Let me tell you all about the conditions of detention of prisoners in the United States Federal Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, a supermax facility which houses the worst of the worst. They are allowed only a Bible or a Quran as reading material. Because of certain suspicions that some of the Moslem bomber cadre imprisoned there were sending and receiving messages in ordinary correspondence, mail for all has been cut off. They spend 23-1/2 hours each day in a 6' by 9' cell. They are escorted, shackled, on an individual basis to an outdoor cage for one-half hour of exercise. They are never permitted contact with any other inmate. They are allowed to shower twice a week. They take their meals in their cells, and they have no access to "commissary" goods. They are not permitted to work in any of the prison industries. Some of the state penitentiaries in the United States have equally restrictive conditions. Pelican Bay (California) is famous for their supermax. And I am certain that these conditions are relatively lax when compared with what goes on in prisons in, say, Turkey, Iran or China. Just because the Europeans have for the most part turned their penitentiaries into summer camps does not mean that the rest of the world has become that stupid. No weekend furloughs from a U.S. federal supermax, sorry. One man's "cruel" is another man's "just punishment."

If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and keeps company with known ducks, it's probably a duck, Janine. By the way -- since you are clearly here to express some sort of indignation -- how do YOU feel about the hundreds of thousands -- possibly more; no one is really sure -- of Australian aborigines that were massacred by the criminal element that arrived from England on convict ships? Disgraceful episode in your history for which you have never atoned. The aborigines never were aggressive against the white interlopers from England; they welcomed you. Israel, on the other hand, has had to fight six wars -- all started by the Arabs -- and cope with sixty-two years of Palestinian terror on a scale that you cannot begin to imagine. These same Palestinians have on no fewer than three occasions rejected opportunities for a two-state solution, including one which would have awarded them over 90% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a capital. One might actually glean from all this that the Palestinians are not interested in peaceful co-existence. There are thirty-odd Palestinian organizations, each of which purports to be the true and sole representative of the Palestinian people. The common thread among each and every one of these organizations is that each has a charter which calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and the extermination and/or expulsion of the Jewish people, and each states its absolute refusal to ever recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist in its ancient homeland. So temper your shock and dismay with the cold, hard reality that Israel faces on a daily basis. While you're at it, don't forget the years of daily missile barrages from Hamas in Gaza and the years of daily missile barrages from Hizbollah in Lebanon. Don't forget the suicide bombings. Israel is quite generous for merely administratively detaining Palestinians suspected of terror activities. Most countries faced with that sort of active sedition would rid themselves of the terrorist element more permanently. In fact -- most have.

"Letting Israel investigate the attack on the aid flotilla is like letting Charlie Manson investigate the Sharon Tate killings."