I'm gonna start this with a shout-out to Bearded Bruce who is acquitting himself nobly in a noble and worthwhile cause, taking upon himself the slings and arrows of outraged self-righteousness on the part of many others. BB, It's twenty below zero outside and I'm reading this thread in order to get my temperature up. I appreciate what you've got to say and for the most part agree with it. It's a shame some of the folks in this thread have chosen to treat you with condescension, but buck up. They didn't say anything for the Tutsis, for the oppressed of Darfur, for the Georgians, for Baghdadi Shiites, but let a Hamas leader get killed while in the bowels of his family, all hell breaks loose. I''d rather not follow that line of thought much further, it'll get me depressed and bring down the temperature.

Without getting into the name-blame bizness, I'm duty bound to alert y'all of the usual: Some of you might not like Israel being there, but it's there, it's a real country for several generations now, and it wishes to protect its borders and citizens. It's the only democratic country in the area, (except Iraq and Afganistan for the time being). If this causes you tsores, look elsewhere for sympathy. I'm proud as hell of Israel and what it has accomplished in sixty years.

One person maintained that Hamas honored their cease-fire commitments, even when they were firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian parts of Israel, as they have been doing throughout the recent unpleasantness. This is patently untrue and simply a means of taking sides irrespective of whatEVER Hamas does. It is perhaps true that Hamas honored the truce by Hamas terms. Just as Two years ago Hamas was executing members of Fatah in the streets and publicly taking apart, literally, folks accused of being collaborators. Peace, government, justice on Hamas terms.

Israel could just be bombing Gaza into the stone age. Instead they are sending their men into harms' way. This happened in Ramallah in 2002 and there was a lot of bleating about it, without a critical view of many of the claims being made about Palestinian casualties, which proved to be overstated and phony.

A poster above only counts Palestinian alleged child casualties and defines everything based on that. They must've been a real wildman during the Rwandan massacres.

Another would be more at ease if only the Israelis were suffering more casualties. Somehow that make it more palatable to this person. I think it is disgusting. It's bad enough that any children are in harm's way, but it would do far more to justice to review WHY they are in harm's way and who put them there.

Rocket after rocket has pounded into Israeli communities for years. This is under Hamas direct oversight and is part of Hamas policy. Hamas policy is not merely one of land for Palestinians, It is juden raus. Why is it that Israel has Christian and Muslim citizens but Jews and Christians are not equals in most Arab countries? If you are accused of trying to convert a Muslim or of defaming Mohammed your life is in jeopardy. And to repeat what Bearded Bruce and a few others have said cogently and correctly, why is it that Israel must resettle displaced Jews AND displaced Arabs?

Abba Eban famously said: "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Israel marched out of Gaza pretty much unilaterally three years ago. There was opportunity with a capital "O". Is the situation we see now caused by Israel or Hamas? I see it as unequivically Hamas.

FWIW, among the crowd I work with, comments run the absolute reverse of many on this thread. It's been intimated that I'm a Palestinian lover, to which I reply, "What do you mean, I AM a Palestinian!" The whole problem is the folks who refuse to see me as one, too!"

Robomatic, proud ZIONIST, proud Palestinian