Soccer Dad

David Frum is absolutely wrong on this count:
"Third, the more closely Americans follow the news, the more likely they are to support Israel. Yet more low-information voters are Democrats than Republicans."

The more Americans follow the news, especially if they don't limit themselves to pro war propaganda by the corporate media, the more likely Americans are to oppose the slaughter in Gaza and Israel's decades long campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Sadly, most Americans are so poorly informed that they don't know that it was Israel, not Hamas, that initially broke the truce. Most Americans are so poorly informed that they don't even know that Israel is guilty of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.

To make things worse, anyone who tells the truth about the situation can easily and fraudulently be demonized as antisemetic by people who have no idea what they are talking about.

I prefer to deal with substantiated opinion--please supply some corroboration to your claims.

On the issue of ignorance of facts by Democratic voters in general, see the poll done by John Ziegler and Zogby. Here are Zogby's results, and check out the video of Ziegler's interview:

Let�s start with Zogby�s numbers. The poll surveyed over 500 self-professed Obama voters and has an MOE of 4.4%, with 55% having a college degree and over 90% having a high-school diploma.

It asked 12 multiple-choice questions; only 2.4% got at least 11 correct. Only .5% got all them correct.

57.4 could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8 could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6 could NOT correctly say that Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1 % could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).And yet�..

Only 13.7% failed to identify Palin as the person their party spent $150,000 in clothes on

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her �house,� even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

This poll is about Obama, not Israel, but the results support the underlying point: "more low-information voters are Democrats than Republicans."

libhomo, there never was really a truce. hamas continued firing hundreds of rockets at Israel and hamas built up its stockpile of weapons and rockets during the six month so-called "truce". It was only Israel which abided by it. And when the fake truce expired hamas merely started firing rockets at an increasing rate. hamas broke the truce from the outset.

D.A., I don't know that the Zogby poll indicates anything about Democratic voters being low information compared to Republicans. For example: how many Republicans versus Democrats thought that Barack Obama was a Muslim (when he had been castigated publicly for having a very mouthy Christian preacher at the church where his daughters were baptized)? Did Zogby poll Republicans/McCain voters? I don't know.

But that's a side methodological point.

I consider the loss of children's lives tragic on both sides, and wish that Israel could have found a reasonable way to kill the Hamas operatives without attacking the shelters/shields. I haven't heard any reports indicating that Israel was reckless regarding alternatives to this attack.

Did Zogby poll Republicans/McCain voters?

Actually, Ziegler made an offer: if anyone would do a similar poll of Republicans and show similar results, he would pay for the expenses of both his and their poll; if, however, the results showed that Republicans indeed were more knowledgeable, then that person would pay for the expenses of both their poll and the one he had done.

There were no takers.

Israel didn't "break the truce first". The "war" originally consisted of Hamas firing rockets into Israel. Totally one way. Israel was not firing rockets into Gaza. Israel's anemic response was to fire on the source of the rockets in a limited way. Then the rockets came again, and again. This went on for months, actually years. The partial blockade of Gaza also gets trotted out as a justification for Hamas. That too was a REACTION to the shelling of Israeli towns, the idea being "why are we sending them supplies and they are attacking our towns with rockets?" On top of that, Hamas sent suicide bombers to the crossing points to kill the Israelis who were allowing in supplies.

Hamas is firing rockets in areas many of its inhabitants used to live throughout history and were forced into exile. Most people in Gaza were living in areas now under the Jewish state of Israel and Israel won�t allow them back. Israel is stolen property. Sunnism may be facist but Judaism is far worse. The Koran came to confirm the Bible but attacked the trinity and tha Talmud. Jesus also attacked the Talmud in Mark 7. Read the Talmud.

Throughout history? Obviously that is not true.

Forced into exile? You mean by the Arab countries who promised them in 1948 that if they left they could return with the conquering armies of the Arabs?

If Israel is stolen property, when may we expect the Muslim world to apologize for the various Islamic conquests and occupations throughout its history.

Better yet, Muslims could leave the countries they have occupied.

Egypt would be a nice start.