Okay, so I had made this long post about my views on the Lebanese and Israeli conflict, but then I realized, I was really just trying to say the following: I feel really bad for people on both sides of this conflict. I doubt there will be a peaceful resolution. I find it ironic that both participants to date are democracies.
In a side note, the whole concept of "democracy" means a different thing to the average US citizen and those of other democracies. We have a wierd system. We do not vote for a tiered parliament, which then based on proportions of votes garnered therein elects a cabinet and then a prime minister and a president. Instead, we use the spoils system and a direct election of the president and our congressional members with a rubber stamp electoral college for the presidency. (The electoral college was supposed to be its own decision making body, now of course the electoral college rubber stamps which way a state went under the two party system). It makes our government really strong, but it leads to a two party system. As long as the majority of the United States electorate tends toward the moderate middle, the government is much more stable here than in a parliamentary system. And with stability, comes long-term power. It would be interesting to see if our mode of democracy would work in other places. I doubt it would.
And in a final note, I am curious if a democratic government has ever flourished in a place without a large middle class. I shall have to research this and see.