This is very chilling Kyo. It's very hard to understand man's inhumanity to man since we're all ONE.

In Sadness but with HOPE,
Love, Mairlyn

Be careful of reality vs. propaganda, Kyo.  Israel dropped leaflets over target areas before bombing, urging civilians/noncombatants to leave. 

The sources of information about new atrocious weapons come from anecdotes from Palestinians and Hizbollah sympathizers.

When objective evidence found by an international group is found, I will believe it.  Arab terrorists do not give warning or drop leaflets before they bomb.  They target Israeli civilians and innocents far more often than military.  They dress their children in suicide belts and teach them to count by counting dead Israelis (shown on Arab TV). 

Israel has been known in the past for its restraint.  It has always had the military might to wreak havoc on its neighbors (including nuclear weapons, which, unlike Iran and the terrorists, it would never use but as a last resort), but has until recently taken attacks, including Scud missiles in the first Gulf war without a military retaliation. 

Meanwhile, Al Queda has stated (Bin Laden in an interview) that 4 million Americans had to be killed to satisfy Allah (half of which must be children); Ahmadinejad in Iran believes that Armegeddon must come to fulfill prophecy and he would sacrifice more than 50% of his people, he said if only he could destroy Israel.

So yes, decry hideous weapons, but get the facts verified.  And realize that Hizbollah and the Palenstinians have adopted a philosophy of killing and death, even amongst themselves.  Unless their ideology and philosophy change toward peace and negotiation, there is no hope for peace.

M

I also feel guided to state this;

that the graphic beheading of Nicholas Berg and others, with a rusty blade hacking at his neck while he was screaming and gurgling was no "better" way to die than a bullet or an explosive device - even a molten copper device.  Killing is wrong, whether it is the terrorist who implodes himself/herself in a supermarket in Israel or a person being targeted by a sophisticated missile.

As a nation, and in a physical reality steeped in dualism, there are defensive forms of killing.  These killings are no more divinely justified than a common murder, but simply may be the way a state defends itself when faced with the realities of our physical world. 


M

Matthew, you said "defend"? I don't think that this is the right word here. Revenge is fitting much better. I have heard on the radio, from reporters, that complete landscapes are filled with unexploded submunition of cluster bombs (those things picked up by children, forbidden by international laws). Leaflets first, then bombing. Everything's fine. Propaganda? Who is shooting at reporters, the hamas or Israel's troops? No, no, Matthew, I can't follow you here.

Spooky

Spooky,

I am not trying to justify the use of WMDs in any situation, but more to show that in innumerable episodes, Israel has exericsed restraint in the past.  When corruption comes to light, as it has with certain Israeli leaders these past few weeks, they are investigated, tried and punished, because the  nation does not wish to perpetrate horrors on innocents.  New leaders are then elected (as is happening now).

Spooky asks "who is shooting at reporters?"  When last I checked, two Fox reporters were kidnapped and forced to converst to Islam or die at gunpoint by palestinians.  As I said above, Israelis who do not act ethically are taken to task for their misdeeds; palestinians are not.

Israel is faced with an impossible situation in that the Palestinians have changed their mindset into death and killing only, without an acknowledgement of the Israelis or any willingness for peace.  How do you live in an environment where your enemy won't accept any kind of mediated soluiton?  Faced with daily violence and innumerable bombings of innocents, rocket attacks, etc. Israel decided that as a state, its very survival was at stake.  In the process, a few military men made bad decisions along the way.  I will not pretend to have an answer to the current conflict, although I think that a massive UN presence and the establishment of a disarmed independent Palestinian state would be one type of solution that might work.  

The ideology of killing and revenge must be renounced on both sides.  But I would look to the schools, synagogues and mosques and find where most of this ideology is perpetuated.  As one raised in reformed Judaism in my early years, I can tell you that killing and revenge are not sytematically taught in any Jewish school system.