Thank you for that article. It’s important to point out that a society needs to know what it’s doing, especially when it’s a war of this nature. Ironically, while the Israeli authorities control the media on the home-front, images of the war are available outside of Israel.

Yes Lisa, there are people on both sides of the border suffering.
This is a tragedy. The overriding issue in the conflict is not of proportionality or collective punishment. It doesn’t matter what the relative numbers of casualties are. What matters is that there are thousands of rockets emanating from Gaza being launched by the elected government of that enclave. The inhabitants of Gaza must be held responsible for the decision to be governed by a group of terrorist thugs. Furthermore, as you know I am sure, Hamas has positioned its weapons directly in civilian areas so as to increase civilian casualties for propaganda purposes.

This conflict is not about poverty, occupation or humiliation. This is a canard. The conflict is strictly about ideology. An ideology that at its heart desires the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. It has created a society that revels in death and martyrdom. I doubt that there will ever be an end to war between Israel and the Arabs in my life or the life of my children.

It’s sad that Israel’s concern for the well-being of civilians
is only viewed as weakness in the eyes of its enemies. Israel is in a death struggle in its fight with jihadist proxies of Iran on two fronts. This seems not to matter to you as much as the fact that more Arabs are dying than Jews are – for now. Your priorities are misplaced!

Unfortunately, the world has a double standard where Jews are concerned. Too bad! I fear there will never be a solution to the worldwide jihad unless the world stands up with one voice to this attack on our civilization.

AS – You left the same comment – what, four, five times? – on the thread following my article on the Forward site. Message received, over and out. One thing: your declaration has absolutely nothing to do with the points outlined in my piece; it’s a total non-sequitir. Sounds as though you need a platform: perhaps you should get your own blog. LG

Hear, hear, Lisa.

Again kindly allow me to speak from the perspective of the “innocent bystander reading about all of this,” since I think you’ve got a considerable readership from outside Israel for whom your posts are doing a world of good.

Lookit, problem for the IDF and Jerusalem permitting Al-Jazeera to do most of the dispatching from inside the Strip for now is that the bulk of the demystification of the defensive/offensive falls on the not always capable shoulders of either Diaspora Jews, Diaspora Israelis, or Friends of Israel.

There might be some kind of grand strategy in mind on the part of the Israeli government in permitting this, but I can’t see it for now. Too “conspiracy-esque” for my blood, though I’m not going to say it’s beyond the capabilities of the IDF.

Left to fend for ourselves without the required tools or information, supporters of Israel (including myself and many others here in Europe) who genuinely believe in Her mission and right to exist are left groping at straws or goobering our sometimes bland shibboleths which can be instantly debunked (rightly or wrongly) by the combined iron fist of the one-sided Beeb, CNN, France 24, Reuters, etc.

So what to do in a situation like this?

Personally, I find it increasingly hard to sally forth with the same series of staid justifications — I consider myself relatively well-informed as to the causes and consequences of this conflict, having tracked it from its origins — when all the while the Beeb’s got these flashy diagrams and up-to-the-minute tickers about how many civilian casualties there’ve already been on the Gaza side…which the BBC will then use to clobber IL for its “disproportionate” use of force against the Hamas bullies.

Not only is this tiring, but it’s akin to a dog chasing its tail.

So I side with you fully that something major, massive, and transformational needs to be done ASAP about the disproportionate (to kill a phrase!) use of the media down there. It’ll give us — up here — the necessary ammunition (like my friend in Israel says) to show how “not everything is what is seems to be…at all times.”

Lastly, I side completely with one of your recent commenters at your previous masterful post…your perspective will change dramatically, Lisa, if — G.od forbid — Israeli civilians become embroiled as victims in places as distant as Tel Aviv. If the proverbial excrement starts hitting the fan, optics on this conflict by then will have been blown the hell wide open, perhaps causing the player-hating globe to cease spanking Israel across the behind for its so-called “incorrigible ways.” Full stop.

I personally lived in Tel Aviv for two years back in the late ’90s. Let me tell you I never *once* felt I was living in the Israel of Sderot, Be’er Sheva, Netivot, or even Jerusalem for that matter, which likely explains the massive Jewish Israeli turnout for the protest rally from last weekend, making it SEEM as though a significant number of Jewish Israelis are against this war. having lived in IL, I now understand how this can happen, because Gaza often seems like a galaxy away.

Off to read some of the comments on the Forward’s site.

You rock.