Chosen people my foot

Settlers in the West Bank just burned a mosque. It is generally assumed that they did this to strike back, not against Palestinians for any act of violence on their part, but against their own government for having declared a temporary moratorium on the building of new settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli government's response has been to add several West Bank settlements to its "map of national priorities," thereby making them eligible for additional government financing, in what is widely interpreted as an attempt to appease the settlers.

In other news, Joe Lieberman, the only Jew in the Senate and an alleged Democrat, has publicly stated that he will not support the current health care bill or any other bill that either adds or expands any government health plan. Without his vote, the bill--already a seriously watered-down compromise--is unlikely to get the 60 votes needed to get it through the Senate. (Side note: it appears that the issue with any Senate bill is no longer whether it can muster the 51 votes needed to pass, but whether it can get the 60 votes needed for cloture. It's simply assumed that the Republicans will automatically filibuster everything.)

At this point, I feel like just putting away my menorah and casting aside those vestiges of Jewish identity that I still retain. If this is what modern Jews stand for, I don't want to be one.

EDIT: I stand corrected. Joe Lieberman is not the only Jew in the Senate, but one of thirteen (Boxer, Cardin, Feingold, Feinstein, Franken, Kohl, Lautenberg, Levin, Lieberman, Sanders, Schumer, Specter, Weiden). And he's not technically an "alleged Democrat," but an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Still, he is an alleged ally of the Democrats in the Senate. Sanders is also an independent, but you can generally count on him to vote with the Democrats on those rare occasions when the Democrats are actually united on an issue. Like herding cats, I tell you.