@Volunteer,
"The point is that people who choose their representatives by majority vote cannot then hide behind a false projection that they disagree with the actions of their elected leadership. If they disagree, then they and their supporters have the responsibility to speak loudly and clearly about that disagreement, just as those on the left did in the USA during President Bush?s time in office. Silence indicates assent."
This is ignoring 3 points that i already brought up.
1) As i said before, according to polls i've seen and experts that i've heard from, a majority of Palestinians support terrorism... HOWEVER a very large majority would also support an end to terrorism if a fair peace agreement is reached. So while they don't support peace right now, they would if the US could pressure both sides to accept fair concessions. Therefore, it's foolish of us not to try to do just that. But that is not what we've been doing. Instead, we've berated Palestinian terrorism while turning a blind eye to Israeli expansionism (as you do)... and that has hurt both the chances of peace and the image of the US in the Muslim world.
2) Your argument is one sided and can be reversed. The Israelis are also voting for hard liners- ones who support the taking of Palestinian land. Why do you attack the Palestinians so strongly for voting for hard liners, but not the Israelis? That's hypocritical. I don't think it's morally worse for the Palestinians to use terrorism because they're too weak to use conventional tactics than it is for the Israelis to take Palestinian land because they're too strong to be stopped. But regardless, if you condemn one side for that, you should condemn the other.
3) I'm a pragmatist. Therefore, even if I thought that a weak ppl using terrorism against a strong ppl was worse than a strong ppl taking property away from a weak ppl, I would still support a stronger line against Israel. The Israeli/ Palestinian conflict is primarily a land dispute. A land dispute obviously can't be resolved as long as the stronger side is still taking land from the weaker side. It's in everyone's best interest for the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict to be resolved. Therefore, we should pressure the Israelis to stop taking away Palestinian land. From a pragamatic standpoint, that's all it comes down to.
On one of these threads, i posted a link to an article about what a fair peace agreement would look like. Some of the main points are as follows- Palestine becomes a nation, Israel gives back most of it's settlements and gives fair land compensation for the settlements it keeps, Jerusalem gets divided and both countries get to have it as their capital if they wish. There are a couple other issues that would have to be dealt with (the right of return, travel between the west bank and gaza), but those are the main points.