The idea of a "Law Of War" is crap. You are killing people because they won't cooperate, you think they are going to obey something dreamed up by lawyers?

...and [Hamas] will have no powerful international friends come to its aid.

Of course it will.

The language used in the stories reporting Hamas' attacks softens what Hamas is doing. Hamas "fires rockets into Israeli territory," not "attacks civilian population centers with airborne explosives."

"Rockets" and "territory" are weasel words in the story that help to obscure the fact that Hamas is intentionally and indiscriminately murdering civilians.

"Rockets" makes it sound like Hamas is setting off fireworks. And "territory" makes it sound like those rockets are landing somewhere in the desert.

That this particular Israeli response was not greeted with the level of outrage and screaming headlines that past Israeli responses have been tells me that Hamas is in serous danger of having overplayed its hand.

There were still pictures of dead and wounded Palestinian children and grief-stricken Palestinian parents. Those are de rigueur for any story involving an Israel-Hamas conflict. But the shrieks and howls of indignation at Israel's "disproportionate" response seem to be quieter of late.

I completely disagree.

1) Israel cannot just wipe out the Palestinians. Israel depends on past Jewish oppression for the support they get from America. Going too hard against the Palestinians would shatter that image and Americans would turn against Israel.

2) I don't blame the Palestinians for fighting back. This is a world of limited resources and my people, the Jews, had to take land from someone else so that we could have a place under the sun. That's fine with me, but I can fully understand why the group whose land my tribe took hates me and my people and fights back against us.

I'm sure the rabbit doesn't like being eaten but either the rabbit dies or the wolf's puppies starve. Can the wolf really get mad at the rabbit for running and kicking though?

3) I don't think you understand anti-Semitism in the modern world. Most anti-Semitism in the west comes from people noticing that Jews tend to promote liberalism and open borders in America/Europe and nationalism/rightwing views in Israel. For example if diversity is good why does Israel want to maintain a Jewish majority? Shouldn't they want to become a majority non-Jewish society?

4) The sort of anti-Semitism you are talking about is our own fault. Too many Jews on the left have pushed the message white = bad and brown = good.

When dumb white liberals look at Israel they don't understand what's going on and they think they are seeing whites being mean to browns. So they do what their programing tells them and they side with the browns. It has nothing to do with anti-Semitism since the same white liberal moron's mind conflates slavery, the Holocaust, the KKK, and Hitler as the world's greatest evil.

5) These views may seem strange but they are growing among younger right wing Jews.

A clarification. When I wrote

1) Israel cannot just wipe out the Palestinians. Israel depends on past Jewish oppression for the support they get from America. Going too hard against the Palestinians would shatter that image and Americans would turn against Israel.
--Jewish Cat

I was responding to Amy's comment

Frankly, Hamas lucked out in having the Israelis as their enemy, as any other country with any military might would probably just bomb Gaza into dust.
--Amy Alkon

My point is that Amy is wrong. It's not that the Israelis treat the Palestinians so gently because Israeli's are so moral. They do it because they need to be conscious of the wider PR battle.

Conan, I think people in the US just don't trust the media as much as they used to. So such biased stories don't have the effect they used to have. As Jewish Cat pointed out Israel is showing restraint mainly as a PR move to maintain it's support from the US. So as people in the US show less demand for that restraint Israel will probably respond by acting more aggressively.

Some of it is also Trump being president and being a very pro-Israel one at that.

Uhhhhh... Israel is demonstrating restraint for sevral reasons not mentioned here. Unlike many Westerners, Israelis have been forced by circumstance to set aside starry-eyed dreams and to match the Muslim long game with their own long term strategic thinking. So:

1."Restraint" combined witb targeted disruption of the leadership has proved a potent weapon against an enemy that is largely a PR paper tiger. The bien pensants have moved on from this cause celebre. The funding has dried up. As europeans and others awaken to the muslim terror at their own doorsteps, there is less sympathy for the palis. The very warm relations israel established with India and states in central africa are examples.

2. Gaza and the west bank have reversed the population increase they enjoyed during the Pax Israelis of the "oppressive occupation". A return to Arab kleptocracy has caused the population to drop as in other arab lands. The inevitable demographic victory touted in Palestinian propaganda - and parrotted by israeli leftists - is more remote than ever. Again, the long game.

3. I doubt that the current administration is putting much pressure on Israel to restrain itself. It is likely that Trump will accelerate America's exit from the perpetual grudge matches in the mideast (and sit back and what Putin get embroiled). Which leads to:

4. A lot of the restraint this time around is due to putin's meddlesome presence. Absent the Russians it is likely that bibi would have reached common ground with Trump and Asisi (for whom gaza is an incredible headache).

5. Sadly, the jews have a long history of clinging to starry eyed dreams. Bibi is repeatedly elected by a commonsensical silent majority - but israel's levers of power in media, academia, and goverment are still in the hands of the cockeyed leftist dreamers that served up Oslo. These idjits still act as a brake on what can be done.

"Of course it will."

Yeah, the European Left regards Hamas and Hezbollah as useful idiots. Without that Left's ability to direct euros to Pali groups, Hamas would be bankrupt by now, and the Gazans would be begging for re-occupation.

"Going too hard against the Palestinians would shatter that image and Americans would turn against Israel."

That could be, although I think support for Israel in the U.S. is a lot broader than most people realize. Consider the 180 that the Southern Baptists have done since the 1970s: at one time they were anti-Semitic. Now, they are among Israel's biggest supporters.

"For example if diversity is good why does Israel want to maintain a Jewish majority? Shouldn't they want to become a majority non-Jewish society?"

That's a good question. As we all know, modern Israel came into being as the result of a post-war UN mandate, a part of the Western world's shock reaction to the revelations of the Holocaust. It was specifically intended to be what we would call today a "safe space" for Jews. But there is a non-trivial Arab contingent within Israel itself, which mostly peacefully coexists (as far as I know).

Could, would Israel get rid of its preferences for Jews in immigration? If so, when would be the time for that? Even if it were done, the country would likely continue to be majority Jewish for some time afterwards. If immigration was opened up, which groups of non-Jews would be interested? If the current circumstances in Europe still hold when that day comes, I could see Israel getting flooded with application from western Europeans.

That could be, although I think support for Israel in the U.S. is a lot broader than most people realize. Consider the 180 that the Southern Baptists have done since the 1970s: at one time they were anti-Semitic. Now, they are among Israel's biggest supporters.
--Cousine Dave

Only the baby boomers still support Israel. When they die support for Israel dies with them. The new generation either doesn't care about Jews or is angry at them (left wingers think of Israel as a white supremacist state and right wingers blame Jews for their double standards on immigration).

As europeans and others awaken to the muslim terror at their own doorsteps, there is less sympathy for the palis.
--Ben David

What about when Europeans awaken to the fact that Jewish organizations where the leading force in lobbying for said immigration? What will they do to us then? You have no idea how bad things will get.

Most Jews are good people; but I fear they along with me and my children will suffer because some anti-white liberal Jews made a lot of bad decisions. Kind of like how the communist Jews in the 1930s pissed of the Germans so much that all the Jews were gassed. I really really hate liberal Jews.

Jewish Cat Out

This is delusional: "Kind of like how the communist Jews in the 1930s pissed of the Germans so much that all the Jews were gassed."