Soccer Dad

If you want insight into this issue, I'll be happy to help. You, like many guilty parties, point to the misdeeds of the other side as if it somehow justifies your own evils. I've seen this over the last week in the U.S. - "But the terrorists have no problem beheading journalists, so why do you have a problem with us torturing them?" Or "How would the three thousand Americans murdered on 9-11 feel about torturing P.O.W.s?" Ultimately, however, these are just the product of uneasy guilt. Why does Israel get the negative attention? Over 450 innocent Palestinian children killed in Operation Cast Lead. "What about the Jewish children murdered by Hamas rockets?" Do you see it? If, to fight the terrorists, you become just like them, they have unequivocally won. The Palestinians are trapped in abject poverty, subjected to the whims of the Israeli security forces in the name of "national defense," yet in every statement that we see outside Israel, the sufferings of the Palestinians are dismissed. You act like they aren't even human. How many Israelis were killed by Hamas rockets? How many Gazans were killed in Operation Cast Lead? "The effectiveness of the rockets isn't the issue!" No, but you complain that they target civilians, that Israelis can't be expected to just stand by and live in fear. When the so-called "Anti-Israel Critics" say these same things about the Palestinians, you mock them and claim that they aren't valid arguments. Perhaps you honestly aren't capable of seeing your own evil, but the rest of the world can. The terrorists are working with primitive weapons. They don't have a conventional army to fight you with. They can't hope to win agaist your high-tech American arsenal, so they use the only techniques available. Israel, however, has a major advantage in every area and, if they valued Palestinian lives, have the resources to engage Hamas with ground forces and avoid killing close to five hundred children. In a hostage situation, if the criminals are using hostages as shields, the police don't just switch to larger rounds to penetrate both; they wait, persevere, and find a way to kill the criminal without killing the hostage. If they simply killed the hostages, they'd be called monsters. But no one dare call Israelis monsters for fear of an aggressive campaign to label them an anti-semite, holocaust denier, and closet Nazi. Learn to accept criticism and not violate international laws, treaties, and U.N. resolutions, and no one will have much to "critic"ize you for.

Response to construcivecritic:

According to your logic, since any suffering and any use of force that creates suffering equates both aggressor and victim, the British people are guilty of mass murder against the citizens of Dresden. Ignoring the fact that DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED Hamas governs Gaza, a universally condemned terrorist organization that follows explicit decrees in its charter to destroy all Jews wherever they are (quoted from the Koran, by the way) and that any peaceful discussion with Israel is futile (hence armed attacks on civilians is permitted and encouraged). Israel is NOT present in Gaza, otherwise why would there have been an operation involving forced invasion? Hamas has been firing artillery specifically on civilian targets. The Israeli army targets armed militias - whether it used too severe force is another discussion. There are multiple examples of IDF calling houses about to be attacked to warn residents, leaflets dropped, warning shots given ahead of strike. But the Gazans support Hamas and are willing to stay in the targeted houses, believing their presence will automatically deter Israel (in fear of condemnation by undiscerning people like yourself). Does that mean that Israel should accept continuous attacks on its civilians only so as not to hurt Gazan civilians, cooperating with Hamas militia men? Hamas declared on many occasions that it would force the IDF to fight within Gaza's civilian population. It even declared that the Palestinian (civilians) are "not afraid" because they "love death".
You also conveniently forget the preceding 8 years of constant bombardment from Gaza into Israel, numerous suicide bombings, kidnappings and brutal murders committed by these innocent victims. Twice already have the Palestinians been offered full peace agreements accepting their demands (even Arafat and Abu-Mazen accepted the agreement - except they both rejected it since Israel did not agree to hand over complete control of the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, but rather have joint custody of it). Anyone who knows anything about the region knows that their refusal on this basis was an excuse because Israel would never give up complete control of theon and only holy place for Jews. The truth is that the Palestinians are suffering since their "moderate" leadership is afraid of the Hamas and other extremists, afraid of the same fate Saadat met after signing the peace accord with Israel.

Here's an analogy of your logic and it's consequence:
A bus hits a private car, throwing it off course and into pedestrians, killing them. the bus escapes. Wouldn't your opinion on that be that the car killed the pedestrians, and hense it is the guily party? After all, why look for background and reasons for events? Let's judge everything by what we see (and not look any further than that).

While cretins like "constructive critic" falsely accuse Israel of not having any regard for the lives of Arabs, in truth it is people like constructive critic who have no regard for the lives of Israelis and believe that they deserve to be killed, since they don't believe the nation of Israel itself is legitimate. Hence their opposition to ANY AND ALL measures of self-defense taken by Israel.