The real reason for the massacres in Gaza

In his Jan 7 op-ed piece for the New York Times, "What You Don't Know About Gaza", Professor Khalid Rashidi quotes Moshe Yaalon, Israel's Defense Forces chief of staff in 2002, as saying, "The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people." This is the real reason for Israel's war on innocent civilians. Not to take out Hamas but to take out the collective Palestinian will to resist the occupation. Read Rashidi's article. It's succinct. It's deadly urgent: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html

Another terrific piece is by Dennis Loo on the World Can't Wait web site. I quote: "Israel's complaints that Hamas is using human shields represents the tired old refrain of imperial powers going after a population in resistance." Loo's article is longer, but passionate and very well-argued. Please read it too:
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5291:human-shields-world-class-deceit-world-class-crimes&catid=117:homepage&Itemid=289

Robert Fisk on Palestine, again

Fisk comes through again with this article in the Independent UK:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html
The photograph is devastating. I can't remember ever seeing an image of a Palestinian child soaked in blood after an Israeli attack in a major US paper. How many more will have to bleed before the US stops supporting Israel? Or even condemns it?

A second article by Fisk appeared in the Independent just today. In it he describes talking to journalists around the world about the attacks on Gaza, always to be interrupted by a supporter of Israel claiming that 10 Israeli deaths (that too mostly of soldiers) is somehow worse than 700 Palestinian deaths (mostly of civilians). Here's a quote: "My favourite moment came when I pointed out that journalists should be on the side of those who suffer. If we were reporting the 18th-century slave trade, I said, we wouldn't give equal time to the slave ship captain." Here's the link:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-wherever-i-go-i-hear-the-same-tired-middle-east-comparisons-1297595.html