More on Gaza

Fascinating article by Robert Fisk in the Independent. Here is an interesting excerpt from it:

"Quite a lot of the dead this weekend appear to have been Hamas members, but what is it supposed to solve? Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is awesome – we'd better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the Middle East!" Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown think Hamas is going to do?

Yes, let's remember Hamas's cynicism, the cynicism of all armed Islamist groups. Their need for Muslim martyrs is as crucial to them as Israel's need to create them. The lesson Israel thinks it is teaching – come to heel or we will crush you – is not the lesson Hamas is learning. Hamas needs violence to emphasise the oppression of the Palestinians – and relies on Israel to provide it. A few rockets into Israel and Israel obliges."

(I pray for peace).

Irony: Of the 3 or 4 Israelis killed by Gazan rockets, 2 are Arabs.

Sergeant Major Lutafi Nasraladin, 38, was from Daliat al-Karmel, a Druze town near Haifa. He was killed Monday evening by mortar fire on a military base in the Negev.

Also, Hani al Mahdi, a 27-year-old construction worker from the Bedouin village of Aroer, was killed while working at a building site in Ashkelon. He was fatally wounded by shrapnel from a Grad rocket when he was caught in the open en route to a protected area.