the article states "77 percent of Palestinians oppose a two-state solution."

But the poll says: "Do you accept the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders
with some land exchange as a final solution for the Palestinian problem?

Yes 28.3
No 66.7
No opinion/I do not know 5.0"

The only point where 77% is mentioned is: "Do you support or reject making Jerusalem a capital for two states:
Palestine and Israel?

I support 20.8
I reject 77.4
No opinion/I do not know 1.8"

While I appreciate that none of these look good for the Palestinian peace argument. I wonder what reason the author has for misquoting the statistics.

The cause of the "conflict" is the horrible atrocities commited by jewish settlers against the arabs, especially in 1948. It is not intransigent to reject "peace" deals that would basically rob you of basic human rights.

Also, you claim the overwhelming majority of Israeli jews support a two state solution, when in fact, almost half believe Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed, both from Israel and from the West Bank and gaza, and then be annexed.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/more-israeli-jews-favor-transfer-of-palestinians-israeli-arabs-poll-finds-1.50646
It may be an old study, but the numbers are probably higher now if anything.

Israel has become a cruel parody of a democracy because its founders were lacking. They did not pay heed to James Madison, who realized that through diversity individual rights can be protected in democracies and republics. Zionism is not exactly a cry for human rights, instead being a mirror image of the German yearning for a pure Aryan nation. The similarities are uncanny. But for the holocaust, the Arabs may have had an even rougher time at the hands of Israel and may even have been forced to unite to just survive.

Further, merely giving the right to vote to some of the citizens does not a democracy make. In Israel the situation is worse because the Jewish voters have every incentive to gang-up on the Arabs and limit their political discourse. Jimmy Carter got it right when he noted that Israel is an apartheid state.

Israel needs to recognize the political rights of Arabs because the resultant diversity will do more to protect the Jewish need for long term security in the form of reliable rights than the present Jewish state, which like Pakistan has to keep slipping further into an orthodox trap, while being a danger to all.

Regardless, Israel is not going to recognize the rights of its disfranchised citizens any time soon for it will be political suicide for most of the folks in power in Israel--and no one is going to force them to do so. Their existential fears makes them very useful to the US just as the SLA was to Israel.

Over 900 civilian non-combatants including hundreds of women and children were reported by the UN fact-finding mission to have been deliberately killed by the IDF, just over a year ago in Gaza, in an apparently successful strategy to terrorize the population.

To date, none of the perpetrators have been arrested or brought to trial. They include government ministers of Ehud Olmert and those soldiers who actually carried out the massacre.

The names of those responsible for giving the authorization fro this alleged war crime, are known. Why have they not been apprehended?

If the alleged perpetrators are not brought to trial to establish their guilt or innocence, then the entire democratic edifice of justice that pertains in the US, and the UN, is compromised beyond repair.

The killing of hundreds of innocent civilians cannot be ignored and the fact will not merely go away with time. On the contrary, it will stay to contaminate future history until such time as it is resolved.

http://www.counterpunch.org/aloni01082007.html

Shulamit Aloni is the former Education Minister of Israel. She has been awarded both the Israel Prize and the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Here is her view:

"In the past, the US Jewish community leaders were quite familiar with the meaning of those conventions. For some reason, however, they are convinced that Israel is allowed to contravene them. It's OK to kill civilians, women and children, old people and parents with their children, deliberately or otherwise without accepting any responsibility. It's permissible to rob people of their lands, destroy their crops, and cage them up like animals in the zoo. From now on, Israelis and International humanitarian organisations' volunteers are prohibited from assisting a woman in labour by taking her to the hospital. [Israeli human rights group] Yesh Din volunteers cannot take a robbed and beaten-up Palestinian to the police station to lodge a complaint. (Police stations are located at the heart of the settlements.) Is there anyone who believes that this is not Apartheid?

Jimmy Carter does not need me to defend his reputation that has been sullied by Israelophile community officials. The trouble is that their love of Israel distorts their judgment and blinds them from seeing what's in front of them. Israel is an occupying power that for 40 years has been oppressing an indigenous people, which is entitled to a sovereign and independent existence while living in peace with us. We should remember that we too used very violent terror against foreign rule because we wanted our own state. And the list of victims of terror is quite long and extensive."

Jewish Israel’s current war criminal president Shimon Peres implicated;

Little Satan Jewish Israel and its nuclear bombs proliferation plan revealed;

Apartheid Jewish Israel selling weapons to Apartheid South Africa and Shah’s Iran of yesteryear;

what illegal and immoral things these Foreign New Jews of Eastern Europe won’t do? –

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons;

Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

Read more here: http://lalqila.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/jewish-israel%e2%80%99s-current-war-criminal-president-shimon-peres-implicated-little-satan-jewish-israel-and-its-nuclear-bombs-proliferation-plan-revealed-apartheid-jewish-israel-selling-weapons-to/

The memos and minutes that confirm Little Satan Jewish Israel’s nuclear stockpile; Documents reveal how Shimon Perez tried to sell South Africa’s apartheid government the bomb

This cover page of an ISSA (ISrael-South Africa agreement) meeting in Pretoria between Israeli and South African officials on 30 June 1975 establishes the presence of General RF Armstrong, who wrote the nuclear memo.

Minutes of third ISSA meeting, 30/6/1975

This document details the another ISSA meeting during which Botha says he needs the ‘right payload’ and Peres offers it in ‘three sizes’ (paragraph 10).

Minutes from further ISSA meeting

This is the cover page and two other pages from the secret military agreement between Israel and South Africa, signed by both Shimon Peres and Botha. Note on page two there is a clause that says the very existence of the agreement is secret. Both men have signed the agreement on page three.

Israel-South Africa agreement

This is the secret memo by South Africa’s military chief of staff, General RF Armstrong, asking for nukes on the Jericho missiles. It has been revealed before, but its context was not understood. We now know the memo was the direct result of the meeting between Botha and Peres, and the basis of Botha’s demand for nukes from Peres.

Declassified memo from General RF Armstrong

In this letter, dated 11 November 1974, Peres says Israel and the South African apartheid government share a “common hatred of injustice” and urges a “close identity of aspirations and interests”.

Letter from Shimon Peres, 11/11/1974

Source: http://lalqila.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/the-memos-and-minutes-that-confirm-little-satan-jewish-israels-nuclear-stockpile-documents-reveal-how-shimon-perez-tried-to-sell-south-africas-apartheid-government-the-bomb/

You anti-Zionists forever complain: "Why do they think they deserve their own state? And even if they did deserve one - why do they think they deserve one there?" and sometimes you say, "Like the Nazis, they're too triumphalist to recognize that all men are brothers. We good Moslems and Christians know better." Well, isn't that special... Here's an idea: prove it. Go and preach against every people's right to a homeland. Go tell the Palestinians that they don't deserve their own state because, after all, we're all brothers. Well? Are you up to it? I didn't think so.

And, to the the millions of you who can't wait to see a world free of Jews, I have some news for you: Hitler tried it, as did Torquemada, miscellaneous German princes, Russian tsars, and Roman generals; Mohammed, it seems, preached it, as did Arafat's uncle, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and today, Mullah Nasrallah. But you will never succeed. You cannot destroy us. Nor can you wipe away the state that is our only real haven from the likes of you. Live with it.

The Zio-fascist ability to try to revise history is truly amazing. But fortunately, Israeli historians come to the rescue.

Israel used ethnic cleansing, including mass terror, to expel the Palestinians in 1948. Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

The Palestinians are the descendants of the ancient Israelites. Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People.

Thank god for Israeli historians!

...other than perhaps what he picks up from Commentary Magazine Contentions blog.

One example:
"Effie Eitam, an ex-cabinet minister who last held office six years ago"

Six years ago he left the cabinet, not political office as you indicate.

The lovely Mr. Eitam, as an actually knowledgeable follower of Israeli politics would know, did not leave Knesset office until February 2009:
http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=715

This is of course just one catch, I'm thinking perhaps your, as you say, "follow[ing] Israeli politics on a semiregular basis" needs to be a little more frequent?

At least before you strut off yet again to besmirch others far more thoughtful and informed than you.

Kirchick writes: "As for former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral evacuation of settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Beinart only describes the dismantling as "proposed." He doesn't explain that Sharon [...] actually went through with the task."

in fact, Beinhart writes "In 2005, after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed dismantling settlements in the Gaza Strip, Yosef urged ...", so this was just specifying the time when Yosef said something, not describing the dismantling as merely "proposed" at the present time. To the contrary, one of the essay's image captions says "[...] The settlement was the last to be emptied as part of Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan in August 2005." So this, too, is a reversal of the facts by Kirchick.