Images from San Francisco Demonstrations In Support of the People of Gaza

Here's what I see: two groups of screaming ethnic chauvinists holding flags and other accoutrements of nationalist pride. Nationalism is the greatest poison of the 19th century, its legacy is one of constant ethnic cleansing into the 21st. Down with Misrael and Paleswine.

Nationalism???

Is that really why Palestinians (aka Paleswine) don't like Zionists STEALING Palestinian lands and MURDERING the Palestinians who DARE to resist the Zionist's murderous theft of Palestinian lands as well a Palestinians (aka Paleswine) whom the Zionist invaders decided where in the wrong place???

The locals didn't much like the allegedly Christian crusader's murderous theft of the land either. What? Was that also NATIONALISM??? A thousand years before the 19th century.

Slim has got a lot to explain. Or, Slim can choose to be ASS of this debate. Which is what I am betting on.

Yeah, nationalism was only invented in 19th century Europe, so any manifestation of ethnic chauvinism prior to that was ... what exactly? Throughout history, even prior the existence of the Roman Empire, every time an expansive city-state or band of marauders invaded someplace, they engaged in brutal theft of land, mass murder, and eventually settled where they found the resources and/or peasants easily exploited. In the name of the tribe, or clan, or city-state, or kingdom, or empire, it's been the same story. The zionists did the same thing when they made common cause with European colonialism at around the turn of the 20th century up to and including their so-called War of Independence; and it continues today with a de facto siege of Gaza and the West Bank. But ... unless you're not paying any attention to what the anti-Semites of Hamas say themselves, or what was in the PLO Charter until the Oslo Discords, or the ideology of Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood, their idea is to make the territory of the zionist entity free of Jews who cannot prove their legal (that is, non-zionist) residency prior to the UN Partition of 1947. That means they yearn for an ethnically cleansed territory as much as the zionists do. The difference for the past 60 years is that the zionists have better arms and training than the surrounding states and the Palestinian guerrillas. They have created a successful ethno-religious state with sovereignty and economic and military hegemony. If the Palestinians were to secure a similar condition for themselves (with or without the help of Iran and/or Russian and/or China), they would implement the same kind of ethnic cleansing the zionists have enacted for the past century. Americans love an underdog, and the Palestinians are certainly that, but you have to recognize the seething ethno-religious hatreds being stoked by the Islamists that will not magically disappear when the Palestinians attain some kind of sovereignty. Unless you really believe that there's a possibility that Paleswine will not have an expansionist agenda as part of its domestic and foreign policy. Every state in history is predatory toward its neighbors, greedy for the resources its leaders think they deserve (except for those mini-states that are totally surrounded by much larger political units, like Andorra, San Marino, Lichtenstein, Malta...). So you go ahead and believe against all historical evidence that a Palestinian state would somehow avoid all the pitfalls of every state everywhere by not trying to grab resources over its borders, would not find some domestic minority (or disenfranchised or dispossessed majority) to target for scapegoating or oppression, would not find a way to pursue an ethno-religious political agenda... Then you get back to me with your excuses and shell games.