Granted, Hamas fired rockets into Israel, thereby plausibly threatening the security of Israel and endangering the lives of its people. Israel would have been irresponsible not to respond to protect its people. But does its responsibility to defend its citizens justify the destruction of another nation? The profundity of this question necessarily invokes the question: Did the damage caused by the rockets warrant the extent to which Israel has responded, resulting in such gruesome civilian casualty? Israel has a lot to answer for. This, nonetheless does not in the least justify, nor partially excuse Hamas for its reckless behavior that ultimately consumed Israel with an unforgiving sense of unbridled vengeance fuelled largely by domestic political consideration. But in view of the ever-escalating Palestinian civilian casualty one has ask: At what point is Israel going to say,"enough with the killing of civilians?" Some apologists of Israel have justified the killing on the grounds that the majority of Palestinians elected Hamas, therefore they deserve what they get. If this line of argument make any sense at all it is because the same apologists  have not wondered why the killing of Israeli civilians would'nt be justified on same grounds. 

But Israel, undaunted and unrestrained by any sense humanity tramples on and on in Gaza with impunity from the standpoint of its overwhelming military preponderance. They don't seem give one damn what anybody thinks, much less the international community, as long as they assured of  American support, with President Bush always in common agreement with them. There is nothing wrong with that per se, other than that Israel knows the US come what may.

 

In the midst of all this, however, Hamas cannot escape blame. How can they, with any sense of national responsibility, subordinate its people to what should have been a predictable risk of unfettered carnage in the face of unadulterated and utterly disproportionate Israeli retaliation. A rational civil authority should at the very least have foreseen the likelihood of Israel's response to their rockets being fired at its civilian centers. Hama either did not expect such an highly forceful and robust response from Israel, or they simply were too reckless to care. Whatever the case, it was a miscaculation on their part which is causing them the lives of hundreds of civilians, a tragedy that should pursuade the Palestinians to conclude that , despite its patriotic commitment to the liberation of Palestine, Hamas is not the one that's going to take them to a full-fledged Palestinian sovereign statehood.