are you the chief of staff or the defense minister? You seem to know it all and I am so "glad" you gave away Israel's strategy. The terrorists only need to read y-net to see what Israel will do next! What a sad little country :-(

Leaving aside the obvious, which is that the disengagement from Gaza was a poor idea to begin with & also, we were totally lied to regarding our "tough" response should terrorism continue, there are a few observations that immediately come to mind. The first is that we should have been targeting Hamas leaders as soon as weapons smuggling became such a big business. In this, we made the same mistake as in S. Lebanon - we allowed the enemy to build up it's military strength & capabilities. We allowed them to create a deterrence against ourselves. Second, we have always been reticent to target "big names" - when, in fact, they should have been top of the list. Third, we make useless distinctions between political & military wings of Hamas as well as useless distinctions between various organizations. Arafat played these tricks on us by using proxies & evidently, we have learned nothing. We are, by the way, making the same mistake with Fatah & PA security forces who for the most part, are members of other various terror organizations. Fourth, the real reason we take only cosmetic actions in Gaza is because of the "peace process" - there is no other real reason. We tolerate terrorism to "bolster" another group of terrorists. The security of our citizens comes at the bottom of the list of this gov't's priorities. Fifth, there are various strategies for dealing with Gaza but we seem always to settle for cosmetic excercises that are more media events than effective action. Effectively dealing with terrorist groups is by killing them in large numbers & forcing the survivors to flee from their base of operation. When we forced Arafat & his thugs into exile in Tunis, they quickly became irrelevent until, in our stupidity, we brought them back. Whether to have a massive invasion of Gaza or to intensify "incursions" is a military decision I am not capable of commenting on - but the IDF should have no political meddling & be allowed to fulfill it's function unhindered.

You idiot it’s called politics, is a game that is played between countries. There are people who go to school and get PHD’s for studying and understanding this game we call politics. Ron is not giving any information that Hamas does not already know.

The writer is nobody of particular importance and has no special knowledge about anything,. Hamas and others can as easily come to the same conclusions as he can. As to your last comment, it simply reflects your own feelings of inadequacy and nothing more. Mike

It would seem to me that the Israeli policyof targetted assassinations, or murder to speak in plain English, has not worked. It has not worked on the West Bank, it didn't work when Israeli agents tried against Palestinians in Jordan, it backfires when Israeli agents do it in Lebanon, and it simply encourages Hamas and justifies their ideology when the IDF murders people in Gaza. What a sad indictment of a country when the best foreign policy it can offer is this 1984-speak "all-out targeted elimination offensive". Perhaps Mr Ben-Yisha should simply stop using pathetic metaphors and start calling for the final solution - for this is how the policy looks to outsiders. Indeed, until the last sentient Palestinian is killed, there will be resistance to the theft of land, to the exploitation of collaborators, to mass punishments, to mass imprisonments and to the rain of death which the IDF regularly inflicts on Gaza. Seen in a historical perspective, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto who were the subjects of "all-out targeted elimination offensive" actually organised and fought back and were seen as heroes for doing so. Similarly the Palestinians imprisoned in their various Gaza and West Bank Bantustan ghettos. It is not a question of whether you support the Palestinians or the Israelis, but a question of common sense. No people is simply going to sit and be "picked off" one by one, or as we saw yesterday ten by ten, until there are none left. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply deluding him/herself.

Should have already by larger attacks whenever a rocket is fired into Israel. Hamas smells cash to Fatah and wants $$ more than peace. No peace will come by financing terrorists.

Absolutely. The Warsaw ghetto was a 'target elimination offensive' Gaza is the biggest ghetto in the world, no entry or exit without the IDF's say - so, massive poverty and penury. People dying from lack of medicine. The list of atrocities is endless. Even the football team were denied exit visas to go and play a qualifying match recently. Regarding the 'targeted elimination offensive' such operations are also known as 'extrajudicial punishment'. This is sometimes a feature of politically repressive regimes using death squads for the purpose, but even self-proclaimed or internationally recognized democracies have been known to use extrajudicial punishment under certain circumstances. And Israel has been condemned on many occasions for extrajudicial killings.

How can you possibly have a problem with specifically targeting "militants"? There is absolutely no dispute here that is what these people are, they aren't disputing it, their organisation isn't disputing it. For you is the only "moral solution" for Israel to not react at all to Palestinian attacks, to just "sit there and be picked off one by one"? As for your "historical perspective", you urgently need to start reading something other than Finkelstein. The death rate amongst the Warsaw Jews at the time of the ghetto uprising was over 90%. The death rate amongst Palestinians - and lets not forget most of the Palestinians killed have been "actively engaged in hostilities when killed" - is 0.1%. Are you so stupid/ignorant that you cannot tell the difference between the Holocaust and the Second Intifada? Are that dumb that "targeted elimination offensive" against Hamas and Islamic Jihad **MILITARY** wing is equivalent to genocide? I note you are perfectly OK with Hamas/Jihad/PRC targeting civilians day in day out. As for the Hamas and Islamic Jihad not "sitting back ", it is OK for them to try kill Israelis but it is "nazi-like" for Israel to hit the people trying to kill Israelis. In your world the only people allowed to die are Jews who must under no circumstances fight back - I think a group who name who bandy about so freely had the same idea.

I award you a PhD for the ongoing deep and thoughtful, as well as humane, political analysis which you write here from time to time. We can all learn to be better people by reading your considered and enlightened pieces of rational thought. Keep up the good work. The straight-jacket has been ordered for you.

What a fool you are--and an anti-Semite to boot. Israel is killing terrorists whose Islamic Jihad brethren admit--celebrate--the fact that they were in charge of firing rockets that murdered Israeli civilians. Explain to us how targeting them is like the Nazi Holocaust. Not everyone who criticizes Israel is anti-Semitic, obviously. But anyone who uses absurd comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany is most definitely an Anti-Semite, and anyone who says Israel does not have the right to defend itself from terrorists firing rockets into Israel is most definitely an anti-Semite. Why not just admit that you are from the same noble tradition as Hitler, Stalin, and the Grand Inquisitor, and stop hiding behind a cloak of anti-Zionism? No one is fooled anyway.

Where they belong!

The inadequacies of your lengthy yet simplistic argument are surprisingly numerous. You fail to realize that war, on whatever scale, involves murder, yet expect your reader to jump in abhorence of the word. You fail to distinguish between the whole of foreign policy and its parts, which should involve some element of violence for any country worthy of existence. You fail to realize, as do most Israelis and Palestinians too absorbed in their own particular suffering, that the sins of the fathers are inherited as the history of their children, not the present. You conclude with one lengthy faulty analogy, and it is this seemingly requisite analogy that inevitably shows your cards as a thoroughly biased observer: the Warsaw Ghetto was under German control, and its entire populace was scheduled to be destroyed - when you can point to a similar Israeli plan to annihilate a people under its direct control, I will relinquish my Israeli passport. Until then, please make a small attempt to disambiguate the most planned-out genocide in the history of modernity from what can only be called a drawn-out ethnic conflict. Or leave political science to those who can and just state your politics.

A more appropriate comparison would be the English response to the German rockets fired at London. Following this example, Israel would firebomb all of Gaza in response. The current Israeli response of targeting only enemy combatants is vastly more moral by comparison to the English response which targeted German civilians. Where, pray tell, where your family living during those times "English" guy?

Nothing like a remote armchair expert like you to tell us like it is. Hamas and Jihad fire just under 6000 poorly aimed (thank G-d!) rockets at unarmed civilians, and you have done a top notch job of totally ignoring it. Keep up the good work, Anglo dude. Your politically incorrect attitude will no doubt help bring peace to nobody - fulfilling the left wing apologists' mindset of universal decrepitude for everybody. Your pathetic attempt to equate the Pals with the Warsaw ghetto fighters shows just how bankrupt your arguments are. As you so aptly say, no people is simply going to sit back and be picked off by one by one by Qassams and katyushas , or as we've seen too many times in the past by 10's or 20's at the hands of suicide bombers. The Palestinians in Gaza can negotiate for peace or fire rockets. Unfortunately for us and for them, they keep rejecting peace and choosing rockets. We're gonna shoot back at them, you English moron.

"Islamic Jihad brethren admit--celebrate--the fact that they were in charge of firing rockets that murdered Israeli civilians. " I suggest you read the list of talkbacks whenever the IDF kills a bunch of innocent Palestinian civilians. The list of Zionists and zionist supporters lauding, whooping, celebrating, jumping up and down with glee, is exactly the mirror image of those people you so despise. Anyway, let's reiterate - the Israeli policy of raining death from the sky and killing all and everyone is, to a certain degree, a rat hunt. The reactions, at least on the pages of YNET from TBers, is generally odious and gleeful. If you'd like more comparisons - the number of people writing on these TBs calling for the mass expulsion of non-Jews from historic Palestine, those sneering at Israeli ARab citizens who only receive 4% of state budgets, the mass punishments, the horrendous generalisations, the extreme racism expressed in TB - I would leave you to draw your own conclusion except that you will only retort that Israeli anti-Arab racism/bigotry/murderous activities are justified - so what's the point discussing? You like Arab death, you hate Israeli death. I hate all death. Quite simple really - except you cannot grasp it.

Replying to these two jerks (English guy & Invicta) is a waste of time. Anyone who could make the odious & offensive comparisons as they do is not susceptible to rational discussion & historical comparisons. The fact that they defend Hamas which subscribes in reality to a Nazi-like ideology should clearly identify them as anti-Semites of the worst sort. The tactic of comparing Israel to the Nazis is not only meant to offend but to de-legitimize us. As always, anti-Semites see us as the epitomy of evil no matter what our actions. It's good for Israelis to read such talkbacks so that they have an idea what sort of ideas exist in Europe & America - those who have never faced anti-Semitism as part of daily life often have a mistaken view of the ill-will against us around the world. But, your talkback was, as usual, an excellent come-back.

An put their leaders heads on crossroads!

Hama's should be first, and second and next. This business of only targeting the actual rocket launching squad, and not those directing, controlling and supplying them, is foolish and short sighted. Israel would prefer to live in peace, but as the Arabs insist upon war and terrorism, they must be dealt with appropriately. At the very least, every rocket salvo aimed at an Israeli population should result in a rocket salvo at the Gaza population. As these savages refuse to live in peace and pursue prosperity, they must be expelled back to their native countries, and "their" land converted to a buffer zone.

of intellect.... People were killed in the Warsaw Ghetto, people are killed in Gaza therefore Gaza=Warsaw Ghetto. Pure Genius! And the nobel prize goes to..... What was it about people in glass houses and stones?

Did I defend Hamas? That's your projection, habibti. I have never said a word in defence of hamas - so your reductionist argument is invalid. Just because someone criticises the murderous activities of the IDF, it does not mean that he/she supports Hamas. Simplistic garbage on your part. The "anti-Semitic" card is a pathetic and feeble canard. Bandying it around, and plastering it willy-nilly on people who disagree with the murderous tactics of the IDF is a concept which was discredited long ago. Try harder next time. Perhaps you'll be a little more logical, reasonable, rational. Although I doubt it. Zei gezint.

and this foolish goverment must go home to bed.let new and brave with wisdom take charge.dont have mercy and kill as many you can and cut electricity and water.

We have had posts from Invicta which are utterly and demonstrably false. We have posts from you which when they bother to quote facts are demonstrably false. Even when you don't quote facts your arguments are at best specious. Your TB #11 is a mixture of lies and what can only be malicious distortions. I find it difficult to believe that someone from a Western country cannot know the difference between the Nazis treatment of Polish Jews and Israel's treatment of Palestinians. To reiterate, your claim of "raining death" and "killing all and everyone" is clearly a lie. This year around 316 Palestinians were killed by the IDF, which makes Gaza much safer than Chicago. One should also note that of that 316, the number that "did not actively take part in hostilities" when killed is 127 - note the last three people are Hamas soldiers who just happened not to be firing at the time of death, so this figure cannot honestly be used as a proxy for civilian. This is publically available information which can only mean you are making arguments in bad faith. Now one has to then ask the question why a Westerner, despite copious publically available information, choses to make up facts, knowingly make false comparisions and knowingly lie about what he reads (the TBs you are quoting are when TERRORISTS are killed, again here this is not in dispute even by the Palestinians). One is forced to conclude is something in particular about Israel you have a problem with. The question remains WHY?

TB #5: "it simply encourages Hamas and justifies their ideology when the IDF murders people in Gaza". So if Israel hits "militants" and "murders" them then their ideology in your view is "justified". You call compare the Palestinians "fighting back" [ie Hamas, Islamic Jihad] with the "heroes" of the Warsaw Ghetto. You claim it is "common sense" for the Palestinians [ie Hamas and Islamic Jihad] to "fight back". Well if that is not defence of Hamas then it has to be the most limp-wristed condemnation of the daily targeting of Israeli civilians by Hamas and Islamic Jihad's qassams. The reason people keep calling you "anti-semitic" is that you keep: 1) Lying, 2) Making malicious comparisions that have ZERO basis in fact, 3) Have some sort of problem with the IDF killing "militants" 4) Have no problem with self-same militants trying - and sometimes succeeding - in killing Israeli civilians 5) and apparently despite publically and easily available information disproving your claims you continue to make them 6) and it ONLY Israel you seem to have a problem with One has to wonder then why this is the case and there are two possibilities - you really are an anti-semite or you have simply picked up on the anti-Israeli cause because it is trendy amongst your mates and have no real interest in it whatsoever; as long as you can post your lies somewhere you are perfectly happy for Palestinians to "resist" and spill more Palestinian and Israeli blood whilst you sit in the safety of London. I'll leave it to you as to which is worse.

Terry is a male name....

Before all the talkbackers blast my comment I will just say that I believe in a strong Israel and taking powerful military action against Hamas etc.... Also when I use France as an example, I am by no means comparing Israel's moral and historical right to the land and the right of France to own Algeria, etc. as a colonial power. Having said that, I do want to point out the limits of military action. During the Algerian uprising in the late fifties, France sent its paratroopers to crush the Algerian revolt. It used tough measures and brutality that Israel would never imagine using. Yet the revolt continued despite all actions. The French realized there was no military solution and they were forced out of Algeria. About 500,000 French Algerians who lived in Algeria for generations went back to France. French army officers actually placed bombs on French soil in opposition to the withdrawl. See the movie Battle of Algiers to get an excellent accounting of what happened. I bet that many if not most ofl the talkback experts who have simplistic military solutions, have never had the military experience to make their pronouncements. I wonder if any of them have even had a son or daughter in the Israeli or any other army. It's easier to send someone else's child to die in battle. We have an impossible situation with an enemy that does not seem to follow the idea that life should be made better for the generations ahead even if it means some compromise. There are no simple solutions but simplistic military suggestions by some of the talkbackers are just plain silly.

Young intellectual, Communist or near-Communist: “No, I do not like Jews. I've never made any secret of that. I can't stick them. Mind you, I'm not antisemitic, of course.” Middle-class woman: “Well, no one could call me antisemitic, but I do think the way these Jews behave is too absolutely stinking. The way they push their way to the head of queues, and so on. They're so abominably selfish. I think they're responsible for a lot of what happens to them.” Intelligent woman, on being offered a book dealing with antisemitism and German atrocities: “Don't show it me, please don't show it to me. It'll only make me hate the Jews more than ever.” Same mentaility then as today.