From my blog.

A fresh NYT/CBS poll finds ample support for Israeli war crimes in the only demographic that matters:

According to 48 percent of Americans, Israel responded proportionately in the conflict with Hizbullah, while 26 percent believed Israel’s response was exaggerated. With that, Americans continued to favor Israel, with 61 percent saying they supported the Zionist nation to some degree. Forty percent said they followed the regional conflict regularly in the media.

[snip]

President George W. Bush scored a high approval rate for his handling of the Mideast crisis, with 47 percent supportive of his performance and 27 percent disapproving.

The American public was nearly evenly split on Bush’s staunch support of Israel, with 39 percent approving, 40 saying the US should not take a stance on the conflict, and 7 percent believing the US should criticize Israel.

And what is this “handling” of which only 27 percent disapprove? Apart from rush-delivering “precision-guided” ordnance to Israel, financed by 20 percent of US “development aid,” it amounts to vetoing a call for ceasefire by the UNSC and similarly torpedoing the summit in Rome:

At the Rome talks, Rice resisted pressure from allies for Washington to change its stance and call for an immediate halt to the violence.

Rice insisted any cease-fire must be “sustainable” and that there could be “no return to the status quo” — a reference to the U.S. and Israeli position that Hezbollah must first be pushed back from the border and the Lebanese army backed by international forces deployed in the south.

Israel takes the result of Rice’s sabotage as a pat on the back:

Israel says the decision by diplomats not to call for a halt to its Lebanon offensive at a Middle East summit has given it the green light to continue.

“We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world… to continue the operation,” Justice Minister Haim Ramon said.

So heartened by the “world’s support,” the “justice” minister openly threatens a campaign of relentless war crimes:

He said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops move in.

He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there can be considered Hezbollah supporters.

“All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” Mr Ramon said.

Except the children; the elderly; those who lie wounded in their homes because you have bombed the ambulances and hospitals; and those who are trapped for want of a vehicle or because you have destroyed the roads and bridges and targeted convoys of refugees marked with white flags.

Is someone taking notes at the Hague? Oh, wait. At a previous conference in Rome, Israel was one of only seven countries rejecting the International Criminal Court. The others were China, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Libya, Yemen, Qatar, and the USA. As usual, the latter is in a class of its own: Congress has authorized the President to “use all means necessary and appropriate” to free US personnel (and certain allied personnel, including Israeli such) detained or imprisoned by the ICC. Presumably, the Hague has taken note of that.

However, might does not make right. Morally speaking, the USA stands to Israel as Serbia stood to the regime of Radovan Karadžić. It is, and I regret having to write these words, a blight on humanity.