Bruce, you started the thread saying that "if Israeli rockets had done this, there would be loud screams of protest: I hear a lot of silence...."

You only need to read the national Israeli paper Haaretz to see the range of conflicting views from within Israel about the current war.

Israeli historian Tom Segev argued that a flawed assumption has accompanied the Zionist movement since its inception, and that is the belief that military strikes against the Palestinians will "teach them a lesson". He describes the flawed assumptions behind military policy this way "We are the representatives of progress and enlightenment, sophisticated rationality and morality, while the Arabs are a primitive, violent rabble; ignorant children who must be educated and taught wisdom … The bombing of Gaza is also supposed to 'liquidate the Hamas regime', in line with another [Zionist] assumption: that it is possible to impose a 'moderate' leadership on the Palestinians, one that will abandon their national aspirations."

Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad operative turned commentator, has commented that the treatment of Gaza has not manipulated the Palestinians into hating Hamas, but has probably been counter-productive. It is just useless collective punishment.

it took a week of relentless air attacks and the death of about 400 Gazans before Israel could name a single Hamas victim of standing.

Within Israel, there is despair, exhaustion, anger, but there is debate. The former head of the Mossad intelligence service, Ephraim Halevy, argues that it is in Israel's interest to negotiate with Hamas. Yossi Alpher agrees that as a strategic approach to Hamas, the offer to talk and recognise is a viable option which has not been taken.

But the hardline Binyamin Netanyahu wants a second stint as prime minister, and there's an election coming up. Netanyahu says that not only will he not talk to Hamas, but that the present military operation should be expanded to wipe it out of existence.