They Just Can't Win, Can They

The lack of reason shown by many though is disappointing and the obvious bias of many in Europe is more worrying.

After all, the current military campaign begun by Israel wasn't started on a whim. For months now, Hamas terrorists have been firing small rockets into Israel, killing one or two people here and there and noone outside of Israel seemed to care.

Israel warned Hamas not to officually abandon the so-called "ceasefire" (ceasefire apparently meaning one thing in Israel and another in Gaza) but, perhaps thinking that the Israelis were chastised by the campaign in Lebanon, this is exactly what they did.

As a result, Israel launched military operations against Hamas and their supporters in Gaza.

Cue screams of outrage and claims that Israel was not acting in a 'proportionate' way... How exactly though does a modern military act 'proportionately'?

Should the Israelis simply fire 6,000 or so small rockets back at civilian targets in the Gaza Strip? This, after all, would be the mirror of Hamas' actions.

Israel, in fact, has done its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, though some are, as in any conflict, inevitable.

They have instead targeted Hamas' leadership and those Palestinians and Iranians (yes, there are Iranian advisors and Revolutionary Guards in Gaza) who are actively engaged in acts of aggression against their neighbor.

Of course, the fact that they respond at all seems to be the reason for many people's ire at Israel.

In the last week we've seen protests where signs proclaim that the "occupation of Gaza" must end, despite the fact that Israeli troops left there in 2005 - in the hope that by doing so, they would encourage the Palestinians to try peace for a change.

This perhaps may have happened had Fatah stayed in power, but Hamas, who won the elections there in 2006, still maintain their demands that there will only be peace once Israel is destroyed... not a terribly attractive choice for the Israelis.

While the Israelis have committed some mistakes this time around, for example, they were goaded into firing at two (at the time of writing) schools from which Hamas had fired rockets, causing substantial casualties, they have, as usual been very restrained and actively tried to avoid collateral damage.

The same cannot be said of Hamas, and if the campaign destroys that organization it can only be a good thing for the Palestinian people who can only have a peaceful future if they are willing to behave peacefully and take their grievances to the negotiating table.

It seems like that's not going to happen anytime soon though.