quote:


I see no army. I see fanatics with machine guns and explosives, but no army. An army is a state organisation, but I don't even see a state.

Israel can't have it both ways. Either they're fighting a war against a state (which they do not want to exist, at least in a form which can jeopardise Israeli security) or they are fighting terrorism, in which case the people who are in their territory come under their care and responsibility.

Dropping a one tonne bomb on civilians, in a civilain area, is the behaviour I'd expect of a terrorist group like Hamas, not the Israeli government.
Dave, this is what I'd like to see you answer.

The Israeli government are behaving as despicably as the people they describe as terrorists.

I saw footage of the apartment block on BBC World this morniing. It was a heavily populated area, and there can be no doubt that an F-18 dropping a one tonne bomb on such an area would result in extreme civilian casualties.

Can the Israeli government really say that it did not calculate that deaths of innocents would result? Either they are stupid, which I do not believe, or they were cold-blooded and did not care.

Nine children were sleeping in their beds, and are now dead because Sharon authorised this inhumane assassination attempt.

The only distinction between the terrorist group Hamas (whose actions in killing civilians, you'll note, I have not condoned) and the Israeli government is that the Israelis have US weapons.

Indiscriminately killing children is terrorism. If Hamas had done it, you'd be condemning it. Because Israel has done it, you're excusing it.

A spokeswoman for Peace Now, an Israeli peace movement, said the attacks must have been designed to de-rail the peace program, and that the signs that Hamas were willing to suspend suicide bombers have now been obliterated.

I suspect that the Israeli government follows your reasoning to a great degree, Dave. Preoccupied by a paranoid siege mentality, driven by the ghosts of the past, they are incapable of accepting that a peace is possible: they proactively turn on signs that a peace is possible and scuttle those plans, and seek to rebuff the publicly delivered peace proposal delivered by the Saudis (and thereby humiliate them into not doing it again).