Anytime someone says anything constructive or in any way positive, even if not to Israel but to Palestinians, but without corresponding negativity to Israel, they get lynched.

Now, this whole article's moral calculus only works if you agree beforehand that Hamas equals people of Gaza. War against Hamas equals war against the occupied population of Gaza. Indeed that is what Hamas wants. Hamas wants the world to accept it as the legitimate ruler, so that everyone will have to negotiate with them and treat them the same as Abbas's government. Egypt and Abbas disagree, and probably quite a number of other arab states also do not support Hamas. However, that's not the position I see argued on these recent threads, where Hamas is "democratically elected" representative of Gaza. I put it in quotes, because I believe that after they performed the coup in Gaza and continue to brutally oppress those who belong to Fatah, they became totalitarian rulers, incompatible with democratic process.

If you consider that Hamas is using population of Gaza as human shields, stocking weapons in mosques, hospitals, and schools, suddenly they are no longer "democratically elected" representatives of Gaza, but oppressors of Gaza population, who bring misery to their people for political gain. Similarly, Israeli current war becomes not so different then the war against Hizbullah, which was never considered as the war against Leganon. Also in both wars, the local population suffered immensely. However, in Lebanon, Hizbullah would now be afraid to provoke Israel again, because they they know they will be blamed by people of Lebanon.

One last point I wanted to make is that I almost never see mentioned the fact that Israel's conflict with Hamas also includes Hamas holding hostage an Israeli soldier. Israel made it clear that they will not fully open their borders until that issue is resolved.

Do you seriously not see the difference between Russia-Georgia conflict and Israel-Hamas conflict? The two are simply not comparable, neither in justification nor in the type of warfare. Russian army was fighting Georgian army. Georgian soldiers were not hiding among Georgian civilians. Georgians were not attacking Russian civilians or Russian territory.

The only way Israel can avoid Palestinian civilian casualties is not to fight on Gaza territory at all. In fact, I do not see any response Israel could have in this conflict that would satisfy Israel critics on this thread as acceptable, except perhaps to capitulate to all demands of Hamas.

If Hamas was able to fire rockets from the West Bank, that would put in range of rockets Israeli airport. The ramifications of this would be huge and Israel would never allow that.

Hamas may not be able to kill many Israeli civilians, but they are very successful in disrupting the lives of those who come within range of their rockets. Israel simply cannot wait until they learn to extend that range and terrorize more of the Israeli territory, the way Hizbullah was able to.

Hamas is a virulent, terrorist organization that successfully integrated with Palestinian civilians. I personally would like to see Egypt is succeed in reinstating PA in Gaza, at least in the control of the borders. Then perhaps Egypt could also be induced to take a more active role in caring for Gaza population.

Hamas would be happy to be "ending their lives", but for now "disrupting their lives" is the best they can do. So they'll take it.

Palestinians in Gaza cannot "peacefully live their lives without foreign interference" because economically they are dependent on Israel, Egypt, and UN aid. Between the three, I would like to see Egypt increase their role, since as you mentioned Egypt is a client state of US.

Whether or not Israel would be using the same military tactics against West Bank as they do with Gaza is impossible to find out, because Israel is indeed occupying West Bank, by controlling it through checkpoints. In addition, Palestinian Authority in West Bank is helping Israel prevent any possibility of someone firing rockets. There is no comparable threat to Israel coming from West Bank, as it does from Gaza.

It's simply dishonest to say Israel is "at war with helpless population." Israel is at war with Hamas. Why isn't anyone outraged that Hamas is rejecting cease-fire? More accurately, Syrian's wing of Hamas is rejecting cease-fire. The real culprits in this current monstrosity of misery and death are Syria and Iran, who continue to supply Hamas with money and weapons, and goad them into fighting Israel. If Syria kicked out Mashaal, leader of Hamas, I bet things would be much different.

Bush missed a golden opportunity before Iraqi war, when Iranians, afraid of his belligerence, secretly approached him and offered to cut ties with Hizbullah and Hamas and Syria and much more, if he signed a treaty with them.

And by the way, contrast this to Russia-Georgia conflict, since Glenn mentioned them in Update II. Georgia was pleading the world to intervene and stop Russia's onslaught and sign the cease-fire treaty. How do you explain Hamas's behavior? Where's moral outrage against them?

I was making exact same point as WinSmith. So go ahead, try to lynch me too. Israel is after Hamas militants. That's who they are shooting at. It is sick to accuse Israel of deliberately targeting civilians.

Also: Hamas never explicitly recognized Israel's right to exist. Stop saying this canard. There were "implicit," "tacit" and other clever wordings all designed to avoid making the same statement as what Palestinians did in Oslo when they explicitly recognized Israel's right to exist.

Hamas also stated that they will never sign a peace agreement, but are willing to enter a long-term 'hundna' or cease-fire.

Oh, and btw, I also made a point that it's Hamas's sponsors, Syria and Iran, that should be held accountable in this conflict.

seems you already reached your verdict, with or without evidence.

And don't pretend to be stupid. It matters, if the military is targeting those who are armed and shooting at them, as opposed to civilians who are unarmed.