There's just no pleasing some people.

Apparently, Pete Rempel is (oh, yawn) still miffed at me:

Apparently you don't know what a trick question is. Is pulling out of Gaza the right thing to do?

If you're too much of a coward to answer, fine. It's no suprise to me that an anti-semite like you would have difficulty extending praise to the Jewish state. Do you and Eugene Plawiuk have tea and mull over the Jewish conspiracy to take over the world?

To which one can appropriately respond, "Eugene who?"

But let's address Pete's childish whining, shall we? Apparently, in Pete's world, one should be giving credit where credit is due and praising the Israelis for their beneficence in returning land from the Gaza strip to the Palestinians, ignoring the obvious fact that they really didn't have much choice and ignoring the fact that they're still hanging onto gobs of valuable land in the West Bank.

As the CJR Daily points out, perhaps some historical perspective of the Gaza strip is in order (emphasis added):

What has gone missing in the fray, as usual, is any kind of historical context. Drama on this scale usually overwhelms. The New York Times seems to acknowledge this today and tries to provide a little background history lesson. Oddly, the place it chose to do so was in its lead editorial, "Gaza Reality Check," which offers a kind of critique of its own articles of this morning and the past few days.

Points covered: Gaza was never an original part of the Jewish State. Not in 1948 when Israel was born by UN decree or after the 1949 armistice that followed its war of independence. The Strip was Egyptian land and home to Palestinian refugees, and only came under Israeli control in 1967 when it was captured during the Six-Day War. The peace plan signed between Israel and Egypt in 1978 even stipulated eventual autonomy in Gaza for the Palestinians living there. But this never happened. Instead Israel began building the settlements it is now uprooting.

Also lost amidst the drama were the proportions. Just under 9,000 settlers were living on 33 percent of the land, with 1.5 million Palestinians inhabiting the rest. (And the compensation that most of the settlers will get ranges from $300,000 to $500,000 -- apiece.)

So, to summarize, Israel broke its original agreement regarding Gaza and illegally began establishing settlements there. On top of that, a grand total of 9,000 Jewish settlers laid claim to a full 1/3 of the land, leaving the remaining 2/3 for some 1.5 million Palestinians. And I'm supposed to be falling over myself with effusive praise when Israel finally starts to return it?

Try again, Pete. And come back when you've figured out how to have an intellectual discussion without throwing around accusations of anti-Semitism. It just makes you look like a dick.