"As Allah wills." He is doubtlessly enjoying his 72 virgins and innumerable pearl-like little boys in Paradise, although unlike his more mature fellow "martyrs" he's probably just trying to play soccer with them.

Where to begin untangling the mess Gaza is in? Is it the people, taking money from Hamas? Is it Fatah? Is it the Saudis? Syria? Iran? Is it the people having 2 wives and 9 children? Is it Israel lobbing rockets onto a soccer field?

Something somewhat related: Hamas may be Islamic militants, but they may also be actually truly better at providing social services. Somalia was under the charge of the Islamic Courts Party, which although very into Sharia law, brought peace and stability to Mogadishu. But that just couldn't continue, according to the west, islamic extremists controlling Somalia! So, Ethiopia and the US destroyed Islamic Courts and Mogadishu is back to the bloodbath from which Sharia had given it a brief respite. Also tragic.

Regardless of where the various militant groups fired from, Israeli munitions hit the soccer field. Given that the Israeli military is the best in the world, and that they enjoy the best armaments in the world, thanks to their (goy) Uncle Sam, it's hard not to conclude that they want to hit that soccer field.

You have your translation wrong Kasimira and this isn't about virgins, although thank you for trying to divert this all too important issue to sex. It is about life under occupation. When a family can't afford for a funeral for their own child, an innocent victim of oppression. Confined to basically an open air prison they are left with little or no power over their own lives and even deaths. The Palestinians in Gaza have no control over their borders, sea and airspace, their travel is limited and their lives are at risk daily...It is very unfortunate that even a funeral has to be used in a powerplay, but they are all in fact quite powerless and have found themselves fighting for the crumbs.

Young male Palestinians have long been the target of Israelis.

Complaining about Die Sturmer Salon?

but the israelis have to do something - their public demands it. when 9/11 happened we went to war with afghanistan and i'm sure more innocent afghans were killed than guilty. again obviously, lobbing missiles after rockets doesn't work. go in with infantry? more israelis will be killed and it would cause a greater uproar. should israel just take it? put up with a few rockets and ignore its citizens? i'm sure that soccer field would become a semi-permanent military installation. it is true that hamas held to its truce, but it allowed the Islamic Jihad to continue. it would be odd if there weren't collusion - especially since it only seems to fight fatah - perhaps that's because iran sponsors them both. just a word on "the impoverished Palestinian public" - it's not impoverished like, say darfur. the lifespan is over 70 and the birthrate is the highest in the world. these are not the statistics of the impoverished. they have very few *things* however. why? the EU and the oil states support them with food subsidies. so they have enough to eat and the israelis provide them with medical care so they live relatively long(not as long as israelis but longer than other arabs, for instance, the jordanian palestinians who constitute more than half the population of that country)

Please. They can't "afford" a funeral because of the ridiculous requirements of their grotesque, death-oriented culture -- a culture which repeatedly shows on television the triumphant video of little girl picking up bombs and promising to follow her mother into martyrdom, which straps play bombs to babies for photo ops, which uses children as human shields for murder operations, which celebrates as one of its leading ladies a monstrous mother who boasts of the suicide bombings committed by her sons, smug in her certainty of Paradise because they murdered Jews in the name of Allah as they died. Don't even begin to tell me that this culture values its children as anything but dead bodies. There's simply too much evidence right in front of you to argue otherwise.

Can't afford it? One wonders where the millions and millions of aid dollars paid yearly to these Arabs have gone. Oh, that's right -- to guns, rockets, bombs . . .

But I digress. Of course it's the Joooooz! Do I get a cookie?

And Allah knows best!

Can we talk about Easter? Worshipping the mutilated crucified Christ, eating his body (well, that's all the time for catholics), drinking his blood? Mmm mmm mmm.

Did you ever see the movie "The Seventh Seal"? Talk about grotesque and death-oriented culture...

Ah LeCastor...right on schedule. Read criticism of Islam, respond with criticism of Christianity. Try resisting the immature recourse to moral equivocation at every turn, if Islam can't be defended on its own merits perhaps it is not worth defending. If someone makes a foolish, unnuanced comment call them out on that point, rather than making prejudiced assumptions about the religious background of the writer.

You are not alone in this phenomenon, a number of people at Salon (WeikuBoy comes to mind) either assume critics of Islam are of a Judeo-Christian background and/or are under the sway of neo-conservative (i.e. Zionist Jew) propaganda. I guess it threatens the simplistic view that any enemy of American hegemony must be a friend to consider how Islam might be problematic from a rational, pluralistic, democratic and peace-loving standpoint.

I also liked your 'sharia brought peace to Mogadishu' bit. As far as I've seen only the BBC made that outlandish claim (editorializing in a supposed news piece), where (typically) a male reporter overlooked the sexism, homophobia, religious persecution and legalized brutality (lashings, amputations, stonings) which come with sharia. Why should we accept a medieval solution in the modern world even in a developing nation?

Thanks for an article that articulates the situation of the Palestinian who is just trying to raise his family and get through the day.

It's no accident that those militants are lobbing their rockets from a spot near a soccer field. Their primary goal isn't to hit Sederot; their goal is to provoke an Israeli response, and, with "luck," get some kids maimed or killed and generate more sympathetic press abroad.

I think it's tragic that the Israelis keep going for the bait. BUT: if someone started lobbing rockets at a small farming town near the U.S. border, wouldn't there be a public outcry for a response in kind? Can you imagine the reaction if Washington sat back and said, "They are terrible shots -- don't worry about it"?