youtube screen shot of injured victim on bus hit by missile.
The Israelis reacted with air attacks on multiple locations, killing several Palestinians and injuring at least seven.
The Hamas attack was a response to Israeli responses to an attack earlier this year in which a Jewish family-- mother, father and three children-- were killed by two unidentified attackers.
In response, the Israeli military had taken over the village where tracks of the killers of the family led, arresting over 400, holding over 75 of the villagers. Then, the Israelis used air strikes to bomb tunnels used to smuggle goods and people between Egypt and Gaza.
As a Jew who has severely criticized the Israeli leadership and policy of punishing innocent Gaza civilians, I see this new raising of stakes and hostilities asa tragic mistake by Hamas.
While the Israeli response to the murder of the family of five in Itamar was heavy handed, invading and arresting hundreds in the town of Awarta, no killing was involved. Apparently, the bombing of the smuggling tunnels set off the Hamas approved reaction. Bombing Gaza at all can be easily questioned-- but the tunnels were clearly not civilian targets. Firing an anti-tank missile at a SCHOOL bus is just plain stupid. There is no rationale that can support or defend this kind of decision.
This happens when hate smolders and the winds of oppression ignite it. The Palestinian media refer tto the Israelis and Jews as "filth." The Jewish supporters of Israel refer to the Palestinians and Gazans as animals.
There are international laws and human standards. You don't kill children. You don't exact punishment on innocent civilians. Both sides of this never-ending conflict are violating basic rules of being human. I've criticized the Israelis for making it government policy to attack civilians. Now Hamas has made terrorism its official business. That has to stop. One side must stop.
We can expect false flag attacks by both sides. An Orthodox Jew killed a peace seeking Israeli president Rabin. Israeli settlers destroy olive groves, stone and fire upon Palestinian civilians. There are probably independently operating agents on the Palestinian side-- from within Palestine and outside-- from Iran, Hezbollah, Syria-- who would benefit from stirring the fire, keeping the conflict between IDF and Hamas going. So it is essential that, at the least, Hamas, the elected representatives of the Gazans, act in a civilized way. It is much harder to defend the Gazan people when their elected officials support terrorist firing of anti-tank missiles at school buses.
This is not the time to support such behavior. Hamas was wrong to take that action and I hope the cupporters of the Palestinians can let Hamas know it. Now, the cycle of violence has been ratcheted up another notch. Hamas called for a cease fire a few hours after firing the rocket at the tank, then supportive media criticized Israel for firing back, after the cease fire had been called for.
Real cease fires are needed. But you don't lob a bomb, then duck and call for a cease fire.
israeli use of jets to retract revenge will always cause collateral deaths, injuries and hate. Arresting hundreds in the town of Awarta has certainly generated a new level of personalized hate for Israel by thousands.
Israel now has a new missile defense system that WORKS, defending from missile attacks against tanks. But they don't have a defense for the hate that the Generals and leaders produce when they make bad decisions to fire missiles from jets, missiles that kill and maim innocent civilians. This is immoral and cannot be justified. My Jewish friends ask me, "What can the Israelis do when rockets from Gaza rain down on them?" They use that to justify anything the Israely military does in retribution. Hamas has to learn that raining rockets on Israel will always produce death and destruction for innocent civilians.
Israel is led by psychopaths who perpetrate evil. But Hamas unnecessarily gives them excuses to act. That doesn't make the leaders of Hamas any better.
Some on the web have suggested that Mossad fired the missile. Christian Zionists praying for the "rapture" might believe that God or Jesus sent it, to speed things up. I think it was bad judgment on the part of Hamas.
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