It's sickening, really, what Israel's war on the Palestinians is doing, not just to Palestine, but to America. At my gym, a couple of hours ago, there was a little confrontation between some right-wing nutball (actually, a really nice guy) and an Arab immigrant: the latter was responding to the (loud) suggestion by the former that all Arabs in America should "go back to their own country." I'm friends with both of them, yet my efforts to mediate failed as spectacularly as the Oslo peace process.

Then, walking home, I passed a mailman getting out of his truck: the guy had the radio on pretty loud, and the announcer was saying, "Yeah, we give $4 billion a year to Israel."

The mailman looked at me, I looked back at him, and he said:

"Nine billion? They give nine billion to those guys?"

And I said: "You bet they do, bub – now ain't that sweet!"

From the look on the mailman's face, I knew he was thinking of all the long hours he worked, and how the government took nearly half of it away each year – and for what? For whom?

Then I – finally! – get home (hey, it's only a coupla blocks, but it seems like a loooong trek today), and what do I find?: Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds advocating … genocide. Against the Palestinians, of course….

It's disgusting to even have to deal with a moral monster like Reynolds – naturally, the guy's a lawyer and a college professor – but, gee, I guess somebody has to do it. Here is the sicko quote, in its revolting entirety:

"MORE ON MILITARY MATTERS: Steven Den Beste has an extensive politico-military analysis, including this:

"'There's a famous cartoon of two vultures sitting in a tree, and one says to the other, 'Patience, my ass. I'm going to go kill something.' It would be unfortunate but perhaps understandable if Israel and the US finally had reached a point of saying, 'Criticism, my ass. I'm going to go kill something.' With the situation the way it is, it's nearly to the point where Israel has nothing to lose by going into the Palestinian territories and doing their damndest [sic] to make the Palestinians as miserable as possible. It wouldn't actually be too hard for the Israelis to start making the West Bank uninhabitable, for instance; you can ruin a town in fairly short order without having to level every building in it by taking out essential services. (If there's no water supply, everyone will leave.) That step hasn't been taken yet; it's their penultimate threat.'"

Glenn Reynolds comments:

"I think he's right about this, and it's not clear at all that it's a bad idea for the Israelis to do such a thing, militarily or politically. (Extra points to Den Beste for using the word 'penultimate' correctly, and not as a synonym for 'ultimate.') After all, the Palestinian populace, thanks to suicide bombing and massive support therefor, can arguably be viewed as equivalent to a hostile army, not a bunch of noncombatants.

"Indeed, with all the Euro-criticism of Bush for his "simplistic" policies and 'disengagement,' it's worth noticing the way in which Israel's diplomatic isolation – especially at the hands of the EU nations – has brought this problem to a head. The Israelis don't have to worry about what Europe thinks, because it's increasingly clear that Europe has decided to wash its hands of Israel and try sucking up to the Arabs no matter what. This will remain the case unless the Arabs are politically neutralized by a crushing defeat that leaves, say, the oil wells of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc., in new hands. Thus, for the Israelis, there's no diplomatic downside to a brutal strategy that emphasizes destabilization in the mideast, and that places high value on Israel's superior ability to kill people and break things, as opposed to the current situation that places high value on Arab nations' skills at lying and dissembling. The Europeans have shown that they want to side with a winner regardless of morality, and that they're willing to overlook Milosevic-like crimes on the part of Arafat because they think he'll be the winner. It would be unfortunate, but not surprising, if the Israelis drew a lesson from that."

Let's examine the genocidal logic of the Den Beste/Reynolds plan for a Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem: the Israelis cut off the water, the electricity, level the hospitals, arrest all the doctors, stop all food from going in – of course the first victims of this kind of assault will be the very old and the very young. How many babies will die for lack of medical care and proper nutrition? How many oldsters, barely hanging on to life by a thread, will finally succumb? But of course this attempt at ethnic cleansing won't convince everyone to leave. It will take a house-to-house round-up, mass internment, and a Cambodia-style march out of the cities of Palestine and into – where? Where will the victims of this brutal ethnic cleansing go? And what if they won't go? Gee, it's a good thing Den Beste had the smarts to know the real meaning of "penultimate" – because the ultimate solution is all-too-obvious....

Since "the Israelis don't have to worry about what Europe thinks," why not just line the Palestinians up in rows and mow them down? That is the endgame of this kind of "logic" – the logic of genocide. Glenn Reynolds is sounding like our very own Osama bin Laden when he writes:

"After all, the Palestinian populace, thanks to suicide bombing and massive support therefor, can arguably be viewed as equivalent to a hostile army, not a bunch of noncombatants."

So, then, by this new standard of what constitutes a civilian and a combatant in wartime, we need to start seriously discussing National Review editor Rich Lowry's brilliant suggestion that we nuke Mecca and much of the Middle East – after all, didn't some poll somewhere indicate "massive support" for the suicide bombers? Don't a whole lot of them think of Osama as the Muslim Pimpernel, and consider him a hero? Who cares about individual cases, at this point: it's better we should simply kill them all off, and let God sort it out. Just to be on the safe side….

It's funny how some very intelligent people can talk themselves into genocide. Not ha-ha funny, but just plain demented. And this is how "everything changed" post-9/11, as the bromide goes: we accept this kind of crazy talk as normal.

For the genocidal nutballs of this world – the Pol Pots, the Stalins, the Hitlers, etc. – individuals do not exist. Races, classes, political collectivities – these are the only reality. Here, at the End of History, the old totalitarian mass murderers are supposed to be merely ghosts of the past, haunting us, but never really capable of assuming their old solidity. Except they have materialized, albeit only on the Internet (so far).

How does one refute an argument for genocide? By saying it isn't nice, it isn't Christian, it isn't civilized, it isn't even human? Of course, Den Beste is all-too-accurate in comparing the Israeli and US governments to vultures: but what can we say about someone who not only empathizes with the dirty disgusting creatures but actively identifies with them?

We hear much about "Islamo-fascism" from these "warblogger" nerds – who use the word where their less intellectual brethren might choose "raghead." In Reynolds and Den Beste, however, we appear to be witnessing the birth of Israelo-fascism – the ultimate irony, of course. But to perceive this requires some degree of self-reflectionn. In the self-referential universe of the bloggers, blogging means never having to look honestly in the mirror.