it does not sling mud at the nation-state of the Jewish people; the only thing that "progressives" care about: obsessively is the demonizing and delegitimizing of the tiny liberal democratic national home of a singled out people, Israel.

MURDERED on a daily basis by the dozens! Where is the UN?

DebkaFile has a report of recent military actions against Kurds - the cooperation of Syria, Turkey, & Hezbollah. http://www.debka.com/ What is particularly disgusting is the role of Israeli military equipment, namely the use of Heron spy drones in these operations.

An independant Kurdish state, including Kurdish areas of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, & Iran, should be the official policy of the Israeli gov't. This is a much better idea than an independant Palestinian state when such a state already exists - Jordan.

If so, then there is Israel... It has a not so small number of parliament members who are Muslim. Unfortunately most of them prefer to test the boundaries of democratic tolerance, because apparently they still can't understand that democracy is first and foremost about dialogue and not about controversial actions or smearing anyone who dares to disagree with them.

he may be president of syria, but not because of anything he's done himself.

Syrian President Bashar Assad certainly merits opprobrium for his denial of human political and speech rights. But Israel is the worst offender because its very existence threatens my right to life and safety, even though I live in America. If and when the war to rectify the travesty of May 15, 1948 breaks out, it will surely spread beyind the Middle East and likely will be felt in the USA.

Can anyone attempt to answer why, in the 21st. century, the Arabs continue to live in a medieval time warp built on a foundation of fanaticism, misogyny, bigoted intolerance and anti-Semitism?

It has been my opinion too for 4 decades. I completely agree with you in #5. I was ashamed when Israel abandoned Barzani in 1975 at the insistence of the Shah and that awful semi-Jew Traitor Kissinger. This put the Kurds at the mercy of Saddam and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths till 2003. I addition to this being a moral issue supporting the independence of Kurdistan, implementing such a policy by Israel will dampen the Arab push for a 23rd Arab country in Israel by diverting attention and showing them that they can also be subject to division of Arab countries for Peace. The same can be said in support of independent Darfur, a Coptic State, a Druzee State, Berber State, Aramean/Assyriac State, Saharawi State, Shia States in Eastern Arabian Peninsula/North Yemen and so on. It is smart diplomacy, costs nothing and I am baffled why Israeli governments haven't done it.

Exactly. Nice of you to spell it out, I was too lazy to go into the details. You forgot a Bedouin state in Sinai. You're baffled by Israeli gov't's? I'm positively dumbfounded.

What is important for him that he is "loved" by the Syrian people and "democratically elected", the rest of the world should go to hell !! No one in Syria afraid of the secret Police! Ten-year rule for him is just a joke !!!

The only reason I see for not doing it is that Israel wants to be a responsible democracy, and not playing the stupid Middle East games. On the whole it did earn Israel a great deal in the civilized world considering it a serious and honest place to do business with. This is why I said that I am baffled. On the other hand when the existence of Israel is threatened so much lately I think that giving up a little on the good international image of Israel is worthwhile in order to guarantee a more secure future.

I didn't know the world revolved around you. What makes you so special? How does Israel's very existence pose a threat to you? You sound paranoid. Have you a reason to be?

Have you ever actually been in Israel...or is this just some neo-Nazi wet dream you're having?

HRW must be feeling the heat from the criticism heaped on it. Everybody knows that HRW is obsessed with Israel. HRW has been on the defensive ever since HRW's own founder quit and launched a scathing attack that revealed the two-faced partisan discrimination that now marks HRW. So Salma is correct - HRW really doesn't care about Assad. And Salma is also correct that we should all believe the bullshit that Syria says about Assad being "loved" by the Syrian people. Everybody in Syrian voted for him, since he was the only candidate for dictator...oops, of course I meant supreme-exalted ruler. And of course nobody in Syria is afraid of the secret police, just like Palestinians in Gaza aren't afraid of Hamas - since they killed off all the Fatah guys nobody is left to be afraid of them. Ooops, except for those silly few thousand Christian Palestinians in Gaza, who would leave for America tomorrow if they could to escape the "love" of Hamas. Gosh Salma, once the Christian Palestinians are gone, that would nicely finish off the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, wouldn't it? No more Jews, no more Christians....all that's left is to convert all the Sunnis to Shia Islam, and the ayatollahs in Tehran will give you more cookies as a reward!