Israel and Hamas

Glenn Greenwald wrote in Salon most of the rest of the world -- Europe, South America, Asia, the Middle East, the U.N. leadership -- opposes and condemns the attack, all to no avail.

Is this surprising? The have both Jews and Muslims in their country. They know that the Jews will remain peaceful regardless of what they say, but if they take Israel's side they know that the muslims are apt to start a riot where people will be killed.

The parties with the superior military might (the U.S. and Israel) dismiss world opinion as essentially irrelevant. Even the pro-war rhetorical tactics are the same (just as those who opposed the Iraq War were demonized as being "pro-Saddam," those who oppose the Israeli attack on Gaza are now "pro-Hamas").

Should Israel just remain peaceful and allow rockets to be fired into their country, killing their citizens, without responding?

Substantively, there are certainly meaningful differences between the U.S. attack on Iraq and the Israeli attack on Gaza (most notably the fact that Hamas really does shoot rockets into Israel and has killed Israeli civilians

And doesn't Israel have a right to respond?

and Israel really is blockading and occupying Palestinian land,

They withdrew completely from Gaza, and gave the people there a chance to show how they could live peacefully with their neighbors, and then the rocket attacks started.

whereas Iraq did not attack and could not attack the U.S. as the U.S. was sanctioning them and controlling their airspace).

Although they could and did shoot at those planes, requested by the UN, controlling their airspace and preventing Saddam from killing more Kurds in the North or more Shia in the South.

But the underlying logic of both wars are far more similar than different: military attacks, invasions and occupations will end rather than exacerbate terrorism; the Muslim world only understands brute force;

What indication do you have that they understand anything else. Have you read the Koran?

the root causes of the disputes are irrelevant; diplomacy and the U.N. are largely worthless.

The UN definitely is worthless.

.... Even for those Americans who, for whatever their reasons, want endlessly to fixate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who care deeply and passionately about whether the Israelis or the Palestinians control this or that West Bank hill or village and want to spend the rest of their days arguing about who did what to whom in 1948 and 1967,

Actually when the Palestinian Mandate was split into TransJordan, which became Jordan, and the land west of the Jordan, Israel should have gotten all of the land west of the Jordan. It would have given them enough land they could have had a cushion on all borders wide enough to separate their settlements from their neighbors.

what possible interests do Americans generally have in any of that,

Genesis 12:3 which says I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

sufficient to involve ourselves so directly and vigorously on one side, and thereby subject ourselves to the significant costs -- financial, reputational, diplomatic and security -- from doing so?