Within two years of Muhammad's death, Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, launched the Great Jihad. The ensuing three decades witnessed Islamdom's most spectacular expansion, as Muslim armies subdued the entire Arabian peninsula, and conquered territories which had been in Greco—Roman possession since the reign of Alexander the Great. [16]

Gil, in his monumental analysis A History of Palestine, 634—1099, emphasizes the singular centrality that Palestine occupied in the mind of its pre—Islamic Jewish inhabitants, who referred to the land as 'al—Sham'. Indeed, as Gil observes, the sizable Jewish population in Palestine (who formed a majority of its inhabitants, when grouped with the Samaritans) at the dawn of the Arab Muslim conquest were, 'the direct descendants of the generations of Jews who had lived there since the days of Joshua bin Nun, in other words for some 2000 years...' [17] Jews and Christians speaking Aramaic inhabited the cities and the cultivated inner regions, devoid of any unique ties to the Bedouin of the desert hinterlands, who were regarded as bellicose and threatening, in the writings of both the Church Fathers, and in Talmudic sources. [18]

The following is a summary of the devastating consequences of the Arab Muslim conquest of Palestine during the fourth decade of the 7th century, directed by the first two Caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar b. al—Khattab [notwithstanding Pervez Musharaff's hagiography of the latter, in a recent New York City speech].

The entire Gaza region up to Cesarea was sacked and devastated in the campaign of 634, which included the slaughter of four thousand Jewish, Christian, and Samaritan peasants. Villages in the Negev were also pillaged, and towns such as Jerusalem, Gaza, Jaffa, Cesarea, Nablus, and Beth Shean were isolated. In his sermon on the Day of the Epiphany 636, Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, bewailed the destruction of the churches and monasteries, the sacked towns and villages, and the fields laid waste by the invaders. Thousands of people perished in 639, victims of the famine and plague wrought by this wanton destruction.

The Muslim historian Baladhuri (d. 892 C.E.), maintained that 30,000 Samaritans and 20,000 Jews lived in Caesarea alone just prior to the Arab Muslim conquest; afterward, all evidence of them disappears. Archaeological data confirms the lasting devastation wrought by these initial jihad conquests, particularly the widespread destruction of synagogues and churches from the Byzantine era, whose remnants are still being unearthed. The total number of towns was reduced from fifty—eight to seventeen in the red sand hills and swamps of the western coastal plain (i.e., the Sharon).

Massive soil erosion from the Judaean mountains western slopes also occurred due to agricultural uprooting during this period. Finally, the papyri of Nessana were completely discontinued after the year 700, reflecting how the Negev also experienced the destruction of its agriculture, and the desertion of its villages.[19]

Dhimmitude in Palestine During the Initial Period of  Muslim Rule

Dramatic persecution, directed specifically at Christians, included executions for refusing to apostasize to Islam during the first two decades of the 8th century, under the reigns of Abd al— Malik, his son Sulayman, and Umar b. Abd al—Aziz. Georgian, Greek, Syriac, and Armenian sources report both prominent individual and group executions (for eg., sixty—three out of seventy Christian pilgrims from Iconium in Asia Minor were executed by the Arab governor of Caesarea, barring seven who apostasized to Islam, and sixty Christian pilgrims from Amorion were crucified in Jerusalem).

Under early Abbasid rule (approximately 750—755 C.E., perhaps during the reign [Abul Abbas Abdullah] al—Saffah) Greek sources report orders demanding the removal of crosses over Churches, bans on Church services and teaching of the scriptures, the eviction of monks from their monasteries, and excessive taxation. [20] Gil notes that in 772 C.E., when Caliph al—Mansur visited Jerusalem,

..he ordered a special mark should be stamped on the hands of the Christians and the Jews. Many Christians fled to Byzantium. [21]

Bat Y e' or elucidates the fiscal oppression inherent in eighth century Palestine which devastated the dhimmi Jewish and Christian peasantry:

Over—taxed and tortured by the tax collectors, the villagers fled into hiding or emigrated into towns. [22]

She quotes from a detailed chronicle of an eighth century monk, completed in 774:

The men scattered, they became wanderers everywhere; the fields were laid waste, the countryside pillaged; the people went from one land to another. [23]

The Greek chronicler Theophanes provides a contemporary description of the chaotic events which transpired after the death of the caliph Harun al—Rashid in 809 C.E. He describes Palestine as the scene of violence, rape, and murder, from which Christian monks fled to Cyprus and Constantinople. [24]

Perhaps the clearest outward manifestations of the inferiority and humiliation of the dhimmis were the prohibitions regarding their dress codes, and the demands that distinguishing signs be placed on the entrances of dhimmi houses. During the Abbasid caliphates of Harun al—Rashid (786—809) and al—Mutawwakil (847—861), Jews and Christians were required to wear yellow (as patches attached to their garments, or hats). Later, to differentiate further between Christians and Jews, the Christians were required to wear blue. In 850, consistent with Qur'anic verses associating them with Satan and Hell, al—Mutawwakil decreed that Jews and Christians attach wooden images of devils to the doors of their homes to distinguish them from the homes of Muslims. [25]

Muslim and non—Muslims sources establish that during the early 11th century period of al—Hakim's reign, religious assaults and hostility intensified, for both Jews and Christians. The destruction of the churches at the Holy Sepulchre [1009 C.E.] was followed by a large scale campaign of Church destructions (including the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, and additional churches throughout the Fatimid kingdom), and other brutal acts of oppression against the dhimmi populations, such as forcible conversion to Islam, or expulsion.

The discriminatory edicts al—Hakim imposed upon the dhimmis beginning in August 1011 C.E., included orders to wear black turbans; a five pound, 18—inch cross (for Christians), or five pound block of wood (for Jews), around their necks; and distinguishing marks in the bathhouses. Ultimately al—Hakim decided that there were to be separate bathhouses for the dhimmis use. [26]
During the early through the mid 11th century, the Jews, in particular, continued to suffer frequently from both economic and physical oppression, according to Gil. [27]

Muslim Turcoman rule of Palestine for the nearly three decades just prior to the Crusades (1071— 1099 C.E.) was characterized by such unrelenting warfare and devastation, that an imminent "End of Days" atmosphere was engendered. [28] A contemporary poem by Solomon ha—Kohen b. Joseph, believed to be a descendant of the Geonim, an illustrious family of Palestinian Jews of priestly descent, speaks of destruction and ruin, the burning of harvests, the razing of plantations, the desecration of cemeteries, and acts of violence, slaughter, and plunder. [29]

And nothing has changed.  The mosques throw out a steady diet of Jew hating rhetoric and jihad, encouraging the faithful to continue until Israel is finally wiped from the earth- it does not matter what sect, or what leader- Ahmedinejad, Bin Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah, whatever.

On 10-13-08, I wrote the following: 

And, just so we understand the nature of what we are currently dealing with, rather than far off history:

Here is bin Laden himself explaining the "true" nature of the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, such as Americans, AKA, "infidels":

"As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High's Word: ‘We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us - till you believe in Allah alone' [Koran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility - that is, battle - ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable [in which case, bin Laden later clarifies, they should dissemble (taqiyya) before the infidels by, say, insisting the conflict is about "foreign policy," nothing more]. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! ... Such, then, is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred - directed from the Muslim to the infidel - is the foundation of our religion."

 

In his attack against "moderate" Muslims, bin Laden rhetorically asks and answers the pivotal question:

"Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: either willing submission; or payment of the jizya [tribute], through physical though not spiritual submission to the authority of Islam; or the sword - for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live."...

Nor is this worldview "peculiar" to bin Laden. Here's his Second, Ayman Zawahiri:

 

"Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden-may Allah protect them from all evil-are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of Jihad, while the struggle between Truth and Falsehood transcends time."

Source:  Osama Bin Laden as Robin Hood?  (An interesting article strongly criticising ex-CIA agent Michael Scheur's view of Islam and Jihad)

So now we have an ass at PBS with either a total lack of understanding of what Israel is up against, or total sympathy with the Palestinian cause.  Probably a lot of the former, and a little of the latter just because she's a good lib.  Here is the real problem:

Bat Ye'or observed, that jihad remained,

...the main cause of the Arab—Israeli conflict.  Since Israelis are to be regarded, perforce, only as a religious community, their national characteristics — a geographical territory related to a past history, a system of legislation, a specific language and culture — are consequently denied.  The 'Arab' character of the Palestinian territory is inherent in the logic of jihad.  Having become fay territory by conquest (i.e. 'taken from an infidel people'), it must remain within the dar al—Islam.  The State of Israel, established on this fay territory, is consequently illegal. [56]

And she concluded,

...Israel represents the successful national liberation of a dhimmi civilization.  On a territory formerly Arabized by the jihad and the dhimma, a pre—Islamic language, culture, topographical geography, and national institutions have been restored to life.  This reversed the process of centuries in which the cultural, social and political structures of the indigenous population of Palestine were destroyed.  In 1974, Abu Iyad, second—in—command to Arafat in the Fatah hierarchy, announced:  "We intend to struggle so that our Palestinian homeland does not become a new Andalusia."  The comparison of Andalusia to Palestine was not fortuitous since both countries were Arabized, and then de—Arabized by a pre—Arabic culture. [57]

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Margaret. 
 

"The future is not set.  There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

michaelyon-online.com