Try thinking of this whole operatin from the perspective of a civilian in Gaza not as a Jew from Israel .... if your brain doesnt start hurting then you have no feelings

Its as simple as this: if some one were to shoot at you and miss what would you do? Stand there and wait for them to kill you? or defend yourself and disarm them.

Last line...."nobody does this better than the Jewish state" Lie that is !

Certainly a great bookmark for those debating online. I wonder if you have similar articles on other subjects, such as: Gilad Shalit; Pallywood; Settlements; Arab Israelis; Germany.

illegal occupation Britain and the US occupied Nazi Germany and that was Palestinian civilian casualties are Israel's fault No they are the victims of Hamas as were the German civilians in WW2 were Hitlers victims and the allied bombers were not responsible The only way to defeat fascist mentalities is not through negotiation ,hearts and minds campaign or peace treaties but Dresden and Hiroshima Negotiation,peace treaties encourage the extremists and undermine the moderates and make peade further away .DESTROYING THE EXTREMISTS LAYS THE GROUNDWORK FOR TRUE PEACE

Try thinking as a civilian in Israel like me,who has been targeted with rockets from civilian areas in Gaza for 8 years now. If they didn't use civilian area to attack us from,then we would not be hitting civilian areas. Some times your brain must look at this from a different angle.

It's not who is telling the truth,it is who you want to believe.

Thanks. I am under some 'fire' from my colleagues at work and this helps.

Several days before the beginning of Cast Lead, a HAMAS Qassam rocket went off course and killed two Palestinian girls. The reason why Israelis are not dying left and right is because Israel required houses in the border to include reinforced rooms, because Israel invented the Color Red system to give up to 15 seconds of warning (barely enough time for civilians to sprint for cover, hauling screaming kids behind them), because the rockets aimed at schools drift off course, and because Israelis have simply been incredibly lucky.

Hamas deliberately sends civilians into areas targeted by Israel plus Hamas has always been a terrorist org thereforeit must be stopped sooner than later. Wanna stop the civilian casualties? Stop supporting Hamas! Did you see when the Palestinians bring in a supposedly injured child how there are tens of cameramen filming and taking pictures? Does that look like a war zone to you? or more of a staged drama?

The way I see is that innocent people in gaza also live under constant threat from this terror organization (Hamas). I tend to compare gaza as the favelas in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. Too many bandits and no law to put order.

Neither the Russians in Grozny, NATO in Afghanistan or the US Army in Iraq is capable of killing only one civilian for every 5 bad guys while engaging in urban warfare. Of the 360 dead, the UN estimates up to 60 were civilians. That's one in six. The IDF is the most moral army in the world. We know it, our enemies know it, this is why their effort to distort this fact is one of their most important propaganda objectives. The Israeli media has a duty to correct this image.

I think I'm going to post this article on The Economist website .... If anyone wants to see what anti-Israel sentiment is like, you don't need to listen to Hamas - our ''friends'' in Europe are worse. Again, thanks for this article -

Laura, Why don't you try to think of it from the point of a civilain in Sderot, Ahskelon or Ashdod. How about a child who lost his leg from a rocket or the four Israeli children who lost their mother last night when she couldn't run fast enough to shelter.

Try thinking of daily rockets hit, from the perspective of a civilian in Sderot not as an islamist from Gaza .... if your brain doesnt start hurting then you have no feelings

The point of view of the person in Gaza should go something like this: "I elected an internationally recognized terrorist org. to be my government.It's platform is the Destruction of the State of Israel (and the murder of all it's Jews). However, I now realize that I am an idiot for voting them in, now I will face the consequences. Allahu Akbar"

I have been watching this conflict on CNN and they are grossly siding in their coverage for Hamas. I think maybe they should step back and just do a report on Hamas, Who are they? Who funds them? How did they come to Power? The problem here is the world doesn't want to deal with something that doesn't have direct involvement with them and they think if they side against the Goverment that is dealing with the problem, that the problem won't become theres. Hang in there Israel.

Well done. Excellent work!

Remember how many the USA killed in Japan to end WW2 - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - war is war - if the other side has demonstrated that they want you dead and has a long history of trying to do it - you kill them before they kill you.

Rockets may not kill or wound many Israelis, however, on the long run, they will push citizens of shelled community to move in some other areas and this is the goal of Hamas.

These critics claim that they have solution to this war however they don't have any workable solution. They are just trying to sell irrelevant and idiotic solutions who have not a single to work.

Hey Laura, here is a suggestion, before you write something for public consumption, you need to do yourself a favor and prepare adequately before hand. There is no benefit to you, to give the impression that your analytical kills are beneath the levels of competence, required for public discourse in a forum such as this.

Great author, you brought up some excellent points. Now how do we get this circulated in the oh so biased media.

Well said. Objective perspective.

Indeed this article will be of great help for people like me who live in a country where those clichés are used again and again to present a one-sided view of the situation. I liked very much the answer about a supposed "disproportionate response" which is the simplistic argument spread in France by the media and politics.

I'm gonna post this on every annoying blog I encounter that is anti Israeli

Our PR campagne should be aimed to the above mentioned cliche' and is thrue the IDF is the most moral army in the world. Why the ones who are accusing us do not spend few minutes with they own statistic. What's Happen in Iraq or in Afganistan what are doing Turkish army to the Kurd population,Russian recently. They did not started a war to defend his population from rocket attacks.