He makes an interesting point. I'm not sure he's entirely on the money, though. Most Israelis that I've known have said they would be quite happy for this to end (with security for them, of course), and those Palestinians wealthy and sensible enough to leave have long since done so. The ones remaining behind seem to be the poor and powerless or largely invested in the status quo. But there may be an element of truth to Wretchard's comments.

Sounds a whole lot like the US's "defense" companies, does it not?

preserving fighting and terrorism as a way of life = ISLAM

There will always be war. The reason that people continue to express surprise about this is that stupidity is also part of the human condition.

Dagny, why do you single out US's defense contractors? Are you foreign to the US and obsessed with USA derangement syndrome? Are you one of these treasonous Americans who hate everything in their country without seeing how much worse others can be?

What about the Germans, third largest arms sellers in the world? Any comment on the Russians and Chinese selling every weapon and war materiel under the sun?

Is there any arms manufacturer anywhere not hypocritical about war? Is hypocrisy not another part of our condition?

Actually, Dagny, no it doesn't.

The costs of this ongoing series of wars is very large. Both to the Israelis and the Palestinians. Real peace, however, is not coming much closer.

The current operations don't seem designed to create a long term change, just to set back Hamas a year or two. Any human losses can be made up, and are not seen by Hamas as significant.

The only significant changes that can be made are territorial; Shutting down the tunnels (flooding them?) or moving populations back to where they can no longer launch rockets into Israeli populations. Conceivably, enough Gazans could migrate to Egypt to generate peaceful conditions.

There is about to be a major sub-crisis as an Iranian "Aid" ship is about to attempt to sail into Gaza.

Good point. Compare "Racism, Inc." (Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson) or "Minority Grievance & Victimology, Inc." (La Raza, NOW, etc).

Agreed with realipundit: Islam would not know what to do with itself were it not for its violent (and non-violent) drive for domination. They cannot rest until they have no betters or even peers, anywhere in the world. From this also comes their "lust for death". If we take these things to be true, plus their special hatred of Jews and Israel, it doesn't make much sense to say there is a willing perpetuation of a war industry all around. One group decides their master plan, the other responds in order to survive.