Susie, you've got to be kidding me. Every sentence in this "article" is blatant garbage... you and your ilk will slowly disappear, and the moral bankruptcy of your positions will become well known.

Ms Becher spends a lot of time talking about the "uninvolved" how we have managed to " dehumanize" them in our minds and how morally wrong it is to kill them. I wish to shed some light upon these "uninvolved" and then ask - who is really responsible for their deaths? 1. The Hamas deliberately fired rockets from populated civilian areas, including schools and even once from a hospital yard. They used these civilians as human shields - a blatant breach of the Geneva convention. These are the " uninvolved", trying to prevent Israel from returning fire. Question: what is more morally wrong - to fail to protect your own civilian citizens so as not to harm those of your enemy who use them as a human shield? 2. There are documented cases of Gaza Civilians being held hostage by the Hamas so that they could fire on Israeli soldiers. For every cell of 3 Hamas militants, 2 fire on Israelis while the third holds these "uninvolved" hostage at gunpoint - again- the human shield, so that if Israel were to return fire, these civilians would be killed. The age of these " uninvolved" people was irrelevant: there were even 5 year olds there. Again - who is committing the worse moral wrong here, the Hamas, who cynically use these civilians as shields, or the Israelis who return fire? Addendum: Since when did we send our children to the army for target practice for the Hamas without the ability to defend themselves? 3. The "uninvolved" can be categorized into 2 categories: Those who willingly act as human shields, because they hate Israel as well and would kill Israelis if they could and who condone the murders committed by the Hamas, and those who are truly held against their will. YOU try differentiate between the two, Susan, it is impossible. 4. Interesting that we see absolutely no self flagellation and no moral debate from the Palestinian side, regarding the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians. We actually see the opposite - dancing on the rooftops. Go figure, Susan Becher.

it happened the question is not who did it but --WHY ????

...what does a "legal" war look like for such people? According to Meretz apparently, in an ideal world it's better for all of us who don't vote for Meretz (those of us in range of Hamas Missiles - those of us who don't live in North Tel Aviv) to die defending the UN Human Rights Commission's version of international law, rather than make our enemies die while they try to kill OUR innocent civilians. Hasn't it occurred to her that had not Hamas militants who nestled their way amongst innocent civilians not been attacked, the losses amongst Israelis would have been much, much higher? Are we not entitled to decide for ourselves that our innocent lives are worth more than their innocent lives? That's what was on the line. How many Meretz voters would have been willing to die so that a Palestinian in Gaza, at least a third of which thought that the Fogel murders were just fine, could live? What will Meretz do when it's THEIR voters who are culled by their vaunted principles, and not just the "riff raff" in the fringes of Gaza? Just askin'.

I wonder what Becher would think of a war action in which 15,000 civilians were killed in the initial shelling to soften up the enemy, and an additional 20,000 innocent civilians killed in the battle itself. Unjustifiable, right? Only this particular action happened to be Operation Overlord, that is, the Normandy Invasion, the critical Allied action that was the beginning of the end of World War II, the operation that spelled the ultimate defeat of Nazism. One does not judge an action by the fact that civilians do or don't die in it. One judges it by its inherent moral purpose. And the purpose of Cast Lead was to end the incessant rocket attacks on Israel's South, on innocent Israeli civilians. Unfortunately, Arab civilians had to be killed in order to put an end to the deaths of Israelis -- but the fault for that lies squarely in the Arab court.

What's this s**t about political solution in gasa with people refusing to utter word ''Israel" . You live in a dream, Susie boy. And about civilians, it is all sad, but when you are in the midst of combat, with bad guys in civilian clothes shooting at you from civilian houses, your decision making prosess kinda limited, Sisie.

Becher shows again that Meretz is more concerned with succoring the enemy than with caring about the human rights of Israelis. Meretz will soon be lost from the Knesset. Israeli civilians care about Israeli civilians deaths. Meretz cares about Palestinian civilian deaths. Do the arithmetic - Israeli voters are finished with political parties who are more concerned with preserving the Arabs "right" to murder Israeli civilians.

I can't coment anymore on articles like this, my patience is at an end. You try & make rational arguments & present facts but this doesn't work on the ideologically impaired, these mentally disturbed individuals are impervious to reality. We are dealing here with the irrational & not with a point of view based on evidence & facts. These cranks only parrot whatever the Arabs say, lies & distortions no sane person would believe. While the Arabs come from a culture that is steeped in bigotry, hatred, & fanaticism, a culture of conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, & lies, it is impossible to understand Israeli leftists without recourse to psychiatric theories. Do we argue with schizophrenics or other mental pathologies?

This is the typical delusional mentality that characterizes the Israeli left wing, and why it has no credibility anymore. What Ms. Becher seeks is impossible-a clean war where no one dies. That is not the nature of war. People die in war, combatants and non-combatants alike. That is the nature of war, and why it is so horrible. At the same time, Ms. Becher ignores, as did the Goldstone report, and the Israeli left, the series of incidents that led up to Operation Cast Lead, which was the firing of thousands of rockets against Israeli civilians for a period of years. This apparently does not trouble Ms. Becher, which is a reflection of the moral bankruptcy of Meretz. I think in the next elections, that the left is going to get hammered by the Israeli electorate, that has seen the results of allowing the Israeli left to have any say in our national defense. In the meantime, Ms. Becher should move to one of the belt communities surrounding Gaza, and see if she maintains her stand when the rockets and mortars fall on her head and her loved ones.

He says, "and the documentation of even isolated incidents where IDF soldiers shot first..." Welcome to warfare, brother. Warfare, by definition, equals death and destruction. If the writer of this ridiculous op ed hasn't grasped that very simple concept that has been around for over 3,500 years, he needs to spend less time in Disney World and more time with us here, in reality.

It's War and in War their is Collateral Damage. In every war their has ever been waged by every single nation has had and will cotinue to have unintended civilian deaths. UN = Double standards. Check Iraq,Afganistan ect.... and instead of waking up the Israeli left continues to pour oil on the fire as usual! Shame on you!!!

this is another proof if needed that leftists are always with the wrong side. Staline murdered more people than Hitler, Vietnam,China,Cuba,all examples of murderers,countries where there is no freedom for the people,the press and where people like you would be in jail in the best case scenario.But when you are in France or England or most of the free countries Europe,America(north)Canada etc... you can be communist even revolutionary league any stupid leftist group there is no danger but in Israel!!!! Are you Blind or insane?? do you really believe that it could be peace with Hamas or Hezbollah? PLEASE READ SLOWLY AND THINK ABOUT FOR A DAY OR TWO TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND : THEY WANT TO KILL US NO PRISONERS NO SURVIVORS THEY WANT TO DROWN US IN THE SEA.is that sentence means anything for you? They use babies,teenagers,women as excuse to have the antisemitic peoples,UN,all over the world to condemn us and you are helping them. OK I am tired of that Hag Samea'h I am glad that: He never sleep the guardian of Israel. because if it was for you OY VAVOY

And I mean the Talkback's and not the article, which is really at too high an intellectual level for this crowd. Ynetnews.com is really just Arutz sheva with immodest ads. In some Western states this website would be shut down and in nearly all of them monitored by the internal security services for political extremists. Maybe the site is run by the Shin Bet to monitor all the fanatic Jewish Rightists? It makes sense, right, they put all these very provocative articles from the Left, the Left-Left and the Traitor Left occasionally throw in some really, really Right wing stuff, and pow, you've got vitriolic dripping down all the Talkbacks. Think about it guys. The Shin Bet Jewish Department is on to you

What does Susie do when criminals are shooting at her entire family from behind innocent hostages? There comes a point when it's either us or them. You cannot give terrorists free rein to kill unlimited numbers of our innocents in order to protect a few of their innocents. Jews in hiding sometimes had to kill their own babies to survive the Nazis. You also cannot reach a political solution with vermin. They instinctually try to bite you and no reasoning is going to pacify them. You must kill rats with poison or lethal traps. There may be no military solution but the military is the only defense.

As wrong as I believe your opinion is on so many levels, this is what makes Israel great. Of course, your comment is only a comment, for what is Meretz's proposed solution? Surrender? Return to exile? Do you think for a moment that Hamas fires rockets on Israel because they want Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria? Or from Haifa and Jaffa too.

Susie Becher apparently lives in a parallel world, or a bubble - where war can be waged cleanly and surgically, with clear boundaries between right and wrong, where you can easily isolate the enemy and cleanly dispose of it, where the enemy cares about their women and children's safety to keep them from harm's way, and where a military victory can be attained with a 'proportional' response. In such ideal world, her arguments about purity of arms would be germane. Sadly, such utopian vision of war does not exist for our REAL world. In our real world, the enemy hides and fires from behind its own civilians, including in schools, kindergartens, mosques and refugee camps. In our real world, terrorists are not wearing uniform. In our real world, our soldiers are under severe stresses (severe existential threat would do that to you), which sometimes lead to errors in judgment. In our real world, a tiny weeny miscalculation of cannon calibration in a tank, may result in hitting a UN refugee compound instead of a sniper, perched a mere 15 meters away. In our real world, the terrorists target not our army, but our civilians, and hence there always exists this macabre dilemma - whose safety is more important - our civilians or theirs? And finally, in our real world, the enemy never learns its lesson and from 'proportionate' or 'measured' responses. In order for the enemy to be morally broken and defeated - a harsh, disproportionate response must be made, and such response, almost always involves peripheral damage and civilian casualties, as sad as that may be. Such was the case in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such was the case in Dresden, such was the case in Chechnya, and such was the case in Serbia. Has anyone labeled the aggressors in these cases - the US, the Allied Forces, Russia, NATO - as "war criminals"? Given our imperfect, real world - although we may be morally tempted to - we cannot afford to be holier than the Pope. Of course, we must take every reasonable measure to minimize civilian casualties, but not to the point where this undermines our victory. We must investigate alleged wrongdoings on our part and take active steps to root them out (if proven true), but not to the point of neutering our soldiers' and generals' ability to fight. Yes, it's not a perfect solution, but war is dirty business, Ms. Becher. It always was, and probably always will be. And on a last note. Who would you find more credible on the issue of urban warfare, and the IDF's conduct during Cast Lead? A renowned British warfare expert - Col. Richard Kemp - having plenty of experience in this kind of warfare in Afghanistan, and having absolutely no vested interest in protecting Israel - or some leftist activist with a clear political agenda, having zero combat experience? Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX6vyT8RzMo

When the Tel-Aviv "buah" is burst by the first Grad rocket, will you be singing the same tune?

If the WW II Allies subscribed to Becher's twisted and perverse "morality", the Nazis would have won the war. The world would be Judenreim and what was left id ur would all speak German. Israel fights enemies who would love nothing more than to mass murder most Jews and drive the rest from our sole, tiny Homeland. Israel's moral imperative is to win total resounding victory.

1. Communism rejects religious terror and religion in general. 2. Communism rejects racial, sexual and belief discrimination. 3. Communism rejects state terror. Yet these so-called communists ally themselves with the worst, most discriminatory, tyrannical and genocidal religion on Earth. Marx and Engels must be dying again, in their graves. The scum of Meretz, Balad, and their collaborators abroad are not more than Nazis in disguise. Same mentality and narrative, different flags. They make me sick.

Why do you hate so much someone for having and voicing a different opinion or point view ? Why so much venom especially from freedom loving nations of US and Canada ?

Well, if you are so loving, why are you so venomous of MY opinion about the likes of you? Why can't you respect MY opinion. BTW, I am happy that I managed to make you sick too. I was afraid it was only a one way street. I guess that so much venom, coming from you, Meretz, Balad and other pimpled useful fools, deserves to be unmasked, don't you think? MY opinion is that you and your friends are spreading too much venom. There is no reason for any of us to take it without a fight. Can you respect my opinion? So if you don't want venom in return, take yours to your snake friends and do what your alias says: SPLIT!

How else can the Israeli establishment justify its policies and actions? Israel is an army that has a country. It cannot survive unless there is an external threat. If the Palestinian 'terrorists' were not there, the establishment will create them. The paradox is, as the so-called peace process has shown, that peace is the killer of (militarist) Israel and Israel is the killer of peace.

The reason for having an army in the first place, and a good one I might say, is a natural result of the tons of love, coexistence and peace pouring onto us from all the Muslim world. Yes, we don't need an army. The many wars and on going terror and harassment started and maintained by the Muslims around us, and farther away just prove that the war, genocide and nuclear holocaust mongering is more of a specialty of your kind than ours. It's so great seeing you and our enemies envy us, and hate our guts for the army we have and their failure to beat the Jew without having the Jew coming after them with a big stick and beat the crap out of you in return. So yessiree: unfortunately for you, IDF is here to stay, stronger and smarter every day, insuring our survival and well-being, on our ancestral lands, floating on a sea of racism, hatred, genocide and war-mongering courtesy of you and your Islamo-Anarchist friends.

Who's truth , yours ? What's that ? ,...

threats ? an government ala bibi (and lieberman) wont... but israel with not survive with them... ---> ??? <---

this war was an asymetric war. the terrorists were hiding behind innocent people and firing to our soldiers. this is a war crime.since they didnt play the game according the war rules they have to bear the consequences. our soldiers had to survive . they did the best.

Why is this respected paper chooses to publish an opinion of a person who represnt a 0.8% of the population? It is shamful to read these lies about Israel and the IDF, bordering on the criminal. Please let her know she id not welcomed among the readers, we in Israel are fed up with the people of the Oslo agreement that brought us this disaster, the likes Israel has never known, or will ever know. Their Oslo crap will end up with a Hamas controled Plest. state, than meretz will rightfully be delighted.

#43 Smith. There is some frothing at the mouth going on here. You're doing it. Ynet is a far cry from Arutz Sheva. Everything else in your post is complete nonsense also. Smith, remember the elections? Labor and Meretz; the parties of the Two State Final Solution are being voted out of existence. Israel rejects this abomination.

this idiot & stupid "goldstone" is just the rigth symbol for the UN, at present!

I have one request for Susie Becher. Please,please keep on saying that Israeli soldiers gun down non-combatants, that the IDF has no concept of innocent civilians and displays a wanton disregard for human life, that Israeli soldiers should risk their lives by not shooting first, and that the army gives all soldiers a "license to kill." Please continue to write and say these things because I am ashamed that your party has three seats in the Knesset. I think you should have none. But the only way this will happen is if more of the Israeli people know of the twisted, sick ideology which your party represents, of its support for Palestinian state power under any circumstances, of its constant efforts to deligitimize our right to self-defense. So, please, please don't stop.