Well, as you should know, the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is probably the post disputed and biased histories in the world. CMike represents what I hope is the most extreme version of pro-Israel bias - most likely more so than even than Israeli leadership... unless they are truly wacko (which I doubt), they know when they do something immoral. In any case, my understanding of Israel's recent history at least from about 1980-today is shaped by Western news (that is, BBC reporting tapered by NPR and al-Jazeera). Pre-1980 is shaped by independent research from a variety of sources.
As for my opinions on Ghandi, he used pacifism to break the occupation of the British in India. His pacifism only works for the oppressed and plays on the conscience of the oppressor. So pacifism would only work if Hamas were pacifist and Israel, who has a conscience, would tire of their aggressions. Israel would tire quickly in some people's opinion because Israel is only defending itself. However, as I have expressed before, CMike thinks that Israel is so much more righteous than Hamas -- if so, it should take the high road and lay down its arms first. Not only that - it should send workers and money into Gaza to rebuild. There would perhaps be a high human cost of Hamas is as bad as they say that it is, but if Israel keeps sending resources in = just as Ghandi kept sending people before the British to be beaten and killed = eventually the Palestinians would relent. Or all Israel would perish, and if that happened, it would be in the name of peace rather than crushing an enemy in the name of greed.
