In response to the comment about terminology.

Would it seem rational to you if the Israeli PM or government official stood before the international community and declare that their objective is full scale annihilation of a people? Only then, would you call it genocide or ethnic cleansing?
Politicians declare many things, but I would hope sentient human beings are able to critically analyze the world around them. How many women and children need to die for people to recognize them as humans? Or would the Israeli PM need to stand up and declare their humanity for you to believe they are entitled to human rights?

I challenge you to think past the rhetoric and construct a terminology that you find adequate for the situation. But as I sit at this computer musing over word choice, the IDF bombars Gaza-- a city that has been under strict economic deprivation for more than two year--from air, sea, and ground, using chemical weapons on a mainly civilian population, 1033 people are dead, more than 4000 are wounded (which a generous estimate of 50% noncombatants) and the US continues to send M16s. Effectively, a large population of a given people are being killed.

And you want to quibble over terminology?

This seems to be an inflammatory piece aimed at keeping people afraid of the dark people who speak funny.

Ultimately, Hamas was elected by a disenfranchised group who've been suffering under the yoke of tyranny for more than sixty years. Yet, this didn't start two weeks ago, two years ago, or even sixty years ago. We are speaking about an institutionalized racism going back centuries.

Perhaps Hamas uses religious rhetoric to captivate their audience and inspire their constituents to action. That's no different than Bush did at the beginning of the Iraq War.

Keep in mind, also, that Hamas represent a government fighting for food relief for Christians and Muslims alike. Because, fundamentally, being a Palestinanian doesn't mean being a Muslim, Christian, or Jew, but an Arab from the land of Palestine. Christian Arabs from Palestine suffer the same injustices. And even the Israeli governments sought to deny Palestinian Jews full citizenship in the early years of the regime. Effectively, this war, that has been raging for sixty years, is aimed at the full extinction or exile of the Palestinian people.

Forget religious rhetoric. Don't get wrapped up in the fundamentalism on any side (Israeli or Palestinian).

What is happening in Palestine and Gaza is ETHNIC CLEANSING.

And I thought Americans were against GENOCIDE.