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[solly]

It never fails to surprise me how Newspapers in Israel seem to be more liberal and factual than those in the U.S. Here is an article about the visit of two South African Supreme Court judges, a former deputy minister, members of Parliament, attorneys, writers and journalists. Blacks and whites, about half of them Jews who today are in conflict with attitudes of the conservative Jewish community in their country. It was featured in Haaretz, a major Israel daily but didn't raise a ripple in the U.S.:

....Equally harsh are the remarks of the editor-in-chief of the Sunday Times of South Africa, Mondli Makhanya, 38. "When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. In a certain sense, it is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid.

"The apartheid regime viewed the blacks as inferior; I do not think the Israelis see the Palestinians as human beings at all. How can a human brain engineer this total separation, the separate roads, the checkpoints? What we went through was terrible, terrible, terrible - and yet there is no comparison. Here it is more terrible. We also knew that it would end one day; here there is no end in sight. The end of the tunnel is blacker than black.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1000976.html

[catarin]

Hi Solly
"I do not think the Israelis see the Palestinians as human beings at all."

The Palestinians are constantly threatening to kill the Jews, take their land (and the Holy Land of every Jew and Christian in the world!) and destroy the Jews' holy shrines if the Palestinians can't force their own interpretations on them.  There is no trace or proof of their early existence in Israel. Any sites or papers the early Muslims wrote about Islam were deliberately destroyed by Muslim clerics in order that they could claim there were no Arabs before Islam, Arabia had no history before Islam and other numerous raggelty/dagglety claims, which makes me wonder if they destroyed important evidence that could bolster their claims.  The Muslims don't even have an ancient Holy Book to get information from.  The Quran was produced in the 8th century.  The Torah has writings from 2000 + earlier.

Please post citations for Muslim claims.  The Muslim propaganda reminds me of Communist pinko propaganda.  Don't you believe it!

[ldldld]

It never ceases to amaze me how racist Zionists can be.

Muslim propaganda?

The Arabs were the majority population in the Historic Palestine. The formation of Israel was immoral.

The only reason it isn't acceptable in the mainstream to call Israelis and the Jews who support the continued apartheid in Israel AND the OT, Nazis, is because of the successful PR campaign waged by the Zionists.

There is no conditions to right and wrong. Just because Israel is an ally of the US (so is Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc.) does not make it exempt from criticism or condemnation.

I see no difference between the way German citizens spoke of and thought of Jews and the way Israelis and Zionist Jews speak about Arabs and Muslims IN GENERAL. Doesn't matter if you're Palestinian. If you're Muslim you're fair game. If you're Arab you're fair game.

This level of ignorance and hatred is also exhibited by the right-wing Christians.

We're seeing something truly unique. The last vestiges of colonialism. How can the world turn a blind eye to something so blatantly wrong?

Because of "terrorism"? What a gift to the Jewish people. First, we have the exploitation of the memory of the Holocaust. Second, we have the religious fanatacism by Jews who believe they are entitled to all of Historic Palestine.

And finally, we have the so-called War on Terror. Terror is what OTHERS do to us. When we do it to them it's democracy. It's self-defense.

This is complete garbage.

The people who WIN, write history. The only constant has been force and war.

Not only do Americans get one side of the story. But when someone speaks AGAINST Israel they lose their job (Norman Finkelstein) or become ostracized (Jimmy Carter). It's so blatant but through successful propaganda campaigns (the exploitation of the memory of the Holocaust; the use of the Holocaust as an ideological weapon), the Israel lobby has restricted/censored/stifled debate on the ME-Conflict.

It doesn't help that America itself is at war with the Arab world. Naturally, Arabs and Muslims are the new Commies. The new "Reds." So it will follow, that if the news is already biased against Arabs/etc., then any coverage of Israel-Palestine will be as well. In fact, before 9/11 the coverage was biased.

It's just so shameful. Absolutely shameful and tragic that the Palestinian people are being ethnically cleansed and abused daily. This is while Israeli apologists and Zionists cry on and on about self-defense and katushya rockets. Such bulls***. Israel kills 10 times as many children. 5 times as many civilians.

Israel is torturing and punishing the Palestinian people collectively. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Israel is the stronger force. Much stronger. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

1000 dead Lebanese in the 2006 war. Indiscriminate force. The same story over and over. It's always self-defense.

Absolutely disgusting.

The even more disgraceful part is that most Israelis approve of their foreign policy and policy towards the Palestinians. They entire country is right-wing and obviously nationalistic. It's like Nazi Germany except WORSE, because the world's only superpower is backing it. There is no hope for Palestinians. No hope for Iraqis/etc. Iran will be next. More dead people. Increased terrorism and endless conflict.

This is all because of oil and protecting Israel. Disgusting. Disgraceful.

[european]

Are we talking about the Israel that has communistically minded kibbutz? Or about the Israel that is now rescinding its tacit approval of the colonies on Palestinian soil?

With all due respect, though Israel may have its flaws, it is not a country of demonspawn. The situation in Israel-Palestine is far more complex, and both parties have engaged in immoral acts. You might be right in supposing that the U.S. overly supports the country, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve a measure of support.

[ldldld]

No. The conflict is not symmetrical. Simply looking at the casualties is enough to dispel the statement that "both sides have committed immoral acts."

People always use that line when they don't know what they're talking about.

The problem is no one reads the various (and copiously documented) human rights reports. No one knows the history.

We're always told it's sooooo complicated. It isn't.

I'm basing my assessment of Israeli society on interviews with the true peace activists like Jeff Halper. I'm basing it on polling results. I'm basing it on Israeli culture. I'm basing it on the discussions left on Haaretz and JPost.

It's absolutely disgusting how they dehumanize the Palestinians. It's no different from the Nazis.

The only reason we're so apprehensive about labeling them Nazis and the reason people regurgitate lame asinine misleading (no context WHATSOEVER) statements like:

"Both sides have committed immoral acts"

Is because it's "the Jews." Again, the guilt of the suffering of the Jews during the Nazi Holocaust has permeated American popular culture. Not only that, but it's used quite overtly as an ideological weapon. People who criticize Israel are called racists. They are called terrorist sympathizers. They are called Holocaust deniers. They are called AntiSemites.

It has destroyed any hope of honest PUBLIC (not internet forum ramblings) discussion on the issue.

If Americans could only compare the numbers of people killed on each side, it would open their eyes. If they read Haaretz, it would open their eyes. If they visited the OT, it would open their eyes.

This is not a symmetrical. It never has been and it never will be.

[european]

Are you saying that tossing missiles at random into Israeli lands is not immoral?


And, if you'll note, I'm not an American. I live in a country where Palestinians are generally seen more favorably than Israelis.

[kattey]

The Jews are the founders and original occupants of Israel.  The Jews lived in Israel almost 2000 years before Mohammed was born.  The Roman Empire stole their land in 135 CE, banned Jews from Jerusalem and forced them out in the Diaspora.  Jews outside of Jerusalem were not forced out, and many have lineages that go back 4000 years.

Why does the US support Israel?  Maybe it's because the Jews and Christians of the US and the rest of the world don't want to hand over our Holy Land to militant Muslims.  Muslims have their own holy land in Arabia, which Jews and Christians are not allowed to enter.  The Arab/Muslims have forced Jews out of their countries for centuries and confiscated their fortunes and properties.  When are the Jews going to receive reparations from the Arabs for billions of dollars of wealth stolen from them?

The Muslims first conquered Israel in the 7th century.  Do you think they gave a damn about the Jews and Christians living there then? --just like they don't give a damn now.  The extremists also don't give a damn about the present Arab Palestinian population.  Hamas is holding the Gazans hostage.  They couldn't even leave to go on Hajj this year.

The Muslim Ottoman Empire controlled the Holy Land for 400 years UNTIL they lost WW I.  The Brits then controlled it until the UN authorized a Jewish state in 1949.  Through all the wars the Jews gained a lot more territory.  The estimated 600,000 Arab Palestinians who left when the Israeli state came into being have turned into 5,000,000, many with no legal ancestry in the Holy Land.

What's going on now is just a simple old-fashoned jihad, which extremist Muslims have used for 1400 years to build their empire.  They want control of all the land.  Well, no, they can't have it.  There is a solution.  The Arab Palestinians could sign a peace treaty, renegotiate the borders (which will never include the division of Jerusalem), and proceed to build their state.  Peaceful Muslims can live among the Jews and Chistians, but extremist Muslims have to go.

Billions of dollars in foreign aid have been pumped to the Palestinian Arabs, and they have nothing to show for it.  Arafat stole billions.  They complain that this year they didn't get enough money although records show they got more than usual.  I guess most enjoy their welfare state.  For the extremists, killing Jews (and forcing Christians out) is more fun than working for a living.

Nothing will improve until Hamas and other extremist groups are forced out.  If you feel sorry for the Arab Palestinian people, work to get Hamas, etal, out of there.  Abraham must be rolling over in his grave about this insanity.

[ldldld]

The Jews are the founders and original occupants of Israel.  The Jews lived in Israel almost 2000 years before Mohammed was born.  The Roman Empire stole their land in 135 CE, banned Jews from Jerusalem and forced them out in the Diaspora.  Jews outside of Jerusalem were not forced out, and many have lineages that go back 4000 years.

Why does the US support Israel?  Maybe it's because the Jews and Christians of the US and the rest of the world don't want to hand over our Holy Land to militant Muslims.  Muslims have their own holy land in Arabia, which Jews and Christians are not allowed to enter.  The Arab/Muslims have forced Jews out of their countries for centuries and confiscated their fortunes and properties.  When are the Jews going to receive reparations from the Arabs for billions of dollars of wealth stolen from them?

The Muslims first conquered Israel in the 7th century.  Do you think they gave a damn about the Jews and Christians living there then? --just like they don't give a damn now.  The extremists also don't give a damn about the present Arab Palestinian population.  Hamas is holding the Gazans hostage.  They couldn't even leave to go on Hajj this year.

The Muslim Ottoman Empire controlled the Holy Land for 400 years UNTIL they lost WW I.  The Brits then controlled it until the UN authorized a Jewish state in 1949.  Through all the wars the Jews gained a lot more territory.  The estimated 600,000 Arab Palestinians who left when the Israeli state came into being have turned into 5,000,000, many with no legal ancestry in the Holy Land.

What's going on now is just a simple old-fashoned jihad, which extremist Muslims have used for 1400 years to build their empire.  They want control of all the land.  Well, no, they can't have it.  There is a solution.  The Arab Palestinians could sign a peace treaty, renegotiate the borders (which will never include the division of Jerusalem), and proceed to build their state.  Peaceful Muslims can live among the Jews and Chistians, but extremist Muslims have to go.

Billions of dollars in foreign aid have been pumped to the Palestinian Arabs, and they have nothing to show for it.  Arafat stole billions.  They complain that this year they didn't get enough money although records show they got more than usual.  I guess most enjoy their welfare state.  For the extremists, killing Jews (and forcing Christians out) is more fun than working for a living.

Nothing will improve until Hamas and other extremist groups are forced out.  If you feel sorry for the Arab Palestinian people, work to get Hamas, etal, out of there.  Abraham must be rolling over in his grave about this insanity.

All of this is pure bulls***.

I don't care about ancient history. About what happened 2000 or 3000 years ago. You call people extremists and then talk about Jews having a "right" to the land.

The Palestinians were the majority population. Zionism could not have gone forward without the expulsion of the native population (Arabs).

The Partition plan was a joke. If it were us, Americans, we would have fought the Zionists in 48' as well. No way in hell someone who constituted 25% of the population and owned less than 7% of the property, etc., was going to get 50.5% of the land. It was unfair from the beginning.

This idea that the Palestinians care only about jihad and blah blah blah is also bulls***.

You think they fight Israel out of pure hatred for Jews? That they are born, then they just start hating Jews? I don't think you believe that. People like you have to tell yourself something so inanely moronic so that it justifies ANYTHING Israel does to them.

You should remember that during the 30s, 40s, the Zionist terror gangs were fighting the British. They too, committed acts of terrorism. They bombed the King David Hotel. They assassinated the UN representative. They committed countless atrocities. They were all pardoned by Israel later on. I think some of them went on to be elected into the government. Prime Ministers even...

Yet, people like YOU forget history and assume that the only people ever to use violence are Arabs.

Palestinians have ever right to fight off the invaders in their land (West Bank, Gaza). When you are surrounded by a military occupation; a violent military occupation - you can't expect to react non-violently.

I wonder what Zionists would say about the British occupation of India. Or about South African apartheid. Or about the IRA and Britain. Or about the Native Americans and the European colonists.

No matter how you spin the conflict. No matter how often you call Arabs, "jihadists" or "islamists" or any number of idiotic names to mask your own amoral judgments on the conflict, it's ISRAEL that kills 10 times as many children. Israel kills 5 times as many civilians.

Israel is occupying Palestine. Not the other way around. The record is public for anyone to see.

Are you saying that tossing missiles at random into Israeli lands is not immoral?

And, if you'll note, I'm not an American. I live in a country where Palestinians are generally seen more favorably than Israelis.

Did I say it? No.

Read my first post.

Your logic is shallow. Your moral outrage is shallow. Again, look at the casualties. Look at the history.

We called the Native Americans savages. Why? They fought back against the colonization of their lands. This is no different from the "terrorists."

They are not fighting Israel out of random hatred for Jews. That's just a propaganda line.

They are fighting for their home. Arabs were the majority in that region before and during the Zionist movement that led up to the formation of the State. If you lost your home wouldn't be inspired to fight? It's not SO alien to me. I don't think Americans would have gone down without a fight.

That's not to say, that it's ok to kill civilians. However, taking all the violence out of context is just pure propaganda and it IGNORES history and past conflicts of a similar nature.

You did exactly what I said you and people like you, would. You brought up a shallow aspect of the conflict. Israel is occupying Palestine. Israel subjects the Palestinians, both IN ISRAEL and in the OT, to racist laws. Abuse is daily. Apartheid is a fact of life. Deeming the Palestinians terrorists has nothing to do with right and wrong anymore.

People have the right to fight back against their invaders and their abusers.

The only argument you'll see is about "terrorism" - but then what does that say about Israel? Israel kills 10 times the children. 5 times the civilians. Locks up 1000 people, mostly children, without documentation or reason of crime. 10,000 Palestinians are currently jailed. Torture is regularly practiced. Etc. etc.

Demonizing Palestinians for reacting violently to this abuse is not only sanctimonious but it's pathological. You can't justify the occupation and the brutality which speaks for itself in the HUGE disparity in casualties so what do you do? You continue to drill on a buzzword, terrorism. In the post-9/11 world, terrorism means evil. Whatever the State does, whether it's us or our allies like Israel, is "good." Or "counter-terrorism."

[kattey]

To IdIdId

You are the one who is full of shjt.  You don't care about the history of the Holy Land of the Jews and Christians?  You have not made one sane argument to back up your views.  The Arab Palestinians were once one of the most educated people in the Middle East until Arafat came a long.  He and a succession of stupid Arab/Muslim leaders have turned their people into blithering idiots.  The Jews and the US support an Arab Palestinian state.  President Abbas is negotiating it and trying to remove Hamas.

Let them put their capital in Ramallah where they have their headquarters.  They don't have much time left to build their state, as the world is broke and all that foreign aid will turn into a trickle.  The extremists have already vandalized Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank.  Heaven help them if they damage any more Jewish and Christian religious sites.

[pyshnov]

Why can't *we* talk about Israel? - because mass media has overwhelmingly Jewish ownership and editorship. The mass media created the image of Israel that cannot be assaulted no matter what the reality is. As long as mass media remains in Jewish hands, Israel has no reason to stop its crimes.

The "justifications" for Israeli crimes are supplied by the Cult of Israel - a system of nationalistic concepts defying and abolishing civilized law. As every cult is, and as nazi cult was, it is shockingly one-sided. It is irrational. It is a sick offshoot of a religion. Think about it: every month Jewish God gives his chosen people more and more land. The war of the nazi cult lasted 5 years, the war of Jewish cult is continuing for 60 years. There apparently were more anti-nazi Germans than are now anti-Israeli Jews. Jews managed to spread the war on the entire Moslem population; millions are killed already. The Jewish dissidents are bared from enjoying life. As practically the only way of making living today for intelligentsia is employment, the Jews pursue and persecute every dissident, making them unemployable. Yet, the Jewish conspiracy, or any of its "achievements", is never exposed in the mass media.

Mass media protects Jewish Cult. It blames its opponents and the entire Moslem population of being anti-Semitic. It portrays Jews as gentler and kinder people persecuted by savages. The opposite is true: the culture of the Moslem world is in its product, in millions of volumes of books (they were burned in Bagdad), in uncountable objects in museums and still to be unearthed (now looted by occupation troops). Jewish culture, on the other side, always was extremely poor: Jews never created any material culture, there is nothing to be unearthed in places where Jews lived, except their calcified sh*t; the Jewish books were just a few.

One financial fraud after another, perpetrated by Jews, ranging from 50 billions to over 100 billions of dollars, being probably only a tip of the iceberg and probably totalling to that "missing" trillion of dollars or more, are now coming to light. Why Jews? The answer is only one: when Jews know they are above the law, they are encouraged to commit more crimes. Why now? They, it is my guess, expect to be pardoned by the departing President and are trying to come out before Christmas. This travesty is the inevitable result of the image of the "gentler and kinder" people, people fraudulently put beyond criticism. Ironically, but perfectly in accordance with the laws of human psychology, Jews today are the concentration of all that was bad in the Jewish character in the entire Jewish history.

[solly]

I have tried to resist becoming enmeshed in conspiracy theories. I tend to the opinion that a confluence of aims and interests governs media bias.
Yesterday however, after waking to the news of the appalling attack perpetrated by Israel on the civilian population of Gaza, which was item number one on Radio New Zealand, I turned to our national Daily.
The story was headlined but in the text, the dead were listed as "militants".
As someone who supports a fair deal for Palestine and has friends there, I searched for news on the net and found that one of the primary targets was a passing out parade of Police graduates and many of the other victims were civilians. The building next to the Police Academy was a school and the attack coincided with recess.

I then searched the American papers and found no reference to the story. Not one. It was 24 hours before the U.S. media took it up.

Needless to say, although this attack is a flagrant breach of Articles 32, (A protected person/s shall not have anything done to them of such a character as to cause physical suffering or extermination )  and 33, (No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.) ....of the Geneva Conventions, not one media outlet has mentioned this fact.

Can there be any other explanation for this astonishing news boycott?

Ira Chernus points out another vast gap in the media's coverage of Hamas here:

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1104-26.htm

Another Hamas Peace Plan Ignored

If you want to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a nutshell, just look at the New York Times editorial pages of November 1, 2006. Amazingly enough, the Times ran a full op-ed column by a top official of the Hamas party, Ahmed Yousef, a senior adviser to Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. Yousef repeated the same offer Hamas has been making for years. In Arabic it’s called a “hudna.”

As Yousef explained, a hudna is “a period of nonwar but only partial resolution of a conflict.” It “extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences.” A hudna “affords the opportunity to humanize one’s opponents and understand their position with the goal of resolving the intertribal or international dispute.”

......“This offer of hudna is no ruse, as some assert, to strengthen our military machine,” Yousef pleaded. And he offered several reasons to believe it: “A hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. . It goes back to the Koran itself. . When Hamas gives its word to an international agreement, it does so in the name of God and will therefore keep its word. Hamas has honored its previous cease-fires, as Israelis grudgingly note with the oft-heard words, ‘At least with Hamas they mean what they say.’”

......And the Israeli public relations machinery is working as effectively as ever to shape U.S. public opinion, too. The latest Hamas offer of hudna, like the ones before it, have been totally ignored in the U.S. media. If Israel had offered a radical new peace plan for the Middle East, it would have been headline news everywhere. But Ahmed Yousef's proposal got absolutely zero coverage. So very few Americans are even aware that the Palestinians have once again tried to push open the door to peace, only to have the Israelis slam it shut again.

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of "American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea" and "Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin." Email to: chernus@colorado.edu.

Israel claims that this ghastly attack is in response to Hamas refusing to renew the six month truce that has just expired yet it admits it has been in the planning for six months. During that six months, Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza that rivals the Warsaw Ghetto in its severity, causing widespread malnutrition. These are also matters that get no attention in the U.S. press.

One is forced to the conclusion that the public is deliberately being deprived of information.

[helpful]

 I agree the news media has skewed press coverage,. For example, they keep talking about Hamas having 'seized power'. This is revisionist. Hamas was elected in a democratic government in Gaza. Even a commentator on Meet the Press today acknowledged this. Hamas did kick out the Fatah people in Gaza, but that is not a seizure of power when they have been democratically elected.

However, and this is a big however, Hamas has done absolutely nothing to curb the rocket attacks on civilians in Israel. Solly, if you want Israel to adhere to international covenants, so should Hamas. They should be curbing the Islamic Jihad people who are shooting rockets into civlian areas, willy nilly, in Israel.

[solly]

The rockets are always a difficult one for me. I must ask myself what I would do if, in 1944, the Japanese had succeeded in invading my country and now, sixty years later, were subsidizing their people to settle here, having forced my countrymen into a small corner of what was once my land. I cannot escape the conclusion that resistance would be viewed by my people as heroic. We even revere those who knowingly gave their lives during WWII in suicidal missions.

That aside, why do the Palestinians continue to fire rockets?

On the face of it, the weakest nation in the World firing rockets at one of the strongest would seem to be the action of madmen. So why do it?

For decades, Israel’s policy has been to subsidize immigrants to go settle in occupied territory. This is called “creating facts on the ground” and is a War Crime under the Geneva Convention - see:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/boyle.html
It has been going on for a long time:

“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu’a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
-Moshe Dayan, April 1969.

Palestinians have only one way to slow this process down and that is to counter the Israeli Government’s subsidies and incentives by making settlement appear to be a hazardous enterprise and discouraging further settlement. Hence the rockets. Long-term observers will note that whenever a truce or concession is granted by Israel, the pace of settlement goes up. In this way, Israel uses settlers as an instrument of War.
Rightly or wrongly, Palestinians do not see settlers as innocent civilians, they see them as complicit in a War Crime.

In the final analysis, how much of a nuisance are the rockets?

Here are the casualty statistics since September 2,000.

123 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,050 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis.

1,062 Israelis and at least 4,876 Palestinians have been killed (includes military).

8,341 Israelis and 33,034 Palestinians have been injured.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

The numbers of Palestinian deaths and injuries inflicted by settlers on the West Bank far outweighs the casualties of rocket attacks. The damage to buildings caused by Israeli bulldozers likewise overwhelms that of Palestinian rockets. I suggest that there is more than sufficient parity here to satisfy Israel without resorting to this latest massacre.

The story of Hamas' power struggle with Fatah is an interesting one. I strongly recommend this article:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804

[helpful]

Sorry, you cannot equate the West Bank settlements with cities like Ashdod and Ashkelon.

I agree Israeli retaliation is disproportionate.

I just don't agree with you that Hamas and Islamic Jihad should be falling into Israeli strategy around the Palestinians. The PLO on the West Bank has been making some progress, and so have the Syrians, in negotiating with the Israeli government. Does the PLO want a Bibi government which will be worse than Livni  or a Labor government. Hamas is going to elect Bibi to the Israeli government and the situation will be worse, not better, for the Palestinians.

I would respect your opinions if you would also condemn the indiscriminate rocket attacks that Hamas is permitting, and even promoting. These rockets aren't even targetting the Israeli military! They can not be aimed accurately.

[pyshnov]

The bombing of Gaza is a new kind of event. It seems clear this time that Israel not only doesn't care for people believing in its "justifications", but actually wants people to see (finally) that there are no justifications. There is no mistery in this strategy, this strategy was, since time immemorial, called a provocation.

Israel has a problem: its solders, also, no longer believe the "justifications", and they showed it in the last war in Lebanon, they had no desire to get involved. So, now Israel will send reservists into Gaza, for that much needed training.