In reply to Michael.

Michael said

hmm...What exactly is palestine? or palestinians? What genocide? What drugs did you take darling?

Firstly I will address the 'What drugs did you take darling? question.
I do not smoke, drink alcohol, or use drugs other than prescribed drugs from time to time for medical purposes, and even those as seldom as possible. My 'drug' is life, and by far the worst withdrawal symptom of that drug is seeing crimes against humanity, such as those in Gaza. I am guilty, however of using the drug caffeine on occasion, in tea, coffee, and mmmmmm chocolate, my weakness.

Secondly, I will address your use of the word 'darling' referring to me and I will do this in the form of a question.
Are you calling me darling because you have feelings of fondness towards me or do you call me darling to be condescending, to display a patronizingly superior attitude?

Thirdly, I will assume that you ask if I am on drugs to suggest that I am hallucinating when i speak of all matters concerning Israel and Palestine. I guess I've already discounted the drug/hallucination theory, and no I don't have any other medical condition that would cause hallucinations, just in case you were wondering.

As for the definitions of 'Palestine', 'Palestinians' and 'genocide', I'll assume you are asking because you are truly ignorant and are asking in good faith because you truly do not know the definitions and have never heard of Wikipedia. I'm making it easy for you, I'm providing you with the links.
On Palestine and Palestinians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine, and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(disambiguation)

You will find additional links on that site. And of course you will probably find different definitions if you read the Tanakh or the Qur’an and related historical texts and teachings associated with them eg Hadeeth. I wish you well in your research. You may also like to look at world maps over the centuries - you will find them metamorphic and it's probably best to limit yourself to contemporary definitions of borders, countries and populations, no matter how steeped in history they may be.

On genocide:
Extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2, of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[1]

I will add here a reply post of mine to replies on Laila's blog.
(Link on right of mine. This post. "In Zeitun, a massacre and its perpetrators desire for genocide")
My reply to post:
If the IDF destroys the tunnels, the rockets may stop. Preposterous as this may sound, they never wanted to achieve this. In fact they rely on allowing them to remain, so that the rockets will fire out in retaliation (of oppression of Palestine by Israel). Once again they will call Hamas terrorists and declare themselves victims. This will then justify their future incursions, probably already planned, into Gaza again. Israel does not want Palestine to exist. Their real objective/goal is to bring all Palestinians to their knees, this is what terrorists do. They cause their victims to 'give up' on hope. They WANT them to witness the most shocking, inhumane destruction of their homes and families. They WANT some to live and spread the word of such horrendous acts. This is what terrorism is. Not only does it cause their victims to give up hope of peace, but of a normal life, and to feel dreadfully mortal - to feel their life is of no more value than that of a fish and that the next bullet may be aimed at them, and be just around the next corner. And THAT, American 6103, is why that graffiti is so deplorable. Real armies are supposed to act with respect and embrace some moral fibre. The IDF behave like what they are, thugs and terrorists. That graffiti is part of the terrorist message.
Israel's goal is to extinguish Gaza, then later, West Bank, and incorporate them both into Israel. The United States knows this and backs them, their US-made strongest ally in the middle east. (edit: having Israel do their 'dirty work' takes the heat off them to a large degree)

The HEROES here are the Palestinians, who today, survive and defy Israel by existing and getting back to as normal life as is possible under the circumstances, eg school and rebuilding their lives.

I plead, beg anyone to tell me I'm wrong. I WANT to be wrong.

This is the definition of Genocide. Genocide is not a word limited to the Holocaust Michael.

Palestinians - don't count on Obama.

All Americans wanting Palestinian justice and peace should contact and comment, particularly on foreign policy and ties with Israel. I would be questioning what part my tax played in arming Israel. http://www.whitehouse.gov/

TALES OF IRAQ WAR by LATUFF: Two more cartoons

TALES OF IRAQ WAR by LATUFF: Two more cartoons

There are other very poignant political and humanitarian comments on Gaza made via cartoons by Latuff, visit his site. Some are posted in the right column of my blog here.

Following extract is from the link below.

Those who refuse to criticize Israel even when it acts foolishly surely think they are helping the Jewish state. They are wrong. In fact, they are false friends, because their silence, or worse, their cheerleading, merely encourages Israel to continue potentially disastrous courses of action. Israel could use some honest advice these days, and it would make eminently good sense if its closest ally were able to provide it. Ideally, this advice would come from the president, the secretary of state, and prominent members of Congress -- speaking as openly as some politicians in other democracies do. But that's unlikely to happen, because Israel's supporters make it almost impossible for Washington to do anything but reflexively back Israel's actions, whether they make sense or not. And they often do not these days.

Read on . . .
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/17/the_myth_of_israels_strategic_genius

I believe this is one of the best summaries of the situation between Israel and Palestine. Post from http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html

An Experiment in Provocation
Stealing Gaza

By BRIAN ENO

It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.

Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

Brian Eno is a musician and music producer.