From Ehud Olmert’s statement declaring victory in Gaza:

During the operation, the State of Israel demonstrated great sensitivity in exercising its force in order to avoid, as much as possible, harming the civilian population not involved in terror. In cases where there was any doubt that striking at terrorists would lead to harming an innocent civilian population – we abstained from acting.

410 dead children would disagree. But they can’t, because they’re dead.

During its three-week assault on Gaza, the state of Israel killed over 1300 Palestinians — including those 410 children. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights says that 904 of the victims were civilians. The attack was a response to a series of Qassam rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas that have killed 23 Israelis since 2001. The state of Israel calls that justice.

Canada’s political elites, too, are willing to condone a little collateral damage. After all, they say, Hamas is a terrorist organization and Israel has the right to defend itself. In other words, since some Palestinians are murderous terrorists, Lawrence Cannon and Michael Ignatieff think it’s perfectly okay for the IDF to murder a bunch of other Palestinians in return. This behavior is supposed to be morally acceptable because terrorists like Hamas kill innocent people deliberately, while the Israeli state only kills innocent people “accidentally.” I wonder if the victims would appreciate that fine distinction.

As we all know, the Israeli state’s “victory” (it says it has damaged Hamas as an organization) will be short-lived. The indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza has ensured that more Palestinians will take up arms against Israel, as part of Hamas or some other militant organization. And more innocent people — Israelis and Palestinians alike — will die.