Don’t forget that there are also innocent civilians on the Palestinian side of the border, whose lives are worth no less than any Israeli’s.
Please show me where I forgot that in my previous response. And stop being ingenuous.
Cite for how the IDF is deliberately targeting civilians?
Or is this just a standard anti-Israel position? Palestinian terrorists, with the backing of their government and a massive percentage of their civilians, can deliberately murder Israel civilians, but Israel can do nothing, at all, in response.
If they invade, we get phony massacres like Jenin, which will be trumpeted by the world media even as the Palestinians’ own Red Crescent is saying there was no massacre. If they assasinate terrorist leaders while minimizing collateral damage, they’re demonized for the dreadful act of killing terrorists while endangering as few civilians as possible. If they launch missiles or ordinance back, then they’re demonized for ‘escalating’ the situation.
What possible action is okay other than submitting to the slaughter?
I don’t think we have to pretend that Israel has been the pinacle of showing concern for civilian deaths to argue that they have a right to respond to military threats, do we?
Malthus:
OK, the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians. Happy?
And I didn’t say that Jordan HAS nothing to do with them…I said Jordan WANTS nothing to do with them. Jordan would love to have a separate Palestinian homeland to deport Palestinian troublemakers to…but not at the cost of any Jordanian land.
There is some significance to the fact that this crisis is of so little note in US media. Israel is arresting a large potion of the Palestinian leadership, demolishing infrastructure, and bombing administrative buildings and hardly much note is made. Bush had a press conference and the Israel-Palestinian issue didn’t even come up. What that siginificance is, I don’t know.
Update: Israel sent fighter jets into Syria to buzz President Assad’s palace. Apparently, blaming Assad for supporting/harboring Hamas leaders.
Blurring the line between tragedy and farce . . .
No. But launching a full-scale invasion into Gaza with tanks and everything, destroying power stations and other infrastructure, etc., etc., to rescue one soldier . . . it all seems quite astonishingly callous, doesn’t it? Even by the standards to which we’ve grown accustomed where Israel and Palestine are concerned.
What’s farcical? I think perhaps they’re quite serious about it this time. And, unfortunately, they’ve got a legitimate beef with Syria and its support of the faction of Hamas responsible for kidnapping the soldier.
Buzzing the president’s palace? What’s that supposed to accomplish?!
I am reminded of a thread wherein someone described how he killed cats to protect his ducks. I having pet cats was outraged. I suppose it depends upon whether you are a cat or a duck. 
A modern form of saber rattling. A way of pointing out that they really don’t want to annoy off the Israelis.
True. Still farcical. This is like watching two angry, sloppy drunks get up in each other’s faces. But on a geopolitical scale.
No, it depends on whether you’re a cat person or a duck person.*
*Two words that might never before have been linked together in the history of the English language!
My point being, it is much more important to the ducks and cats than to the pet owners. We post on the SDMB, they live and die.
Aye. For “pet owners,” substitute “Israeli government/Hamas leadership.”
True…I suppose you’d have been happier had the Israeli’s not buzzed the palace (in an obviously pointed reminder that they COULD…and that pissing them off isn’t such a good idea), and instead just dropped bombs? Would THAT be less of a farce to you somehow? No, how silly of me…YOU think the Israeli’s should just take it like men, whatever is dished up to them…right?
You have a rather odd way of looking at things BG, I must say. I see nothing farcical or funny about any of this…and see nothing strange with reminding the Syrians that the Israeli’s COULD be over the palance next time, but with bombs instead. Seems to me a rather bloodless way of making a rather pointed statement.
BTW, which one is drunk again? You lost me there…
-XT
No, that would be tragedy unleavened by farce.
Both, plus all the noisy bystanders. I thought I made that clear enough . . .
To remind a regime that is aiding and shelting Hamas that they aren’t going to get off without a scratch if their proxy force continues as is?
But it means nothing unless Israel is prepared to back it up with the kind of action xtisme hypothetically describes above. Which would precipitate a general war between Israel and Syria, and then all bets are off.
See, it’s all fun and games until one of the drunks pulls out a knife.