War is deceit.

And it’s about time that Israel gave advanced notice that innocent people often die in wars and no one has yet perfected weaponry to the standards of this morally-holier-than-though crowd.

If they think they can fight this war better, maybe we should give them guns and uniforms and point then in the directions of Han Yunis and Jenin.

G-d damn them! (I do a virtual spit-on-the-ground here)

We all know the agenda.

This whole carnival is about “civilian” casualites – is there any doubt anymore that these people simply don’t care about their civilians’ safety?

The problem with Garlasco seems to be that he wasn’t there at the time or close to it and is basing his comments on a scene that had been tampered.
From the very Israel-unfriendly The Independent:

“Mr Garlasco produced a four to five-inch, mainly blackened shell fragment which he collected about 100 yards from the scene of the explosion and in which the figures 55 and the letters “mm” are clearly discernible. While acknowledging that this was not itself definite proof that the shell had killed the Palestinians he said some fragments and shrapnel which the Palestinian police explosives department say they took from the scene where the victims were killed were definitely from a 155mm shell.

Mr Garlasco who accompanied a small group of journalists to the Beit Lahia beach, pointed to three separate craters, each covered in a whitish powder, which he said were fresh, one of which was at the spot where witnesses agree the fatal blast occurred, and the two others separated it from it by about 120 and 250 yards.”

The issue here is the shrapnel. Israel needs to produce it.

Of course, there is another possibility.

STOP APOLOGIZING! Israel left Gaza entirely and yet is being attacked daily from Gaza. They have used artillery to fire back at the Palestinians and consistently have targeted empty areas devoid of people. After 2.5 months of shelling and over 6000 shells fired, prior to this family, there had been a total of 5 Palestinians killed and they were killed accidentally in two separate explosions. There is no question that Israel was firing in response to Palestinian attacks. Even if this family was killed by Israeli shells, which I continue to doubt but don’t know that we’ll ever know, it was due to a fair reaction to the Palestinian bombings. Israel is entirely out of Gaza and yet they continue to attack precisely because they want to re-engage Israel. Somebody would have a case if the Israelis had targeted this family or these people, but they clearly did not.

An alternative for Israel at this point is to do nothing, simply lock up Gaza and refuse all transport in or out until the Qassems stop. They have the Egyptian border crossing if they need supplies. The Israelis simply stop firing back, stop the targeted killings, stop engaging Gaza entirely and literally close up any crossings. They leave guards behind and walk away. After the Qassems have stopped for a period of two weeks straight, they re-open the crossings, but re-close after any attack.

BTW, isn’t it a bit ironic that news agencies are quoting a terrorist organisation as their source of information? Our governments cannot do business with these guys, but CNN has no problem interviewing them if they are accusing Israel. The cycle is repeating itself. The PLO was very similar to this once upon a time…