One of Peretz Kidron's repeatedly made points is "Occupation is all the same" "the Iraq occupation is the same as the Israeli occupation".

I think Kidron is too simplistic here.

In all of his interviews Kidron failed to even mention Israel's "mini-Marshall plan" of occupation from 1967 until 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed setting up the Palestinian Authority as the government for much of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel built 6 universities and 20 community colleges for the Palestinians with a resultant drop in illiteracy from 50% to 30%. Israel built 166 medical clinics and provided universal health insurance for the Palestinians with a resulting drop by 2/3 of infant mortality. With this act alone, Israel has saved more Palestinian lives than have been killed in the conflict.

Israel also expanded sewage treatment, water, and electrical systems for the West Bank. Israel built the Palestinians a sports stadium hoping that kids could get into sports rather than join the terror groups. The income per capita under Israeli occupation increased ten-fold and unemployment dropped from 40% to 5%.

Of course all gains began to be reversed when the PA took over in 1994. Unemployment has soared and per capita income has plummetted--mostly due to the intifada.

Israel's "occupation" is different from Iraq in a lot of ways. The USA occupation was done by a military invasion of a country that didnt threaten us.

In Israel, the threat from the Palestinian terror groups is daily.

The American people do not have any kind of history of living on the land of Iraq.

The Jewish people have lived in Gaza and the West Bank for thousands of years. The land in question is part of ancient Israel and the artifacts found by archeologists dramatically support a Jewish/Israeli presence in these area preceeding any Muslim presence.

The UN granted Israel the legal military control of the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 war until a peace agreement could be written and signed. Since then Israel has made such a treaty with both Jordan and Egypt--who had occupied the West Bank and Gaza previously. Israel has tried 14 times since 1937 to set up an independent state of Palestine only to be thwarted at every attempt.

By contrast, the US invaded Iraq without UN support of the invasion. The govt. the US handed power over to was hand-picked by the US.

The PA people elected Arafat.

Jewish cities have existed in Gaza and the West Bank for centuries. The US has no American cities in Iraq.

So Peretz Kidron's blanket assertion that Occupation is Occupation is Occupation obscures the true reality of Israel and the Palestinian conflict.

Kidron also considers "nonsense" the fear Israelis have that the Arabs are just biding their time to attempt to genocide them. But Arab armies attacked Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. They are too intimidated by Israel's military to do so now, but have never given up on their attempt to wipe off the face of the earth the only Jewish nation in the world.

Rantisi and Yassin---both in statements before they were killed by IDF gunships, re-iterated that the goal of Hamas is to kill all the Jews.

Kidron is either an idiot or he is paid by the Arabs. No other explanation can explain his positions.