Finally. Someone has noticed what is going on in the Middle East. The UK Telegraph reports that Britain is "furious" with Israel because of the damage it is causing in Gaza. Is it because of the wholesale slaughter of innocent Palestinians -- the bombing of a Gaza beach that turned the entire family of 12-year-old Huda Ghalia into a smoking pile of human flesh and scattered body parts? No? Then, perhaps it is using innocent Palestinians as human shields, gunning down children as they scurry fearfully to school, burying the wounded alive Jenin-style...

Or maybe Britain is at long last enraged by the massacre of 19 Palestine refugees, mostly women and children, in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on Nov. 8. Maybe Britain was aware of the little-reported six-day seige which had ended just the day before the assault when Israeli ground forces had been withdrawn from Beit Hanoun after slaughtering 50 and injuring many more. In response to the public outcry at the Nov. 8 slaughter, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained that it was caused by a mere "technical error." Olmert did admit he was "uncomfortable" with the "event," but said military operations in Gaza would continue, and that further mistakes "may happen."

There's much to stoke the fires of international fury if one were to look at the listing of massacres committed by Israel against the Palestinian and Lebanese populations from 1946 through 1999 -- just prior to the barbaric "man of peace" Ariel Sharon's reign as PM when business really picked up. Webster defines "massacre" as "The indiscriminate, merciless killing of a number of human beings." It says nothing about massacre being "immediate," therefore, the brutality Israel inflicts on thousands of shell-shocked, homeless and defenseless refugees day after day after day -- denying them food, water or medical assistance -- is a never-ending Jenin; a mass-starvation massacre.

To be fair, Britain's Tony Blair has advocated peace in the Middle East throughout his tenure, but it's difficult to get that process started when you've annouonced that you're walking "shoulder-to-shoulder" with George W. Bush and you have long been a proud member of the US/Israel/UK massacre tag-team wreaking bloody destruction throughout the entire area.

Britain was one of 156 countries voting in favor of a UN resolution condemning the Beit Hanun massacre, but only after "condemnation" had been replaced with "sorrow" over the incident, and a call for Palestine to stop lobbing homemade Qassam rockets into Gaza settlements had been added. Israel ambassador Dan Gillerman voted "No" before stomping angrily out of the session, and unconfirmed US ambassador John Bolton also voted "No" while warning that such a resolution would only "increase tension and serve the interests of those hostile to Israel and that do not accept Israel's right to exist."

Everybody is angry, including Palestine, and everybody has a right to be angry -- except Palestine. Everybody has a right to exist on their own land -- except Palestine.

So, is the Beit Hanun massacre what prompted an angry Britain to file a formal complaint with the Israeli government, demanding that it cease and desist? Well, yes...and no. According to The Telegraph's Tim Butcher, headstones at Britain's Commonwealth war cemetery in Gaza City were not only "pockmarked" by shrapnel from Israeli artillery, but some were even destroyed during the Israeli "operation" in Beit Hanoun.

Butcher said that Andy Fretwell, Britain's Holy Land representative of the cemetery, is frustrated. Fretwell hasn't been able to visit the Gaza cemetery for a year because of Israel's assaults. ''It's very upsetting for everyone involved in maintaining the many war graves here in the Holy Land but particularly upsetting for our loyal and dedicated local staff," Fretwell said, and added petulantly, ''I just wish the Israelis would pay more attention to what they are doing." (Emphasis added)

Those damn Palestinians, always making those seizing their land -- those killing and maiming them -- look bad. Why do they stubbornly insist on forcing Israel and the United States to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity? How long must the rest of the world be forced to listen to the Palestinian death knell -- an hysterical keening that incessantly batters the world's nervous system? Surely they can see there is only one solution -- a final solution -- and that is for them to leave, be forcibly expelled, or be exterminated. Their choice.

Expulsion has been the only "option on the table" for years. Before he retired in 2002, House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey (Tex.) told Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" that he had thought about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians "for a lot of years," and he believes that Palestinians living in the West Bank "should be removed." Armey said he's not against the Palestinians having a state, but he's "not content to give up any part of Israel" for that purpose. He suggested that the Palestinians should just get out -- set up housekeeping in the "many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land, soil, and property."

In the course of my research to try and understand how Israel came so easily to occupy the US Congress, I came across a truly terrifying site whose lengthy July 3, 2002 manifesto, The Logistics of Transfer, laid out plans for the complete elimination of the entire Palestinian population within a few short years. In a cold, merciless and arrogant conclusion, its author states...

"When the world community accepts that Israel cannot and will not compromise her own identity as a Jewish state...and when Israeli Jews understand that the transfer solution is not just the only possible solution, but is also substantiated by the Torah, only then there will be no doubt that Israel will attain her goal.

"When two spouses truly do not get along and hate one another, it is foolish, useless, and cruel to force them to continue living together. They will never be able to share a bedroom. As Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach once noted, Zohar Ha'Kodesh says that Eretz Yisrael is God's bedroom where He interacts with the Jews, His chosen people, and where others do not belong. They have no business being involved in the relationship between God and the Jewish people. This is especially true now, when all that remains as a home for the Jews is the tiny bedroom called western Eretz Yisrael."

But, what really sent me skittering to the corner was an article a month later, "The Growing Clamor for Ethic Cleansing," by Ali Abunimah, which laid out a neat plan for expelling Palestinians from their homes and land by Alan Derschowitz, a prominent Jewish attorney here, who was part of O.J. Simpson's defense "Dream Team."

First -- Derschowitz says Israel should issue a warning that -- in response to a terrorist attack -- an entire Arab village or settlement, randomly chosen by computer, will be completely leveled. Derschowitz appears to be unclear on what is to be considered a "terrorist attack." I assume if you're walking home from work with wire cutters in your pocket to get through all the barbed wire that criss-crosses the area, it could be considered an act of terror...

And last (there's no in-between, Derschowitz cleans it all up in just two steps) -- The Arabs will not know which one of their villages or settlements will be erased in retaliation. Abunimah says Derschowitz's use of the word "erased" very precisely reflects the force of Israel's response. Derschowitz says Arabs will be evicted without compensation. All houses and buildings will be completely demolished and the area completely bulldozed into a large field. After several such fields, Derschowitz believes that Arabs will lose any desire to commit "terrorist attacks," and more and more of them will leave Israel.

This, then, is the agenda of all but a handful of members of the US Congress and the majority of the American people? Somehow, advocating ethnic cleansing as a final solution to the problems of the Middle East says so much more about America than it does Israel, and hardly qualifies as a plan for peace. Somehow, anyone familiar with the relentless ferocity of the Palestine spirit as its people were forced to fight a lonely battle for the past 60 years in a futile attempt to hang onto their own land knows the Derschowitz theory -- those being dispossessed will finally hang their heads in defeat and quietly leave -- is destined to fail.

Because the last Palestinian standing will be waiting for Israel's bombs and tanks and bulldozers. And he'll have a rock clenched in each hand.

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net