indeed, a case can be made that collateral damage from air strikes in dense urban areas are not accidental.

Change "a case can be made that ..." to "it is completely fucking obvious that ..." and this would be even more accurate.

It is always, always taken for granted that while the Palestinians are gleeful baby-killers, the Israelis don't really want to kill civilians. They're not trying to terrorize the Palestinians; they're just willing to inflict some collateral damage in their "targeted air strikes."

Why do we buy this? Why are we so goddamn sure that the primary motivation of Israeli's attacks isn't what the Palestinians believe it is--terrorism? The only reason I can think of is that the Israelis are the designated "good guys" in this fight because they are U.S. allies. When other regimes that we are not so crazy about, say, Russia, or Saddam's Iraq, act against civilians and try to justify it by claiming military necessity, the U.S. political establishment has no problem calling them on it.

the fact that Israel actually kills large numbers of Palestinian civilians.

Large was your choice of word. Are you going to stand by that? Israelis have killed "large" numbers of civilians?

Can you name one conflict between two people where one side had such a distinct military advantage and killed fewer civilians than Israel? Can you name just one? Ever? In the history of the world?

Again, how many civilians did we kill in Serbia ?

Did we intend to kill them ?

For the third time in the last few days on cable news I heard the reassuring statement by a reporter on this horrifying attack...."FORTUNATELY, only about 60 or 70 civilians were killed"

I guess these civilians, many women and children among them, are accepted by our pathetic press as collateral damage in a noble cause!

This reflects the sad state of our US news organizations as much as their failure to hold the Bush administration accountable for their many crimes.

The Palestinians are notorious for putting launchers right where civilians are. And what about parents who tell their children to go commit suicide and murder, and then GET MONEY for it? What do you call those parents? Oh, I know. The good guys. Even the Aztecs, who engaged in child sacrifice, did not GET MONEY for throwing their children into the pit. And they are considered one of the bloodiest civilizations on record.

This ignores two very, very important facts:

1- Israel already HAS destroyed Palestine. Whatever Israel accuses Hamas of, it has already been done by Israel in 1948. You can't ignore this.

2- The only reason the Palestinians have any problems with Israel is BECAUSE of the ethnic cleansing, the destruction of Palestine, and more recently, the occupation.

Once one takes these into account, the picture changes.

I was pretty worried that I had already used up my Bad Guy cred smacking around Ed Kilgore when I read this.

I see a bunch of people had the same perspective as I did on this post.

In proper moral language that takes an even hand with viewpoints, the opinion here would appear ludicrous. Armed robbers having more rights than their victems ludicrous.

Great post, but this one will be flamebait (viz Anon2:22 et alia). Besides, it doesn't really matter who's right or who's wrong here. There is never a good war (ask your grandfather who fought in the Pacific about 'good wars'), and worrying about dessert just gets you tied up in more flamebait posts.

Here I'd favor the WPL approach (W. Patrick Lang, a conservative, ex-military blogger): this war on both sides is policy, as much as any tax or health-care reform bill. Analyze the bombing as policy. And as policy, the bombing was just awful -- it simply makes things worse. And this awful policy kills people.

And to the trolls and flame-commenters from both sides: which of you have been bombed? Raise your hands, please. Were your parents ever bombed (here I raise my hand). Grandparents (hand still up). If you haven't been bombed, ask around and talk to the survivors of civilian bombing. Bombing is ugly. If you bomb someone, it had better be in the service of good strategic policy.

This is by far Ezra's most mature and thoughtful post on the current crisis since it began. A sincere kudos to both him and Jon Chait for bringing the dialogue back to reason.

And as a add on, while I will fully confess that I am no expert, the second post seems to raise a good point.

Ezra, you do make a good point that Palestinians tend to focus on what Israel does.
But your focus on deaths fails to capture the enormity of Israel's crimes in the Occupied Territories. Israel's most powerful weapon is not its tanks, or aircraft, it is the bulldozer. Granted its the tanks and aircraft that facilitate the use of the bulldozer, but on the ground the latter are used much more frequently, effectively and silently than the former. It is the bulldozer which plows the channels to divert water from aquifers in the OT to Israel and its colonies in the OT, leaving the Palestinian population in a continuous state of dehydration. Its the bulldozer that crushes the businesses and homes which house entire extended families for the purpose of expanding colonies or creating so-called security zones. Its the bulldozer that builds the fortresses on hilltops, the Israeli colonies, which encircle and suffocate Palestinian population centers. Its the bulldozer that imposes the siege, sometimes its in the form of digging a ditch around a cit, hence channeling the population to roads that Israelis have set up checkpoints where the entire population is subject to the whims of 18 year old adrenaline meat heads with machine gun and tanks. In addition they share the checkpoints with the settlers who they watch move freely and interact with the soldiers. The net result is that people die a slow, painful death, where they lose all hope for them and their children that anything will improve. All the while,
the colonists cry that they are the ones who feel threatened and naturally they attract sympathy from societies who are themselves the end-products of colonialist movements(US).

Just ask yourself a really basic question, if Israel feels so threatened by the Palestinians why are they expanding at an unprecedented rate the colonies which are positioned closest to Palestinian population centers?

Sorry, additional kudos to wcw.

2:22 anonymous. Britain and the IRA. Next question?

This post gave me a lot to think about, so thanks. I think the dynamic you describe has something to do with the force of words (as opposed to deeds) in a Western/European culture, such as Israel, versus the force of words in a Middle Eastern culture. My mother-in-law grew up in Syria, and I am often struck by the way my inlaws will say extreme things about a political topic. Whether or not they "mean" what they say, they often turn out not to have the aggressive or angry or hateful implications that the words have in my mind. Israelis live in the shadow of the Holocaust, which fulfilled the words and stated intentions of Mein Kampf. So of course they take words "very seriously." Without letting anyone off the hook or making the diplomatic quandary any less difficult than Ezra shows it to be, I just wonder if talking about they way words are used in these different cultures would help at all. It is hard to conceive that "we want to wipe Israel off the map" could be less genocidal than it strikes our ears as being. But I do believe that cultural differences make up some part of this irrepressible conflict.

Excellent.

The U.S. and the world desperately need to replace the Bush version of "Moral Clarity" with actual moral clarity, and you are helping with the vital work.

This was an excellent post marred by a slip at the end:

And so the battle will continue, with Israel's supporters comforting themselves by looking at Hamas's stated intentions and Hamas's supporters justifying themselves by pointing towards the fresh graves of their dead.

Describing the World as consisting of Israel supporters and Hamas supporters is a diservice to those who support Israel but do not support its treatment of the Palestinians. It plays directly into the hands of those most corrupted by this conflict. I support Israel do not support Hamas but feel it a moral obligation to condemn the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian people. And in that I am no different to the millions of Americans who opposed the war with Iraq. They supported America but did not support its actions.

I think another way to look at it is through the cost benefit analysis of doing nothing.

Israelis, for the most part, don't care about Palestinians. And I say that as an Israeli. As long as there are no suicide bombers (and to a lesser extent, no rockets in the south) Israelis don't care if the Palestinians are suffering, starving or dying. As long as they get to watch Big Brother or Survivor the Palestinians could all drown for all they care.

The Israeli public always prefers inaction to negotiations, which is why no diplomatic undertaking has ever been seriously attempted during periods of quiet.

I honestly believe that there's minimal interest in Israel in reaching any kind of agreement that involves concessions. If we could get the same results (no Israelis attacked) using stalling, or using military methods, regardless of the consequences to the Palestinians, it'll always be the preferred way.

The Palestinians realize that if they keep quiet, Israel will not strive to use that period for constructive negotiations. Cease fires typically are used to recoup and occasionally mend internal rifts. Nothing short of total capitulation by the Palestinians of any national aspirations will be acceptable to Israel. Nothing short of Palestinian leaders swearing allegiance to the Zionist vision would satisfy Israelis, and even then they won't believe Palestinians mean it.

And then there's the practical aspects. I can't see any Israeli leader with the will and the support to remove a settlement from the west bank. A single illegal house in Hebron ordered to be evacuated by the supreme court created a small maelstrom. Any kind of agreement worth its salt would require so much more than any Israeli leader is capable of delivering that there's absolutely no reason for any Israeli leader to enter into negotiations.

So between the fact that the Palestinians have no power to change anything and Israel has no will to change anything, we're stuck in this cycle of violence. It's all about feeling righteous satisfaction that the other side is hurting now. Nothing more, nothing less. Any discussion of tactics and strategy I think misses this basic visceral nature of the dynamic.

Does anyone here "morally condemn" crucifixion as a punishment? No? I didn't think so. Then your admiration for Hamas won't be diminished by the fact that they just passed a law allowing it. They must have plans. Guess that means fewer nails for their suidice bombs. I wonder where these "powerless" people will stage their first crucifixions

Sadly I agree with Eran.

Wasn't Arafat the problem for a really long time? If only we didn't have to deal with Arafat we could make peace work.

Doesn't seem to be playing out like that from my perspective.

You're just trying to fit too many people in too small a space with too large a discrepancy in military might. History has lots of examples of how these things end. The irony is just awful.

Why does nobody mention that, despite there being no attacks originating from the West Bank for quite some time, Israel continues to expand settlements there and increase roadblocks and checkpoints. This seriously calls into question the common argument that Israel would be willing to make peace as soon as terrorism stops.

Most of the parties involved in ongoing peace and other talks in Darfur / Sudan are pretty god damned morally compromised and questionable, yet people on the ground there just help those negotiations move on and succeed because the parties in dispute are the ones who must negotiate.

If you want to wait until the two parties become mutually acceptable and properly ideologically oriented in the others' eyes, well, then, that point is likely to be never, so polish up all the good old excuses of why now (whatever year 'now' falls in) is still not a good time to settle this f***ing interminable illegal occupation.

STOP BOMBING THE PALESTINIANS NOW
The Israeli air attacks on Gaza have killed over 300 Palestinians so far including women and children and the assault continues. No doubt those idiotic Gazans who keep firing Kassam rockets into Israel need to be stopped, but this is a response of extremely disproportionate scale. Already, the Gazans have suffered human tragedy on a massive scale. There is shortage of food, fuel, medical supplies and hospital beds.

Israeli contention that it is targeting Hamas activists is utter nonsense. They know full well that their bombs and missiles are falling on densely populated areas and there is no way to separate civilians from Hamas activists. Has Israel learnt no lessons from its misadventure on Lebanon, where it lost the moral war to a rag tag group of Hizballah activists?

Just when hope was beginning to sprout that President Elect Obama may make Middle East settlement and peace as his number one foreign policy priority, has Israel gone into an aggressive mode. Is the Israeli ruling coalition so terrified of a Likud victory in the forthcoming elections that it is trying to score points with the electorate at the cost of such massive human tragedy? Jews who have suffered enormously at the hands of Hitler should have better humane values than that.

The Jewish community around the world and especially in the U.S. traditionally supported Israel, but was horrified by Israeli bombing of Beirut in the last war. Once again they need to raise their voices to put an end to this madness. A continued conflict of this nature can only harm Israel in the long term and produce more suicide bombers.

It is time the world, particularly the West brings this tragedy to an end. French President Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown need to take a lead in this matter. They should use their full diplomatic pressure to put an end to the bombing, rocket attacks and ground attacks.

The United States used to be a world leader in these matters but it has lost moral ground. The criminal behavior of George W. Bush and Condi Rice in this conflict, the Lebanon war and the Iraq has rendered them war criminals. They should be hauled before the International Court in The Hague, tried and locked up for the rest of their lives. They have knowingly caused more human suffering and tragedy than any dictator since Hitler.

The Israeli public always prefers inaction to negotiations, which is why no diplomatic undertaking has ever been seriously attempted during periods of quiet.

This is a vital point. There's an ongoing postponement of having to think about long-term future on both sides, never more so than when rockets and missiles are exploding.

There's plenty that Israel would rather postpone thinking about: for instance, the demographic changes among Israelis that increasingly place the burden of IDF service on secular families, who end up in stand-offs like the recent Hebron incident against the batshittiest settlers.

There was a slender belief that a generational shift might change things, putting in place politicians whose careers don't go back to 1967 or 1973. But if the attitude of young Israelis is, as Eran suggests, to seek a cultural cocoon, then it'll just be the same lurching from crisis to crisis. 'Not our problem' or 'why don't they just go away' doesn't offer a viable future for Israelis, and the US needs to come up with a way to make that clear.

So let me see if I have this straight?

Hamas: Let us send a suicide bomber into a pizza parlor frequented by IDF forces in Israel knowing full well children and civilians will probably be there.

>>> Hamas intention is to make the Israel armed forces pay a price for occupation.

This is Evil.

IDF: Let us send a guided 500 lb bomb down on a suspected Hamas location next to a pizza parlor knowing full well children and civilians will probably be there.

>>> IDF intention is to make the Hamas forces pay a price for winning an election.

This is good.

Clearly Israel is better than Hamas, what's not clear is by how much. Now when you add the fact that these current events are related to elections in both the US and Israel the line is blurred even further.

This is nothing more than Lebensraum, Manifest Destiny, whatever you want to call it. Israel is treating the Palestinians in exactly the same way America treated it's indigenous people's in the 19th century. I made this prediction, subsequently verified, that if this is the correct model, you will see Palestinian controlled territory shrinking over time(I also predicted that the population would be shrinking as well, which I am informed is false.)

Did the Indians of a century and a half ago hate the white settlers and the U.S. government? Did they vow to fight until the intruders were driven back to where they came from? Undoubtedly.

And yet, 150 years later, who gets the blame? The American government, and rightly so, and it accepts that blame. Does it have any intention of making anything like an adequate restitution for what was taken by force? Of course not.

I suspect the same thing will happen to the Palestinians. They will be herded onto reservations located on the bleakest, least arable land. The Israeli's will take the resources that are currently on Palestinian controlled lands, such as the water. And a hundred years from now, the politicians of Israel will declare that what their ancestors did was reprehensible, that it was ethnic cleansing and genocide, and that they are deeply ashamed, and that they apologize to the people they displaced.

Oh, and they will give each surviving descendant $1,000. That will make things right :-(

Ezra wrote that "The Israelis see themselves as threatened innocents, not oppressors. They point to the public statements of Hamas, and they are right. The Palestinians see themselves as an occupied people, not aggressors. They point to their death toll and the settlements, and they are right."

The frame of an "occupied nation" vs. a "threatened nation" is a very good one: the Palestinians really are occupied and the Israelis really are threatened. Nevertheless, there are two problems with the quoted statement. First, for the Israelis the issue is not just the "quoted statements" of Hamas, it's the fact that they *actually* kill Israelis when they get the chance, which makes it quite credible when they say that they will kill more when they can. On the other hand, the idea that the Palestinians are right to point to "their death toll and the settlements" mixes together two things that should not be mixed. The death toll is connected to the morally hard question of when it is proper for the Israelis to respond militarily when they know that doing so will result in innocent deaths. The settlements, in contrast, are a morally easy question: they have no moral justification at all.

Well yes, except that these days I think most Americans sympathize with Indians wanting to drive out invaders, to kill them, to wipe them off the face of the Earth. I suspect that if the facts were known - among non-fundamentalists at least - Americans would demand an accounting from Israel for the atrocities they have committed.

Salviati: "Just ask yourself a really basic question, if Israel feels so threatened by the Palestinians why are they expanding at an unprecedented rate the colonies which are positioned closest to Palestinian population centers?"

You said it yourself. Because they feel threatened by the Palestinians. It's a cycle.

i just read that israel bombed a mosque.
is this true?

innocent men, women and children killed....injured....frightened...
homeless.
a mosque bombed.

as a jewish person, i know that a Torah is sacred.
it is given a ritual burial, never burned.
isnt a palestinian human being, a koran, a mosque....as precious as a jewish human being, a torah, a synagogue?

isnt it our precept, that every human being is a universe, and that the death of a human being is the death of a universe?
arent we here for tikkun olam?
to make the world a better place than we found it?

as a jewish person, it grieves me to start off this new year, knowing the vast numbers of palestinians that are suffering.
i am sorry.

Comparing Hamas to Israel is like apples to oranges. How about asking what the Israeli Zionists would do to the Palestinians..

It's helpful when referencing numbers/entities to link to authoritative sources. 30 seconds with Google turned up:

http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp

intentionality is bullshit.

Not in his wildest dreams did Osama bin Laden imagine two towers pulverized and 3000+ casualties. All he wanted to do is put a chink into the Symbols of Imperial Power, the death toll was unintended collateral damage, - nothing to see here, move on.

Leo,

That makes absolutely no sense. If you felt "threatened by people who lived in some neighborhood" you wouldn't set up shop right in the middle of the neighborhood. You wouldnt even set foot in the neighborhood. Its about displacing the natives and "redeeming the land". Its really that simple.

The cycle that should really matter to us is the cycle of money from US taxpayer to Israel back to the US defense industry.

"I suspect the same thing will happen to the Palestinians. They will be herded onto reservations located on the bleakest, least arable land. The Israeli's will take the resources that are currently on Palestinian controlled lands, such as the water."

Umm, that's already happened. The question is whether the Israelis will slaughter the Palestinians on their reservations, or just let them starve. And for anyone who thinks the Israelis might let them live, you're crazy. For the Israelis, the boundaries of Israel are defined in the Hebrew Bible. And anyone who isn't a Jew must leave those boundaries. And if those boundaries are ever threatened, the boundaries will expand. That will continue until they encounter white Christians. Then, it will suddenly be a problem.

jacqueline

Yes it's true, Israel bombed a mosque -- used to store weapons.

I may be biased as an atheist -- but no building, imo, is sacred enough to make it immune from military action when the building itself poses a military threat.

"Yes it's true, Israel bombed a mosque -- used to store weapons."

maybe, maybe not...link would be nice.

as an atheist I especially don't trust fear mongering governments and their lapdog press.

Shoot, my apologies... You know, you think you're doing something, etc... Sorry.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051305.html

Intentions matter because intentions can change. The Palestinians have the power to stop trying to eliminate Isreal. Isreal can try to pursuade the Palestinians, but the Palestinians have the power and therefor are more morally culpable. The real question is how do we pursuade the Palestinians?

Israel has no intention, ever, of making peace. Their goal is to hold on to the 1967 territories forever, and ultimately expel/exterminate the Palestinians. Your point is exactly right - for every 1 israeli killed, at least 10 Palestinians have died (in fact in this latest atrocity its more like 1 israeli for 300 dead Palestinians - nazi style reprisals).

They are implementing a slow final solution to the Palestinian question. And naturally the corrupt US political establishment -fully bribed by AIPAC, goes along with it, against the real interests of the USA.

Everytime I see statements like "The Palestinians have the power to stop trying to eliminate Israel" I am reminded of how US Western movies depicted Native Americans. Basically that the cowboys are forced into the terrible position of having to slaughter the Indian because they are savages and if they behaved themselves they would be rewarded. You must be American, Craig.

So in other words, point, you really don't have a reputable cite, do you? Do you have something with a some independent verification, maybe?

Craig, I have no idea what you are talking about. If you don't think the situation of the Palestinians is analogous to the situation the American Indians faced in the 19th century, perhaps you should explain yourself.

We musn't forget that the basic means of survival for Gaza have been cut off for many months now under a very oppressive embargo, and that the US and Israel have rejected all of Hamas's overtures towards negotiation, isolating them and making conflict inevitable.

Does Hamas refuse to recognize Israel out of absoulte conviction, or is it that they recognize their own weakness, and see recognition as one of the few points of leverage they have in negotiaton?

Not sure I agree. The citizens of Gaza have spent the past 2 years watching Hamas ruin Palestinian lives, create horrible living conditions, and fire bullets at Palestinians when those Palestinians try to cross the border between Gaza and Egypt. Does this mean that the Palestinians will turn to suicide bombing against Hamas?

"So in other words, point, you really don't have a reputable cite, do you?"

Since when is Haaretz not reputable?

From what I've heard, the bulk of its criticism is the claim from the wingnuts that it's "anti-zionist"! And then there's this:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070924/glain

The point, Point, is that there is no independent verification of this 'fact'. No independent confirmation that weapons were actually being stored there, just the military's say-so.

Iow, the key word is 'cite', not 'publication'. The same thing often happens with that 'liberal' paper, the NYT. Recall for example, the various Judith Miller controversies, one of which was the false reporting on the evidence of WMD's in Iraq.

I repeat, Point, do you have any reputable cites, cites with independent confirmation?

Actually Israel has bombed five mosques in the course of the campaign.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/31/israel-rejects-truce-call_n_154416.html

Terrific post. Some real moral clarity here.

Thanks to srw for the huffingtonpost link. To respond to Scent:

Shin Bet is not the military, nor is it a branch of the military.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Bet

If you're still looking for another "reputable cite", all I can say is:

Who else is there? Are there non-profits who verify whether such and such a religious building is storing weapons?

Sure, for the big things, you can get the UN to verify whether a country has a nuclear program ; a journalist can verify a number of things -- but verification on whether such and such a despot/terrorist/what-have-you is storing weapons in a particular building??!

Shin Bet is not the military. Thus, unless Israeli intelligence is collaborating to commit massive fraud against it's own people -- in which case, the burden of proof shifts -- no independent verification can be expected.

What I am curious about is how Israel knows that some Hamas leaders are hiding in hospitols disguised as doctors. Is their intelligence that good? Or is there something else going on?

Now you're just being disingenuous. The military might lie, but not no way no sir no how the Israeli intelligence?

Iow, Point, you were not being dispassionate, you were pushing a partisan agenda with bad sourcing. And you knew it. Speaking of burden of proof, I'd say that given your behaviour, the burden of proof now goes to you to explain how this is not signs of dishonesty.

Let's go to the other cite:

The Israeli military, which leveled the mosque Wednesday, said that it was being used as a missile storage site and that the bombs dropped on it set off secondary explosions. It was the fifth mosque hit in the campaign.

The chief of Israel's internal security services, Yuval Diskin, told a government meeting that Hamas members had hidden inside mosques, believing they would be safe from airstrikes and using them as command centers, according to an Israeli security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to share the information.

Whadda surprise, every time a mosque is bombed, it's because of alleged involvement with Hamas members.

Do you even care what you sound like?

"you were pushing a partisan agenda with bad sourcing. And you knew it. Speaking of burden of proof, I'd say that given your behaviour, the burden of proof now goes to you to explain how this is not signs of dishonesty."

"Do you even care what you sound like?"

An interesting question.

Happy New Year.

Shrug. If you don't want to be taken seriously, if you want to be dismissed as a partisan hack, don't try to pull stunts like that.

I'm fair and nonpartisan, and I'm willing to be convinced. If you had something like, you know, evidence, photographs, third party witnesses rather than the assertions of government officials, I really would try to make a fair judgment. Instead . . . did you think that maybe I had a reason for mentioning Judith Miller? Do you think that, just maybe, I might have been alluding to U.S. 'intelligence' officials who assured us repeatedly, with no physical evidence offered that yes, really and truly Saddam had WMD?

Next time, why don't you try not making a partisan claim unless you have credible evidence, eh?

Point, what constitutes a military threat?

Since large parts of WTC had deeply vested interest in the Military Industrial Complex....?

The Palestinians have the power to stop trying to eliminate Isreal. Isreal can try to pursuade the Palestinians, but the Palestinians have the power and therefor are more morally culpable.

This is a fucking joke, right? The Palestinians have the power to eliminate Israel. Really. You're really going to claim that you believe that.

Basically there are two options as I see it (writing as someone without a big psychic state in either side).

1. Impose a settlement from outside since none of the interested parties are capable of coming to an agreement on their own.

Israel - back to 1967 borders, settlers are given a deadline to repatriate inside 1967 borders or are deprived of citizenship and left for the Palestinians to deal with.
Palestine - no right of return to anywhere inside 1967 borders.

There. That wasn't so hard was it? It won't satisfy either side completely but I honestly don't see any better alternative coming along this century.

2. Wash our hands of it and walk away completely. Neither side wants to share, it's not our business to make them behave like adults.

"If Hamas lay down all its weapons, Israel would lift its blockade. If Israel lay down all its weapons, Hamas would kill as many Israelis as it could."

Even if Hamas were that evil, nobody is calling for Israel to lay down its arms -- just end the illegal occupation, ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS and ETHNIC CLEANSING.

"Israel has a problem with Hamas because Hamas believes Israel has no right to exist."

Israel has as many tanks on short notice as the United States Army had on active duty at the height of the cold war: 3000. Last time out, 1982, Syria went 0-90 in air combat against Israel. Israel is reputed to have 200 nuclear weapons. Israel has the United States Navy. What more can anyone say?

If Israel completely evacuated every one of its ethnic cleansers from the West Bank and completely freed Gaza from its iron fist -- what point would there be in firing unguided artillery rockets at Israel from Gaza (or the West Bank) killing a few or a dozen Israelis a year? What purpose would be fulfilled? Would it destroy Israel?

The rockets fired foolishly from Gaza are the act of a desperate people helplessly flailing back at a military superpower who for some reason feels the need to bring upon itself the hate of the whole world to acquire their arid land -- speaking of foolish purpose.

My candidate for Anti-Christ (who shall remain nameless in the context of criticizing Israel) coveted his next door neighbors' farm land, minerals and fossil fuels. Israel covets literal "living space" in which to put up middle class housing developments. Is Israel sinking under the weight of its current population or something? What's it all about Menacham?

PS. I am the "anonymous" at 10:17 AM above.

Please help me a little here, Ezra.

If your formulation is correct, then why is Israel not bombing the heck out of the West Bank? Why is there no blockade in the West Bank?

The reason is simple: Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are not lobbing rockets into Israel (meaning Green Line Israel) and are not sending out suicide bombers. They are not openly propagating and calling for the destruction of Israel as a nation nor are they saying anything that even sounds like "Kill the Jews."

Your formulation that we only have Hamas' intentions is also less than accurate. The Islamic militants' rockets have been physically hitting Israeli towns and villages, and causing not simply property damage and palpable fear, but killing Israeli civilians inside the Green Line, not the occupied territories.

Israel's actions are not preventive war, as the war has begun by Islamic militants, and the more militant parts of Hamas.

At its best, isn't your formulation like saying in 1981 that the US and Israel should have let Saddam Hussein build his military nuclear capability and only then taken action since building a military nuke or two was only an intention?

Freedman,
Why IS Israel moving into the West Bank, kicking people off their ancestral lands?

If Israel's aggression ever provokes a war in which nuclear weapons are used (Israel's "holocaust"), then, 50 years from now people may not be citing Germany in the twentieth century as the prime example of savagery on the part of a modern nation; the world may be remembering Israel in the twenty-first as the quintessential example instead. Do you have any idea where your people are going? (See last sentence in post just above for more on that question.)

Some Protestant Fundamentalists have their version of Israel's resurrection. My answer to my personal question of why, as God brings His Chosen back together, they are getting into so much chicanery is He may be allowing them fall into such "deep sin" so that, when they finally come to their senses, they will see how far they can fall without Him -- so they wont think they, the Chosen, are such "big shots." God is into humility for those close to Him. Catholic version.

Catholic version of why He might be bringing them back together in the first place? Maybe this time they'll "convert." :-)

Israelis has not sufficient reason. That's why they are going to loose the war at last.

Why IS Israel moving into the West Bank, kicking people off their ancestral lands?

Are you referring to the descendants of Muslim invaders from Arabia?

"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
Barack Obama, President Elect

People are acting as though Hamas represents the Palestinians. They were elected but they turn out to have impoverished Gaza and many, many in Gaza are hoping for an Israeli victory in this round, the defeat of Hamas and the chance for new leadership in Gaza, leaders who will truly promote the welfare of the palestinians. I bet Hamas has wider support outside of Gaza than within

"Are you referring to the descendants of Muslim invaders from Arabia?"

Nachman,
Maybe we should tell the French and Germans to get out of Europe and give it back to the Italians -- they showed up less than 2000 years ago. That's some right of return!

If Jews make up 90% of the population former Palestinian homeland -- now known as Israel -- for 50 years -- that's that; Israel belongs to them. If Palestinians make up 90% (was 100%) of the West Bank and Gaza -- for thousands of years -- that's that; what is left of the Palestinian homeland belongs to them.

And just today, a Hamas leader was assassinated. Of course there will be the usual "rage" in the streets, but this was a man who sent his own son on a suicide mission a year ago (why not himself -- do you wonder about that?) and has been calling upon other parents to do the same, and financially profit off the deaths of their children. The Israeli goal is the weakening of Hamas, not the subjugation of the Palestinians.

"goal is the weakening of Hamas, not the subjugation of the Palestinians."

in order to achieve that goal, innocent people.... children are being killed this morning....
people's lives and homes are in shambles.
does the end always justify the means?
.....i am in a nice, warm home today.
are you?
i am not watching an apartment house go up in flames and black smoke at the end of my street.

do you go to the emergency room when you dont feel well, because your health matters to you?
what does the life of a small child that you dont know, mean to you?
when do we become complicit?
instead of revelling last night, there should have been emergency sessions and outcries to stop the killing.
but as far as i could see, the leaders were celebrating a happy and festive new year.
our leadership has been not just silent, but celebratory.
where is conscience.

"The Israeli goal is the weakening of Hamas, not the subjugation of the Palestinians."

Thanks for proving Ezra's point re the relentless discussion of intention, as opposed to consequence.

That intentions are being put on a par with deeds is mind-boggling. Or maybe it's just part of the endgame wherein Israel abandons any pretense of morality. Suppose I go over to my neighbor's house at one a.m. and tell him to turn down his music, and he responds by telling me to go home, and that if he ever catches sight of me in public, he's going to kill me. Suppose I then go home, get the Belgian automatic that I keep in my nightstand drawer for sentimental reasons and use it put four four shots into my neighbor's head.

Does anyone seriously suggest that my neighbor's stated intentions is enough to excuse my actions? That claiming self-defense is a plausible strategy in a court of law? I don't think so.

Here's an idea: since the settlers are are just as unlawful, and probably just as dangerous to Israel's security as the folks in Gaza, why doesn't the IDF just use the same tactics to stop them from committing more crimes?

Oh, wait.

Some people miss the point here.

Jews are caucasian. Of course they have the right to kill brown people. Of course their lives are worth that of 20 arabs. Of course they have the right to shoot at people throwing rocks at their tanks. Of course they have the right to bomb schools, places of worship, and ambulances with malicious intent.

Jews are white, Arabs aren't. That's really all this boils down to and to pretend that we'd be playing this morally relativistic game of 'intent' vs 'results' if these people were both black is a lie. It's clear the Israeli's intent is to steal the land these people have. It's clear they intent to murder their populations as a form of ethnic cleansing. It's clear that Hamas is just as bad, but that's it. They aren't worse, in fact their relative lack of power makes them less dangerous.

We have the US, a nation based on equality and religious freedom, acting as the sole support for a state Israel, a state for Jews only, that occupies contested land in Palestine. As long as this fundamental insanity continues there will be unrest in the middle east.

The ‘two-state’ solution advocated by the 'liberals' is the humanitarian version of the Zionists vision. It accepts a racist Jewish state on Palestinian land. This is the problem, not the solution.

The solution is to have one state with a pluralistic democratic government. The primary obstacle to this solution is the Zionists.

soulite: Jews are caucasian? tell that to Sammy Davis, Jr., Nell Carter or, for that matter, to my wife.

Allan Gurfinkle: how is it Palestinian land? Maybe the Zionists stole it from the Palestinians who stole it from the Ottomans who stole it from ... the Hebrews (Jews) who stole it from the Canaanites who stole it from the ...

Well it goes on ...

But it seems to me that it ain't Palestinian land per se.

If Hamas lay down all its weapons, Israel would lift its blockade.

But most Palestinians don't see it that way: for what it's worth there is no evidence for this ... of course because Hamas won't lay down ALL its weapons.

FWIW, Palestinians and their allies would (as you can see from arguments above) Israel not intending to target civilians. Moreover they would claim the Palestinian terrorists have no way to fight a "just war" other than to end up killing civilians as they don't have the technology to "target" military-only targets.

Succintly, Ezra,very well said...therein lies the crux of the problem as we go into the 21st century...

we need to see the 'humanity' of all sides...a life is a life...

what we have is madness...you don't eliminate a mosquito with a bulldozer

and there are layers of 'politics' on both sides that inhibit any chance of progress - those who do not want peace - those who profit from war - those who enjoy killing out of hate...

...this routine will continue a vicious cycle

...let's hope our new foreign policy shows maturity and cuts thru this insanity to some common sense...and we show fairness and a new approach that shows other ways of conflict resolution other than always going right to the bombs...as if that is still an accepted way of dealing with problems...

OK then here's the thing I don't get. In 2005 Israel destroyed all its Gaza settlements and left. So Gaza is no longer occupied in any sense of the word.

So how does that square with the headline, and the fact that Gaza is where the attacks are coming from? They weren't so much bombing Israel until this year.

Occupation, less bombing; complete withdrawl, more bombing.

WTF

All these attempts to reason about this by analogy (someone played loud music and I went up to his apartment, someone insulted my grandmother, etc.) are juvenile and show an inability to speak to the actual situation. No one's understanding is deepened by this "someone played loud music" crap.

Good stuff that may shed a little light on how we got here.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804?printable=true¤tPage=all

"According to Dahlan, it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas—whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea—won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.

Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.

Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says.

The Israeli's admit to targeting ambulances. They very often admit to attacking schools and mosques too.

Oh, sure. They claim fighters were located in them, but they strangely never allow international investigators to examine either the scenes or the evidence. A Presumption of guilt is reasonable when a party attempts to obstruct justice.

Undertoad: "So Gaza is no longer occupied in any sense of the word."

So the Israelis control the borders, sea and land, the airspace, the entry points, the natural resources etc of the Gaza strip. So Gaza is a free state, able to make its own decisions? Does Gaza have an airforce? Can they even open their own airport? Nope. Not free. The Israelis exited unilaterally, for sure, but that doesn't get us very far down the road.

Ivan I don't get that. Gaza is not bordered on all sides by Israel. Meanwhile the west bank IS bordered on all sides... and no attacks.

My question remains: WTF

Dennis writes:

Freedman,
Why IS Israel moving into the West Bank, kicking people off their ancestral lands?

Answer:

That is a separate question and does not change the fact that Israel has not blockaded Palestinian villages there, nor are there rockets being launched from the West Bank into Israel.

However, to directly respond to the separate question, the Israelis have removed some settlements in the West Bank fairly recently--and note that is a removal of Jewish Settlements by the Israeli military. I have long been opposed to West Bank settlements and believe a US president and Congress should be far tougher on Israel with regard to those settlements. I am far more likely to support the goals of J Street and have long opposed the goals of AIPAC, for example. Also, if anyone checked my blog over the last few years, they would know that, in 2006, I opposed Israel's war in Lebanon and its invasion of Gaza, which precipitated the Second Lebanon War.

Undertoad, Gaza is completely blockaded, including by sea. Perhaps if you elevated your questions beyond the "WTF" level, you would learn something about this.

Nice Title. Was occupation of Germany imoral?
Mr.Ezra Klein needs to understand that victim contability is completely framed by the victimiology of pro-palestinian narrative(this is only for outside consumption), inside Gaza Palestinian TV boasts killing jews and anyone trying to show other options is silenced.
Looking solely at victim numbers result as that narrative wants, doesnt't let anyone check why that happens. For example Allies killed much more civilians than Germans in Second Worldwar, worse than that, 70000 French civilians were dead at war end by allies bombing to liberate France!
So we have to look at source of the problem and that is the Disproportinate behavior of Hamas vs its civilians.
While Israel tries to protect their own. For Hamas civilians are a tool for victory that Ezra Kleins of this world politically reward and as such entice Hamas to repeat everytime they need.
If there is a constant in this conflict it is the support that every Palestinian leadership gets from Left: They might burn CD stores and close hairdressers, threat christians and other faiths , url racist messages that a KKK member would be proud, be mafia gansters in all but name, respect none of Geneva Conventions. But the left always find a way to not put any sizeable burden in Palestinian leadership that force changing its behavior. It appears that Left hates Israel more than loves Palestinians because even without Israel the Palestinian life would be indeed miserable and probably with even more casualities.
But then it would be like Assyrians and many other Middle East people strangled by Arabism that no ones cares isn't it?

Blockaded now, tomemos, but only by Israel, and not after the end of occupation. 750 trucks per day carried food and goods between Israel and Gaza before Hamas won election and started bombing Israel.

My question remains: WTF

So far nobody has been able to answer the meat of my question.

Er, that is to say NOT only blockaded by Israel.

My question remains: WTF

Israel had to do respond is some way to the kassam launchers that were sent from Gaza to Israel and were threatening its citizens. Hamas decided after the ceasefire expired to relaunch these missiles. Any military response that Israel could undertake would be disproportionate. Do we really expect Israel to misfire weak launchers into Gaza? Even so, the civilian deaths and devastation on the Palestinian side have been staggering. And I'm not sure what Israel thinks it can accomplish with these strikes or with a ground war. But to say that Israel is guilty of ethnic cleansing or that it is a country only for the Jews is preposterous. Are the Israelis methodically exterminating the Palestinians who live in Gaza? Are they targeting them simply because of their ethnic identity? Of course not.

Hi Erza,

great article and excellent perspective. One thing missing: Likud is leading in the Israeli polls. Likud's party platform is just as incendiary as Hamas's.
http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm

If intent and culpability don't
matter, then the US is guilty
of mind-boggling crimes in WWII.

We killed millions.

Ashley,
Israel is actively ethnic cleansing whatever lands or towns its mad settlers wish to move in on this week. The city of Hebron was taken over via ethnic cleansing this year.

How Israel should respond to the Palestinians' (not Gazans' [to coin a Bushie] or West Bankians'] rocket attacks is to get every last settlement out of the Palestinians homeland, pronto -- or the 22% left to them after the catastrophe (the UN specified Palestinians were to get 45% but Israel clipped a whole 78% in 1949). Oh, and don't forget to free Gaza from the condition of outdoor prison. Remove the causes belli -- that's the only just way for Israel to respond to the rocket attacks.

If intent and culpability don't
matter, then the US is guilty
of mind-boggling crimes in WWII.

We killed millions.

Posted by: Angus

Well, no, they do matter. Who has said otherwise? What has been said is that when words and actions don't match, the smart money looks at the actions.

This ain't rocket science, and I imagine that's a principle most people instinctively follow in everyday life. What's weird are the people tying themselves up in knots trying to justify Israeli exceptionalism.

Ezra, the distinction you make about Israel complaining about what Hamas/other radicals want to do and Palestinians complaining about what Israel does is a meaningful one. However, neither you or any of the commenters have laid out the logic of the Israelis all the way. To put it crudely, Israel takes action based on what Hamas WANTS to do in order to prevent Hamas from actually doing it. This results in Israel having to do some shit and Hamas intent, genocidal destruction of Israel, being limited to some suicide bombings and rockets while Israel's actions cause significantly more damage. Unlike what one commenter who claims to be Israeli said, Israelis do care about the Palestinians and would vastly prefer their government not having to bomb Gaza. But if the choice is between Hamas being able to carry out it's intent (even partially) and Israel having to do some shit, they will take the latter. So we get back to Hamas's intentions being much more evil, but Israel's actions (in response to those intentions and attempts at carrying out) causing more quantifiable damage.

The alternative hypothesis - and one supported by real data - is that Israel is behaving in such a way as to acquire more land and insure that nothing like citizenship or a two-state solution is ever implemented.

What, in your mind, would be evidence for your hypothesis? Evidence that would at the same time disconfirm mine?

Contrariwise, what would Israel have to do to falsify your hypothesis? If you can't answer either of those questions, you're just putting your unsupportable, unalterable opinion out there as if it is worth some sort of weight.

The Palestinians just watched the Israelis slaughter dozens of children, mothers, and other innocents. Protestations that they deserved it because Hamas threatens to kill Israeli innocents will not make sense to them.

There is a big and morally relevant difference here between "threatens to" and "tries their best to." The fact that their efforts aren't too successful does not morally ameliorate the attempt.

Someone distill this down into pop-culture philosophy for me...

...if this were a plot line in the Dark Knight, who would be Israel and who would be Hamas?

It seems to me that both sides are saying they aren't at fault, that the other side has the power to stop the killing and the violence. If you ask me, both sides are the Joker.

Thank you Ashley.

I finally figured it out! Eureka! The Israeli pounding of Gaza WOULD -- immoral as it may or may not be -- would work as a TOTALLY effective deterrent against artillery rockets if and ONLY if the Palestinians were living totally free, totally happy lives in both Gaza and the West Bank -- free and happy as defined by themselves.

The pounding will never work as long as Israel holds 5 million Palestinians in oppressive, humiliating, impoverishing conquest. Under which condition the cost/benefit equation (this is an economic blog, no?) is a few (hundred?) Palestinians die v. millions attempting any desperate measure to free themselves from their daily hell.

Potentially, Gaza and the West Bank could be happier than Syria -- same economic level plus democracy. What would raining artillery on Israel possibly get them under decent living circumstances but more desperate (on the part of the Israelis this time) counter attacks? No benefit whatsoever.

Gaza objects to Israel's existence? Smile Smile Smile Israel has as many tanks on short notice as the US Army had on active duty at the height of the cold war: 3000 (on 2% of the population base, yet). Israel went 90-0 against the Syrian Air Force in 1982 (the first revelation of the dominating superiority of US weapon systems). Israel is reputed to have 200 nuclear bombs. Israel has the United States Navy.

Lawrence of Cyberia has a post up in response to Ezra's comments here:

"So what is going on here? Independent reporters and international NGOs say Israeli soldiers target civilians. Israeli soldiers themselves tell us they are targeting civilians, and doing so not in defiance of their orders, but because that’s what their orders are. Yet when liberal Americans speak out on Gaza, the underlying rules of the debate are laid out clearly from the start: discussion will proceed from the assumption that Israel does not intend to kill innocent people; that Israel’s intentions are essentially well-meaning even if its actions are sometimes bad, and that this is what differentiates Israel from Hamas.

I think the reason for this disconnect is that American mainstream discourse about the Middle East confines itself to a VERY limited range of the political spectrum. When it comes to the Middle East, we witness artificially "balanced" debates giving the views of both “liberals” and “conservatives”. But the liberal viewpoint that is allowed is the liberal Zionist one, and the conservative perspective is the conservative Zionist one. The limits of Zionism are the limits of acceptable debate. As far as mainstream discourse in this country is concerned, hearing both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict generally means watching Wolf Blitzer moderate a discussion between Michael Lerner and Dore Gold. These are the parameters within which our debate takes place. The possibility that using Zionism as the prism through which we view the Middle East might be giving us a defective understanding of what is going on in the region, and that this might explain why the 95% of the world that is neither Israeli nor American looks at the region and sees a very different dynamic playing out there to what we see, is never broached."

...

"The underlying dynamic behind this worldview is that Zionism is reasonable and essentially benevolent, therefore opposition to it must be irrational and violent. It follows that whenever Zionists engage in violence against Arabs, their violence can be assumed to be intrinsically reluctant, retaliatory, measured, just and inadvertant (even when Israel’s own troops tell us it isn’t).

What this worldview absolutely does not allow for is the possibility that Zionist settlement in Palestine over the last 100 years has been marked by repeated and ongoing violence, resulting in huge civilian losses overwhelmingly on the Arab side, because there is something in Zionism itself that causes and even requires this outcome. The absence of non-Zionist voices in U.S. mainstream discourse – and their banishment to the kooky “conspiracy theory” margins – means that debate on the Mideast does not allow for the possibility that maybe Arab society ends up in flames wherever it encounters Zionism not because Zionists are well-meaning philanthropists facing violent, unreasoning savages, but because there is something inherent in Zionism that requires from the outset massive and repeated violence against Arab civilians, and that perhaps the latest indiscriminate violence against the entire population of Gaza is not an isolated, aberrant "anti-terrorist" operation gone bad, but a predictable outcome of the project to build a Zionist state in Palestine which stands in unbroken continuity with all the other bloody disasters that have befallen the non-Jewish population of Palestine over the last century."

more at link: http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2009/01/poor-misunderstood-israel.html

This ignores two very, very important facts:

1- Israel already HAS destroyed Palestine. Whatever Israel accuses Hamas of, it has already been done by Israel in 1948. You can't ignore this.

2- The only reason the Palestinians have any problems with Israel is BECAUSE of the ethnic cleansing, the destruction of Palestine, and more recently, the occupation.

Once one takes these into account, the picture changes.

Ezra, you do make a good point that Palestinians tend to focus on what Israel does.
But your focus on deaths fails to capture the enormity of Israel's crimes in the Occupied Territories. Israel's most powerful weapon is not its tanks, or aircraft, it is the bulldozer. Granted its the tanks and aircraft that facilitate the use of the bulldozer, but on the ground the latter are used much more frequently, effectively and silently than the former. It is the bulldozer which plows the channels to divert water from aquifers in the OT to Israel and its colonies in the OT, leaving the Palestinian population in a continuous state of dehydration.

Oh, I know. The good guys. Even the Aztecs, who engaged in child sacrifice, did not GET MONEY for throwing their children into the pit.