Israel claims that it is acting in the interests of its citizens and that it is just defending itself, but if that was the real motivation of the Israeli government it would stop the decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people, not make the situation even worse. That brutal oppression is what has made ordinary Palestinian people so desperate and angry that they will turn to violence and support groups like Hamas - they think that they have nothing else; they don't see any government making any real effort to challenge the Israeli government over its illegal actions.

I'm sure that if what happens to the Palestinians happened to us, some of us would be firing rockets at the country that did it too. I don't think that Iraeli and Palestinian violence are the same - the two come from very different places, have different motivatons. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank go through horrendous things every day at the hands of the Israeli government and see no end in sight, whereas Israelis live pretty much like we do.

If the Israeli government wants to stop the violence coming from Palestine then it should stop treating the Palestinians as if they are less than human, and the Israeli government knows that. The fact that the Israeli government has the full backing of the Bush administration in this matter speaks volumes.