More Good Writing on Israel

Sultan Knish says that "the terrorists are always the victim". And the Belfast Telegraph's Lindy McDowell states:

"Israel — the only country in the world not permitted to defend its own civilian population against attack. Not without the usual, predictable international outcry anyway. If, for the last six months the south coast of England had been daily bombarded with rockets fired by a terrorist outfit in control of, say, Germany? if people in the region had been forced daily to flee to bomb shelters? if men, women and children were being killed on a regular basis ... you’d imagine it would have made widespread global headlines. That there would be considerable sympathy for the civilians involved. And if British forces were to retaliate against the terror group by launching air strikes against its bases — not primarily as a “revenge” operation but in a direct attempt to neuter those rocket attacks ... Would there be quite the same backlash in the British media against this as there has been this week against the Israeli response? What else were the Israelis expected to do in this situation? Sit back and take it? And hope that the plight of its civilians might galvanise the rest of the world into putting pressure on the terrorist Hamas? Some chance."