On a side matter, who the hell came up with this mealy-mouthed “collateral damage” phrase anyway ? Let us call a spade a spade and stop hiding an ugly truth behind a pretty phrase. It is “civilian casualties”.
Who is responsible for the civilian casualties in the current mess in the Gaza strip ? I should point out that I’m talking about the Winter 2009 mess seeing as there have been so many in the past and will probably be again.
Well Israel’s mealy-mouthed spokescritters will have you believe that it is all the fault of Hamas for fighting amongst civilians and stock-piling weapons amongst civilians, etc. There’s an element of truth to that, although one wonders whether if Israel were reduced in size to a territory the size of the Gaza Strip, would not their own army do pretty much the same thing ? Or at least the Zionist lunatic fringe.
But Hamas does not deserve all of the blame. Israel gets some too. Whether or not Israel is justified in using military force in trying to stop Hamas from attacking Israel, those dead cilivians in Gaza were killed by Israeli bombs, Israeli shells, and Israeli bullets. Israel has to bear the responsibility of those deaths and not just blame Hamas for them.
To claim otherwise is an insult to everyone’s intelligence and further damages Israel’s credibility. And Israel needs to spend a lot of time repairing their credibility. There are many ordinary people in Europe who are more likely to believe claims made by Hamas than claims made by Israel because of the lies and half-truths that Israel has told in the past.
There are many weapons used to fight terrorism. One of the most important is truth. One of the least important is military might.