On one hand, that chart's pretty convincing.

On the other hand, remind me of the point of war? I believe they've launched roughly the same missiles at each other. If two gangs are in a gunfight do we hate the gang with better aim more?

(intentionally not touching the hospital issue, which is terrible. I probably believe Israel that Hamas was launching from hospitals, but it sure seems like bad choice to bomb them anyway)

What was the point this is article was trying to make?

that there are different death tolls on each side? That Israel is bad? That the Palestinians are bad? That the conflict can't be unpacked in a blog post?

The only reason there's such a disparity in the death toll is that Israel has an effective missile defense system, and Hamas doesn't. Apparently Hamas doesn't care about their own people, or they wouldn't keep lobbing rockets into Israel and inviting retaliation they are ill prepared to stop.

Slog is about advertising revenue.
Discussion about Israel/Palestine is always good for controversy.
Controversy leads to more readers/comments.
More readers/comments yields higher advertising income.
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Who said war is not good for capitalism?

THIS IS COMPLICATED SO WE SHOULDN'T EVEN TRY TO DISCUSS IT!

And then there's this ass-hat: http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/288…

Ironic since the first objective of Hamas is to kill and terrorize civilians (even their own) while Israel shows admirable restraint. Can you imagine if your silly religion and hatred of Jews was so pathological that it made you believe attacking ISRAEL was a good idea? That somehow something good would come from that? Surprise surprise! Israel will defend itself. Well.

I hate discussing this b/c if I appear at the least any sympathetic to Palestinians to any Zionist, I'm labeled as anti-semitic. So I've given up.

Maybe the Palestinians should get some advice from the Germans?

/too soon?
//*ducks*

the suffering and death have become abstract to me.

the situation is intractable, I have no power to change US policy towards either side. Israel will complete it's military campaign when its aims are complete, or not, and we'll go back to the status quo. when I was young I though Camp David would change things, but things have just become worse. I have no hope they'll ever get better. a pox on both their houses.

perhaps Israel should drive Gazans into the sea and absorb the territory. it would solve half their problem. it works for Putin.

"I have no power to change US policy towards either side."

@10.
oh I hope Fnarf doesn't read what you wrote. I get the impression he thinks he can change every single aspect of humanity. His surgically precise opinion based on history and current facts, it's astonishing, don't you think? Should we maintain support of his passionate determination, or lean more to the 'it's all in vain' category?

Well said, Dom.

For me, there's a difference between being a Zionist and being a Likudnik. I support Israel's right to exist and its right to defend against attacks, but I believe that it must act with consideration and decency in military matters. Sending a missile into Gaza for every missile sent into Israel proper is a ridiculous game of punchies given the existence of the Iron Dome.

like a snake eating it's own tail, this shit will never end and I no longer give a fuck. Next.

@3,

Israelis also have bomb shelters while Palestinians don't.

In a hospital. At the beach. Hamas, Israel tells us, is hiding among civilians | theguardian.com

@16 . . . thank you.

@14's right. Instead of investing in underground shelters, Hamas has underground armament tunnels. They're receiving Iranian and Syrian arms through tunnels from Egypt, and they've been sending missiles into Israel since Hamas was "elected" in Gaza.

I'm still waiting for someone to answer this question -- a direct answer, to a direct question: what would you expect the US to do if Mexico (which used to own a number of US states) started sending missiles in those particular states? Like California, Texas, etc. -- every state that borders on Mexico. Would we simply ignore it?

I also get the fury at seeing my government, the US, funding and arming Israel while it causes most of this bloodshed.

Yes. Time to go neutral on this conflict and let Israel self-fund the military they're so proud of.

Where are the riots in Paris over the deaths in Syria and Iraq?

@sarah70: The Israelis and Palestinians can continue their land dispute for another 10,000 years as far as I'm concerned.

I just don't want to pay for it.

I guess things would likely be a lot better if there were more Israeli casualties. Let's not talk about how Hamas *wants* their people to be casualties. It makes for much better media coverage and ensuing sympathies. Let's not reveal how Hamas spends all their resources devoted to sending rockets anywhere in Israel (they don't care as long as it causes havoc... and if it happens to kill a few Israelis so much the better.) Hamas is great on sending rockets into Israel. They are not so cool about providing bomb shelters for their citizens because they would rather have them martyred for their cause (which is the destruction of Israel.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew…

Did you see that Palestinians are strapping bombs to Donkeys now?
Fucking savages.

two things to note:
1. Hamas is not Palestine. Hamas is in fact Lebanon-borne. In fact I think they basically used force and terrorism to beat the PLO in getting control of Palestine. I could be wrong of course.
2. A saying an Arab Israeli colleague from years ago said to me privately was that "Israelis will stop you when you kick a dog, but will join you when you kick a Palestinian" This has always proven true.

Didn't Hamas use violence and threats of violence to achieve their position of power in Palestine? Does that make them the legitimate 'voice of the people?' As for the article having a point: sometimes people like to give other people information and let them make decisions on their own. Normally, this means they consider those people intelligent and worthy of respect. Obviously a misanthrope would have problems with that approach. Let's hope the misanthropes stay out of the discussion.

Donny you're out of your element! Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!

"29 of whom were soldiers" Yes, killed after Israel sent ground troops into Gaza. You are blaming Palestinians for their deaths? How many ground troops does Palestine have in Israel?

Let's see... Hamas was elected in an internationally recognized election years ago (after the U.S. and Israel exhorted Palestinians to stand up for themselves and enact democratic rule). When Hamas won the election (in part, because they provided food to people), the U.S. and Israel immediately reversed their call for democracy (sounds familiar... Egypt?) by insisting that Hamas did not represent the whole people of Palestine. Then, when Hamas tried to form a coalition government, Israel said they would not deal with terrorists.

What else... what else... oh yeah: Israel has been an occupying country for no fewer than 40 years, in direct conflict with international treaties and U.N. resolutions. European leaders (mostly England and France) and the U.S. promised the land of one people to another early in the 20th century, facilitated the slaughter of the residents and displacement of others, supports and equips the army which kills one side at the rate of at least 100:1, and seeks to impose restrictions on a people generally which exacerbate the suffering of millions living (often born) in a refugee camp surrounded by openly hostile military forces of a country currently run by a war criminal with the slaughter of about 1400 civilians in a different refugee camp as his prime early-career achievement...

And our taxes go to pay for this travesty? Hobby Lobby, eat a turd.

Let's see... Hamas was elected in an internationally recognized election years ago (after the U.S. and Israel exhorted Palestinians to stand up for themselves and enact democratic rule). When Hamas won the election (in part, because they provided food to people), the U.S. and Israel immediately reversed their call for democracy (sounds familiar... Egypt?) by insisting that Hamas did not represent the whole people of Palestine. Then, when Hamas tried to form a coalition government, Israel said they would not deal with terrorists.

What else... what else... oh yeah: Israel has been an occupying country for no fewer than 40 years, in direct conflict with international treaties and U.N. resolutions. European leaders (mostly England and France) and the U.S. promised the land of one people to another early in the 20th century, facilitated the slaughter of the residents and displacement of others, supports and equips the army which kills one side at the rate of at least 100:1, and seeks to impose restrictions on a people generally which exacerbate the suffering of millions living (often born) in a refugee camp surrounded by openly hostile military forces of a country currently run by a war criminal with the slaughter of about 1400 civilians in a different refugee camp as his prime early-career achievement...

And our taxes go to pay for this travesty? Hobby Lobby, eat a turd.

@32 That's pretty dumb. Of course I would. Are you suggesting all egyptians are rapists? Would you feel comfortable taking your African American (or Jewish, heck, or Catholic) family members through 18th century America? Probably not, unless you took precautions and understood your surroundings. Were the early pilgrims (who believed in religious autocracy) "ready" for democracy? Since you put the question first: who is to determine a peoples' "worthiness" for democracy? I would suggest, you first need to be a democracy to make such a judgment.

@34 You are not making sense. If you have something profound to offer (even profoundly stupid), then say it. Don't pull the stereoptypically BS Seattle passive-aggressive crap. Say something, for the love of god, say something! At least, something that is not overtly racist.

Well, there you go. Impose completely arbitrary conditions before you deem a people good enough for a democratic-type system. Good luck with your list of requirements. Does it matter if the food surpluses are supported by government subsidies?

And your supposition is still nonsensical as it does not provide a scenario other than "your female family is somewhere in Egypt... what do you do?" Is my female family nude, frollicking among the streets of Cairo? Or, do they have their heads out of their asses and understand that decorum (and good sense) requires different behavior in different circumstances? Or, maybe you're Einstein reincarnate and are performing thought experiments?

England runs a food deficit, are they worthy of democracy? Japan runs a food deficit, are they worthy? Or, perhaps those are not democracies to you.

I've traveled through 18 countries and every single one of them had different rules and customs. No sane person would assume that the actions one takes in country A will perfectly work in country B. Cultural adjustments are required.

When I visited Israel last year, the most memorable quote I heard (said by a Palestinian) was, "Palestine will win in the end, because the Jews love live, and we love death."

I don't understand why being anti-Israel and anti-Palestine isn't an acceptable position. Is everyone pretending that Hamas just hangs out there and nobody can get rid of them gosh darn it? Both sides have pieces of shit for leadership.

Fuck the death tolls. Everything is Israel is doing is meant to hurt civilians. Israel is attacking electrical supply, water sanitation, hospitals and leaving families homeless. Who do you think will die as a result? The children. The most recent generation of Gazans won't survive this genocide and Gazans will avoid having kids in the future for fear of the same sort of atrocity.

Congratulations Israel, in 20 years, Gaza will be ethnically cleansed.

Fuck the death tolls. Everything is Israel is doing is meant to hurt civilians. Israel is attacking electrical supply, water sanitation, hospitals and leaving families homeless. Who do you think will die as a result? The children. The most recent generation of Gazans won't survive this genocide and Gazans will avoid having kids in the future for fear of the same sort of atrocity.

Congratulations Israel, in 20 years, Gaza will be ethnically cleansed.

Isn't it hilarious when people say all kinds of smart stuff but just... can't... seem.. to put two fucking words together in a row so that figuratively literal mental contortions are the only way to extract some slobber of meaning?

Thank you for clarifying your preferred method of mass judgment. It makes me wonder what conceivable confab could withstand your withering assessment.

Really bad stuff happens all the time when large, angry mobs gather together for the common purpose of expressing their anger. Sometimes the outcome benefits the angry mob, thereby transforming its opportunists into enlightened leaders of a new age. Other times, the outcome does not benefit the angry mob.

The topic is whether or not airstrikes and bombardments followed by a ground invasion are proportional and justified responses to the indiscriminate rocket launches originating in the Gaza strip. Before and after the most recent ground invasion, as in every previous ground invasion and holding generally for airstrikes, people-military or otherwise-die by the hundreds on one side for every individual killed on the other.

They should just get together and divide it in half on the map with a ruler and thereby push the resolution onto the next generation, in respect of tradition. With Israel's burgeoning drone fleet, wouldn't it be something if some computer virus got in there and exterminated the entire Palestinian population? That would be crazy.

@33. Straight talk.

@41, haha. 46 was for you, too.

Crappy, obscure band lyrics aside, nice addendum. I'd like to hear your theory of the "market."

And your examples, what are they? Last time I checked, not only is jolly England under the direction of a parlimentary system with some conceivable tie-breaking powers reserved for the Crown's living representative but Japan was basically the same.

Just... say... something other than blah blah blah. Oblique references to improperly characterized or misunderstood memes do not good sense make!

The Arabs have been killing Israelis since Zionists first returned to Israel.

I agree: if the Mexicans were lobbing rockets into Texas and California and New Mexico, I think we might, just might, fight back.

Heh, alright! You almost got to a point, but instead just appealed to other people's work. Nice, quick wikipedia action.

I'm pretty sure Egyptians could farm. Thanks to your neighborhood market idea, they'd have a good place to sell it, too. You make it all sound so simple, I'm envious. It's funny how the market works.

What are you getting at? Are you trying to say that the people of Egypt deserve to starve to death and are not worthy of your democracy because they refuse to rise up from their gang-raping chains and establish a constitutional democracy in 6 weeks because the coverage on CNN was so hot? We're back in charge there, in case you did not get that, so you should be quite happy that we are continuing our decades-long quest of spreading democracy there with the soft hand.

"[T]hey might not be able to decide what is good for them? [sic]" That's a good one, great leader.

It's a bit of a catch-22 you've set up, don't you think? They can't survive without foreign humanitarian aid because their brutal, corrupt, and indifferent dictator siphons it away for his hookers, bombs, and blow so they're not worthy of the democratic institutions which will enable them to overthrow their brutal and corrupt dictator so they don't need foreign aid. They give it the college try, get one guy out of office, institute another governing body. We change that body. Status quo ante returned. Well done, Dawkins.

It's their genetics, is that it? The Egyptian people are genetically inferior, as evidenced by their inability to grow enough god-damned food to feed their own selves, and are as a result unworthy of the enlightenment democracy and free-fucking-markets brings to freedom-loving people everywhere!

I'm starting to see where you're coming from. Meet around back the ol' clock tower on 77th just past the time the big hand touches the little hand. The code is knock knock knock-knock-knock. Instructions to follow. Tell no one.

You should throw Ayn Rand in there while you're at it. No, scrap that. The Project for a New American Century called and they want you on their staff.

One side defends their civilian population at great expense, the other side doesn't evacuate buildings when the Israelis CALL THEIR PHONES to tell them they're going to get bombed.

Are there individuals who are probably acting dangerously on the Israeli side, leading to casualties? I'm sure. On the other hand, it's hard to stand up for a side that hid 20+ rockets in a place that was supposed to be neutral... And did it again.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-de…

@53 I take that as a great compliment. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

And to the rockets in schools. Was it the civilian population that put them there? Did the school children? Zero Israelis died from rocket fire. When the ground invasion started, the tally was approximately 230 to 1, with the one being mortar fire. Does one death justify a ground invasion?

Why not try actually engaging in legitimate grievance discussions instead of the sham Peace Process. The U.S. and Israel have deliberately sabotaged that wet noodle enough to warrant its discontinuance.

No preconditions, shouts the Israeli government, except these ones that we demand. That's how every "negotiation" has gone thus far since the very first land grab.

So many people here are trying to justify this slaughter by saying that Hamas is a bunch of terrorists who are receiving weapons from Iran and therefore get what they deserve.

That's crap. Israel is an occupying force engaged in the systematic extermination of the Palestinian people through campaigns of collective punishment against a civilian population of 1.8 million jammed into a space the size of the City of Seattle. Do the occupied people not have a right to defend themselves against the transgressions of their oppressors? Apartheid ring a bell?

America supposedly always stands up for the oppressed. 1 dead compared to 232 does not sound like a just basis for killing another 500, some of whom, admittedly, launched wholly ineffective, practically home-made rockets randomly in the direction of Tel Aviv.

If Hamas were a serious threat, lots more Israelis would be dead. They're a feckless political institution reduced to pathetic braggadaccio and sinister contrivances. It's a refugee camp. Has been for decades.

Refugee. Camp.

And these "if Mexico attacked us, you're damn right we'd shoot back. 'Merica! Remember the Alamo!" comments are a ludicrous joke.

Palestinians, Irish, *shrug* whats the difference. It'll work itself out in the end. Till then we can boil babies.

Repeatedly shelling a hospital is not very different than shooting an airliner out of the sky. Despicable hypocrites.

@62 - I am sure the patients had everything to do with weapons being stored wherever they were. Barbaric asshole.

@45, Quite the contrary. Everything Hamas does is meant to kill Palestinian civilians. They know their POS rockets will do nothing but incite rightful retaliation from Israel. So why fire them, or hide them in neighborhoods teeming with civilians? In order to have Palestinians killed, and thus wake up the sleeping antisemitism in the world -- wagging the fucking dog (you).

Derrr.

@60 Haha, you sick fuck. That is the point. THIS IS NOT WAR, IT IS SLAUGHTER.

And, hell, at least half of the rest of you just have this truly despicable reflex to blame the victims here-frequently children. How often have you said something like: "That slut shouldn't have been wearing that short skirt anyway!"

How is it that none of you Israeli military apologists recognize the total falsity of the Israel-Palestine conflict?

Israel's policy towards the people whose land it has stolen and occupied in contravention to international agreements (btw, Israel does not recognize any definition of torture, despite being found by the International Criminal Court to have engaged in systematic regimens of torture) is: stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself...

Life is very cheap with this crowd of superior beings.

@69

ran out of things to say, huh? bummer.

@69 Ah, yes. The last refuge of the scoundrel.

Have I said anything even remotely of that sort? If so, please provide the words I used.

1. Israel is a country and cannot be "killed."
2. The people of Israel have the right to be heard and there are many voices outside the ultra-conservative gov't who have, for decades, been calling for meaningful talks with the representatives of the people who's land Israel has stolen and continues to steal. The Israeli gov't tends to label such people terrorist-sympathizers.
3. Israel has prevented as best as it can the formation of any sort of unified Palestinian gov't while simultaneously saying it cannot talk to any "head" of Palestine who does not represent the people of Palestine as a whole.

What I am saying is that human life has worth, despite the actions of the United States and Israel in relation to Palestine (for starters). And that the popular delusion of viewing each invasion of Palestine as a singular episode unrelated from the long string of history is highly dishonest, ignorant, racist, and arrogant.

Statements such as yours, "Say what you mean," belie any or all of utter ignorance, blind faith in a book of fairy tales (ala, Chosen People retaking the land they were promised under the direction to slaughter those found there, etc.), moral depravity worthy of Pol Pot, or plain ol' fashioned bigotry.

The political entity known as Israel is a fabrication of meddling western powers. We can no more undo that egregious overreach than we can alleviate the suffering of Palestinians by giving free helicopters to Israel.

Please try not to forget that those rockets coming from Gaza strip... are being fired at the rightful homes of the people firing those rockets. Maybe that explains why they are so ineffective: they don't what to blow up their own houses. Every day, Israel continues its international crimes of land-grabbing (there's a nice aquifer under those lands, remember!) among others. I understand that firing rockets indiscriminately is also against the U.N. conventions. In the instant matter, Palestine's war crimes have killed zero people. Zero. None. Zilch. Nada. Israel's have killed at least 700, some of whom were "Hamas militants" judged unworthy of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

Do yourself a favor and read a book or ten and get out of the house once in a while. While you're at it, take a look at the numbers of Palestinian dead over the decades and compare it to the number of Israeli dead.

Then ask yourself, frankly, are Palestinian lives truly, actually, and honestly worth less than yours or mine or an Israeli's. Scratch that, narrow the question: put 230 dead Palestinians on one side of your scale of justice (don't forget the women and children playing on the beach) and put the 1 dead Israeli (from mortar fire) on the other side. Is the pound of flesh the same for both sides? Since the ground invasion more than 500 additional dead Palestinians (some, militants) and about 40 dead Israeli *soldiers.*

The vanity activism of the stranger is hilarious. Go spend some time in Tel Aviv and see if you're still ok with sitting by while someone tries to murder your children. Just because one side is willing to use their children as shields it doesn't mean the other should stop shooting if that same group is going to kill theirs when they do.

@71
Got a question for you. (Kind of a trick question.)
Are New Zealand and Australia (and the USA & Canada) in fact legitimate nations?

A nice tourist ride in a helicopter as a show of good faith might be a start to a new age of negotiations. Good idea.

@72 That's the kind of bullshit response I'd expect from Fox or ABC or NBC or CNN or MSNBC or the BBC or some other hackneyed propaganda machine. You're trying to say that it is illegitimate to express an opinion on a subject without "actually being there" and that's garbage. There's lots of information out there if you look for it. The dehumanization of the Palestinian people is a disgrace. And it continues because assholes like you jump all over anyone who says anything other than the standard talking points.

Human shields? Where should these people go? Can they go to Israel to a badass refugee camp to escape the bloodshed? No, because they are already in one the size of Seattle with three times as many people.

Tell me, when Israel shot a missile at that United Nations school with all those children in it, how long had it been since a rocket was launched from near there? Then, after you've done that, ask yourself how many women and children had been killed by all of the thousands of rockets launched from Gaza since the ceasefire was broken by Israel again. Then compare that number to the women and children killed in that school that day, then do that ten times a day.

@73 That's a meaningless question.

I guess that's what happens when you vote Hamas in to be your leadership. Also, I'll bet Israel wouldn't have to "target" hospitals if Hamas would quit installing rocket launchers there.

@24- You eat meat? Yes?

Then why the hell do you care if a donkey is used as a bomb delivery system? You do something just as savage to an animal every time you have a meal.

As if to prove my point over and again, @82 repeats the same line as @72, which is the same line as @69, which is the same line as @64, which is the same as

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/tr…

and every other willfully blind supporter of indiscriminate death and slaughter.

Compare the above to: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/23/ms…

@83 That's quite a derail and bait by both of you but I'll bite: how is consuming another living thing for sustenance the same as using another living thing to kill MORE living things?

@ 79 it's quite clear you hate Israel, do you also hate gay rights, science and such? Because hamas wants to not only outlaw so many things we hold dear here, but kill whoever is involved in such things, during my trips to Israel I have observed hundreds of acts of compassion by the israelis towards the very people that are trying to kill them now, unlike yourself I can honestly say I have been to Israel and have a true grasp of whats going on. Just out of curiosity how many warnings does hamas give Israel before it fires it's rockets?

I see so if more Jews died, that would be acceptable?

Why is Israel being held to a higher standard that ANY OTHER COUNTRY on earth?

Also, find it interesting that you all are IGNORING the blood bath that is happening in Syria and Iraq by ISIS.

is this an asymmetry in character or an asymmetry in capacity?

to end WW2 and signal a price for prospective future wars, we nuked Japan and killed even more with firebombings. Israel has a lot of enemies nearby, including actors like Assad and ISIS who misbehave very severely. Israel will refresh its reputation as a house that stacks the odds, so as to dissuade future gamblers

supply-sid elgoic has always been lost on ya'll

Fuck 'em both, they deserve each other.

It's past time for the US to disassociate and disentangle itself from this mess. Stop giving Israel money, stop constantly trying to get Netanyahu into a peace negotiation he's clearly not interested in. Our continued involvement does nothing to help our national interest and everything to hurt it.

Hamas is horrible, and Israel could be worse, but that doesn't excuse the expansion of settlements on stolen Palestinian land, nor does it justify the oppression and killing of Palestinian civilians. I'm sick of the "double standard" argument. it makes about as much sense as a mugger arguing that he shouldn't be prosecuted because he's not a rapist and why aren't you prosecuting rapists instead, nevermind that you actually did go after a rapist just last week, and most rapists are impossible to convict, but you have rock-solid evidence that this guy did, in fact, commit a mugging.

There's no good reason for American tax dollars to be subsidizing these horrors. Cut the aid spigot, already.

@91 Thank you.

@86 That's a flatly idiotic thing to say and cretins such as you, seeking to throw false labels around to deceive, are a great disappointment. Show me where I've indicated Hamas is doing a great job over there... You belong on Sean Hannity, a person obviously held in high esteem in your heart since your imitation of him is so accurate and precise and your astonishing disregard for human life is indicative of serious emotional problems for which you should seek psychiatric counseling.

I am able to separate actions from persons, are you? Since when is the gov't of Israel the spokesperson for all Israelis? I'm pretty sure that is why political parties exist.

and @87, are you joking? A "higher standard" than the rest of the world? First, please identify the "standard" you're talking of, then indicate the "standard" to which the rest of the world is held. What you probably meant to say was "free pass." You must be very young if your memory is that short. It's ok, ignorance is not a flaw.

@ 93 the people of Israel support the IDF in case you haven't been paying attention, there will always be anti violence parties in in nation, that doesn't mean they are rational( much like yourself) you are clearly so anti Israel that any attempt at trying to get you to look at things objectively would be moot. you cant even offer a response to a simple question before throwing around insults.

@85- Yeah, it's pretty off topic but what the heck.

The point is killing a donkey with a giant explosion is no worse to the animal then killing it with a stun bolt. Using a donkey to deliver a giant explosion is no worse to the people getting killed, maimed and injured than it is to use a rocket.

@94 Of course some people support the killing of Palestinians. Propaganda is a powerful thing. That's also entirely beside the point. Whether people support killing children or not, it is not justifiable. Tell me what's rational about your position of wholesale slaughter of a population under siege living in a refugee camp? Does it make you feel like a man to say "Israel ain't gonna take no shit from no one!"

You're damn right I get hot about this topic, but you mistake that for irrationality, which is typical of a zealot. More than 1000 people have died on one side and fewer than 100 on the other. That kind of slaughter is unconscionable and it's sociopathic to suggest an unmitigated right to slaughter civilians. I'm starting to suspect you're the head of Sean Hannity's fan club. It's true, isn't it?

Your leap of faith that I hate Israel is disingenuous and laughable. No matter how many times you say it, it will not become true. What I hate is what the gov't of Israel is DOING. I also hate that Hamas is propagating this farce by firing rockets into Israel, knowing that no strategic advantage can come of it. Offsetting one war crime with another does not justify either.

As @88 observed, look back in history and you'll see that the United States is the greatest terrorist of all time, and continues to be (world domination, anyone?), so it's no surprise we support the violence against civilians in Gaza. I didn't answer your question because it rests on a false premise-that bombing a school or a hospital or an orphanage is ever justifiable. Don't forget, now, that those weapons Hamas is hiding (according to official Likud spokespersons) are impotent.

In your munificence and compassion, how much warning would you give before bombing a nursery or a school or a hospital?