History shows no such thing. The absence of violence can allow evil to flourish. Nazi agression could not have been met with flower power, or rational restraint, it had to be defeated utterly, broken by violence.

And yes, it is the same. The Nazi’s had reasonable complaints regarding the Versailles treaty, had had their national boundaries breached by other nations, and millions of their German-speaking bretheren were trapped in foreign lands. The German people felt opressed and victimized. As you said, right or wrong that’s how they felt. As soon as they started murdering people, they lost the right to a hearing of their greivances by the international community. The earned the right to get bombed into submission. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, and any other Jihadist state or party have earned the same thing. You bomb school buses and pizza parlors, you lose the right be treated with kid gloves.

Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest will either be broken utterly, or they will continue their murderous rage ad infinitum. There is evil in the world, and it is not America and Israel. You’ll either have to accept that, or when they come for you, no one will be left to stand up. You Quakers have had a fine ride here in America. Safe behind a wall of men who will inflict violence upon those who would do you harm while you profess your superior morality. I would have respected you more if you would have gone over the Germany and had a non-violent sit in at the death camps or had joined hands around Manchuria to keep the Japanese from slaughtering Chinese. Why don’t you all go over to Gaza and put yourselves in the way of the rockets fired by Hamas? Why not go have a nice talk with Iran about building a nuke? Because you know they would butcher you to the last man, woman, and child.

I am pro-Israel and do NOT in any way support Hamas. I don’t think this was the right course of action for Israel or that it will have the desired outcome. As history shows, meeting violence with violence just ensures more of the same.

Because Hamas is always wrong, it does not follow that Israel is always right. But of course the automatic response of the right to the threat is fear followed by anger followed by the desire for vengeance—never mind whether vengeance brings more of the same, as history has proved time and time again it does.

I realize that line-drawing is anathema to the far right, but surely at some level you can see that it’s possible for both sides to be wrong.

It’s true I hold Israel to a higher standard than Hamas—I shouldn’t have to explain why that is. In defending themselves, civilized societies have to stand as an example or else people will see them as no better than those who do them harm.

And yes, I do deplore the “collateral damage” which has ensued—it’s saddening that Palestinian children are dying along with their parents, whatever role their parents may have played. What can I say? I’m a Quaker. The innocent die along with the guilty, and those who survive live to take revenge, but I don’t believe that this is what God wants or intends.

I don’t support Hamas, the Palestinians, or jihadists. I am pro-Israel. It does not follow that I think this action by Israel is the right one or that it will serve Israel’s interests in the long run. Israel isn’t going to be able to get rid of Hamas by killing all the Hamas officials it can find because terrorism is fed by the sense, right or wrong, of being oppressed and victimized. History shows that meeting violence with violence just trains subsequent generations to respond the same way.

In civilized societies, we measure the right to self-defense in proportion to the actual potential for harm. Larry Johnson at No Quarter has given a pretty good analysis of why some of us are not convinced that what we’re seeing here is “self-defense” if—as Israel asserts—they intend to continue indefinitely.

And, yeah—I’m sorry that children are being killed as “collateral damage.”

What can I say? I’m a Quaker. It’s fine if you disagree, but not fine for you to misrepresent what I said.