The discussion is about the disproportionate perspective placed on world events. A million people were killed in the Rwandan genocide but we mostly let it slide. Pol Pot killed about 1/4 of the population of Cambodia (3 million). The Janjawid have killed a half million people in and around Sudan; about three people per day die just going about their business mining coal in China (down from 18 a day in 2000).

You gotta keep in mind - destabilizing the Middle East has been a pastime of world powers for 200 years. We knocked off Saddam, destabilized the Taliban, propped up the Pakistanis and cemented Israel; add a little Arab Spring and it's gonna get ugly. You also have to remember that most of these regions went from "under the thumb of the Ottoman Empire" to "under the thumb of the colonial powers" to "under the thumb of the US or USSR" to "up for grabs to the most dedicated radical religious factions."

But that's not really the issue.

Gaza is a disenfranchised protectorate of Israel whose native people are hostile to their encirclement. When I was in high school, one of the local pueblos decided to blockade the freeway. Janet Reno came down and told them that if they didn't cut it out, she'd send in the National Guard with tanks. Problem solved.

The equivalent with Gaza is the Pojoque Indians start shelling Tesuque and Santa Fe with mortars and the Air National Guard retaliates with air strikes. Ain't nobody gonna give a shit about Tesuque and Santa Fe - the news is gonna be all about the disenfranchised Pueblo indians getting smeared with white phosphorus. Brown people killing other brown people somewhere Americans can't find on a map?

That's just another day in the life.