Why is Israel getting away with these atrocities?

What seems to be missing in this discussion is the historical context. People seem to be forgetting that this particular situation in the middle east is the direct result of white European colonists moving into the region without the consent of the indigenous peoples, taking the best land, having the colonial government provide services and infrastructure not available to the indigenous population, and treating the indigenous population as second class subjects. The situation in Israel/Palestine is pretty much the situation that occurred in British North America, Australia, and South Africa.The main different is that these particular white European colonists have a religious tradition that claims that somehow they are "indigenous" and have "rights" to the territory.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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Well, now there's a piece of PC propaganda for you.

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Heh. Hello to you, too, Faith.-

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The area called Palestine was pretty much uninhabited wasteland until the Israelis started developing it.

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Yeah. So was North America when the English arrived. And Australia and South Africa. I'm pretty used to hearing this one.-

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The population was sparse and scattered, including nomadic groups.

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So it wasn't uninhabited? Sparse and scattered, if true, probably because the land was supporting as many people as it could under the noamdic lifestyle. Then other people came from outside the area with a different lifestyle, fenced off portions of the land, and made the indigenous nomadic lifestyle difficult if not impossible.-

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It had no national identity.

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Irrelevant. There were people living there. Other people came from outside the area. The people living there already couldn't maintain their lifestyle and were reduced to second class status.-

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Also, there were Jews living there too, who were just as much "the indigenous population" as any other groups, and had been there ever since the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

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Irrelevant. I wasn't speaking of the indigenous Jews, who, at any rate, made up a very small portion of the population. I was referring to the white Europeans who came in and settled -- who just happened to be Jewish, but certainly not indigenous to the area.-

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The Jews bought land when necessary....

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Heh. I like the "when necessary" part. Of course, the Europeans in North America, South Africa, and Australia also acquired land by legal means "when necessary". The indigenous populations usually came to agreements to part with their land as a result of violence, threat of violence, or the complete disruption of their lives caused by the immigrants.-

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...paid for the labor of much of the indigenous population, plus many who flocked into the area because of the work opportunity.

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It is always interesting to hear of people "voluntarily" working for wages after their ingigenous cultures were disrupted or destroyed called "work opportunity".Funny thing is, I don't disagree with most of what you said in your post. I just find it either irrelevant, or the usual "spin" put onto the same old colonial enterprise that is so common in European history.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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If the attack had been the detonation of a nuclear device I would contend that Afghanistan (and possibly Iraq) would have suffered nuclear retaliation - and in the case of the former with some justification.

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The justification being that civilization depends on answering atrocities in kind?

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

Ha ha. I wasn't planning on participating on this thread; I was just going to write that one post and leave it at that. But I have had so few opportunities to exchange posts with you lately....

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

This isn't the topic of the OP (and, in fact, it isn't even relevant to the point of Faith's post), but I couldn't let this one pass:

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Marxism is an ideology in that sense, for instance, an artificial construct of what society should be, that when imposed on actual human beings, turns out to be a violation of every human impulse, a false theory about reality.

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This isn't quite correct. Marx was not a utopian, and in fact had little respect for utopian thinking. Marxism is not a construction of some sort of ideal society. It is a critique of capitalism. All Marxism basically consists of an thorough analysis of capitalism; not only the logical consequences of capitalist "theory", but the way capitalism actually works in the real world. In all of Marx's works (and the works of most subsequent socialists), you won't see any detailed plans of what a communist society will be. Rather, the people will find out what works and what doesn't by actually implementing policies and changing them as needed.Now, back to your regularly scheduled topic.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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or the ones that were already there for centuries not owning it?

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Good eye.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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So no one has a right to the land they live on unless they claim a right to it?

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You must think that anyone who puts down a flag on a scrap of land has the right to own it even though someone else has been there for 1000 years, am I right?

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Well, that is pretty much how it worked in North America and Australia (among other places). As I've said before, except for the fact that the colonizers in this case make a bizarre claim of being "indigenous", the pattern is pretty much in line with the European (especially "Anglo-Saxon") colonial project.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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The legal choice is that Israel has the land and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

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Which goes to show how idiot, self-serving policy decisions can have tragic consequences for generations to come.I would go further and state that most Israelis have lived there all there lives (some for a couple of generations now), and have as much a moral right to a home there as anyone -- but what can I say? As a white North American, I can feel a little sympathy for them.The question is how do the legitimate rights of all the people who live there get translated into the idiot notion of "homelands"?I think that, like it or not, the ultimate solution is going to have to be two independent states in the area -- not necessarily the most practical, but I believe that the majority of people on both sides prefer such a solution, ultimately.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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WWIII may be our next topic.

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i'm a little worried too, yeah.

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Oh, man! And we are going to be stuck with a lot of confused and angry fundamentalists when Jesus doesn't come to collect them in the big space ark, too!

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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I guess Europeans are very happy to see someone else kill Jews beside yourselves.

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Why tease the Europeans about their traditional anti-Semitism? We white North Americans are pretty much guilty of one of the most complete and successful genocide programs in modern history.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

Yes, I do: I think that you are onto something here. If the European support for the Palestinian people can be traced to their traditional anti-semitism, then surely the fact that the United States was founded on the extermination of the indigenous peoples and the theft of their land explains the Americans' traditional support of Israel. Birds of a feather, eh?

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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As I knew - you had no point.

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Actually, I was pointing the lack of a coherent point in your post above. It is a mean-spirited attack on someone with whom you disgree, for no reason other than you disagree with them.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline