It is easy to feel horrifed at the images of Israeli planes hitting Gaza. But the context behind the attacks is that Gaza has been attacking Israeli civillians almost constantly since Israel withdrew from Gaza.

(House in Sderot hit by Qassem rocket, image from Bokertov.com)

(Injured woman in Sderot, image from BBC news)

I supported the withdrawal from Gaza. The dismatling of the illegal settlements in Gaza was a controversial move in Israel, but a necessary move. The withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza was also controversial, but necessary. Likud, the far right wing nut jobs of Israel, predicted that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would result in increased attacks on Israel from Gaza.

Sadly, events proved them right. Likud may be nut jobs, but nut jobs on the Palestinian side decided that once Israel withdrew, it was time to fire rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians.

Since then, more than 3000 rocket attacks and 2500 mortar attacks have been aimed at civilian targets in Israel from Gaza. Schools and homes are the most frequent targets. In Sderot, the hardest hit town, some 33% of children suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome from the constant attacks.

(Sderot High School, image from Snapshots)

Likud predicted that Israeli withdrawal would lead to this. And they were right. I STILL think withdrawal was the right thing to do, but Likud gains legitimacy every time a rocket or mortar shell hits an Israeli home or school.

When Hamas won Palestinian elections I was horrified...but I recognized the legitimacy of their win. They were democratically elected and I advocated treating them that way. But Hamas has never acted like a legitimate, elected government. Or perhaps they have acted as a government at war with Israel. Israel recognizes the legitimacy of the Palestinian state...Hamas does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel and advocates armed attacks on Israel. Those attacks are almost always aimed at civilians. The missle and mortar attacks started in 2001, but they became almost constant in 2006-2008, the period after withdrawal. If the whole idea is to get Israel to dismantle its settlements and withdraw from Palestine, then increasing attacks after they DO this in Gaza is sending the signal that the goal is not to get Israel out of Palestine, but to destroy Israel.

In al-Jazeera, both the Egyptian government and Fatah, the Palestinian rival of Hamas, blame Hamas for the current state of war. They blame Hamas' renewal of the rocket attacks as the provocation that Israel is responding to. I have to agree with Egypt and Fatah in this. There is more going on, of course. The upcoming Israeli elections have all three main candidates for Prime Minister stumbling over themselves to show who can be toughest. But the fundamental issue here for Israelis is that they are being attacked and Israel must defend its citizens.

My deepest sympathies go to the Palestinians. The Palestinians are among the most victimized people on earth. From the moment of the Arab (yes, ARAB) invasion the moment Palestine was created in 1948, through the Arab (yes ARAB) occupation of Palestine, to the Israeli take over from the Arabs of occupied Palestine, to the treatment of migrant Palestinian workers in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc., to the insane power struggles and massive corruption within Palestinian government itself, Palestinians have almost no hope. That is one of the other fundamentals of the situation.

When Israel withdrew that was a moment of hope. Gaza was left to the Palestinians as they demanded. At that moment many aid agencies and organizations like Kiva began economic programs to boost Gaza. I contemplated particpating in Kiva loans to Gaza businesses to be part of the peace process.

The election of Hamas made all that pause. And the resumption of the attacks ended all progress. These were Palestinian, NOT Israeli choices. Arab armies destroyed Palestine at its inception. And when Gaza was given autonomy as a state, they soon used the opportunity to attack Israeli civilians.

I asked an Israeli friend of mine today what he thought of the state of war in Gaza now. He is liberal. He is secular. He has served in the IDF and disliked it. He despises Likud and isn't very fond of the settlers.

He thinks it is about time Israel retaliated. The attacks from Gaza have been a horrific reality for Israel, and even some of the least hawkish Israelis are ready to see retaliation. I understand their feelings, though I fear that, like the 2nd Lebanon War, this will be disastrous. But even that got me thinking. The goal of the second Lebanon War was to stop similar attacks on Israel from Lebanon. And they did stop after the Israeli attack.

Each time Israel responds with force I feel, "about time." But my second reaction is, "this will be disastrous." Each and every civilian death in Palestine is held against Israel...even when the Israeli civilian deaths from Palestinian attacks are ignored. But what people don't realize is that after the alleged artillery attack on a Gaza beach, (which Israel denies it was responsible for, but many people believe they were), Marc Garlasco, a military expert from Human Rights Watch sent to investigate the incident, expressed great admiration for the mechanisms that Israel has in place to AVOID killing civilians. My friend who has been in the IDF agrees, saying that they were intensely trained to do all they could to target armed forces, not civilians.

The situation is awful. Neither side shows much in the way of intelligence or diplomacy. But in the long line of miserable actions by both sides, the use of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza to step up attacks on Israeli civilians was possibly the worst.

It is easy to feel angry at the Israeli bombing of Lebanon and Gaza. But all I can say is that 3000+ rockets and 2500+ mortar shells aimed specifically at civilian targets in Israel is a context I cannot ignore. If only the Israeli withdrawal really HAD led to a more peaceful relationship between Israel and Palestine. But right now it is hard to imagine Israel withdrawing from the West Bank given the fulfillment of Likud's predictions about the withdrawal from Gaza.