On the 27th of December 2008, Israel launched a massive military campaign against the Hamas fundamentalist Islamic group in the Gaza strip, following a period of 8 years during which Hamas and other organizations regularly fired rockets into Israeli towns, killing and wounding civilians, causing damage and disrupting life in general. The operation, codenamed "Cast Lead" (in Hebrew עופרת יצוקה), aims to stop Hamas firing of rockets into Israeli towns, and make sure Hamas is unable to renew the fire.

Wide coverage of the operation on the media has generally focused on images of injured Palestinian civilians, mainly children, making it appear as though Israel is perhaps using excessive force in Gaza with no regard to loss of civilian life. In truth this is entirely not so. No one likes to see such terrible images on the media, but the following page will convince you that not only is Israel doing its utmost to minimize civilian casualties, it is Hamas that is chiefly responsible for the death and injury of Palestinians during the Gaza conflict, even in cases where they are by Israeli fire.

This page is a moderate, rational account of the Israeli viewpoint on the Gaza conflict and reflections on the Israeli-Arab dispute in general, in a Questions & Answers format.

Q: Why is it that hundreds of Palestinians are dead and thousands wounded as a result of the operation, while on the Israeli side only a few civilians have been killed by the rocket fire on Israeli towns?

It boils down to two reasons:
(a) Israel protects its civilians.
(b) Hamas does not protect its civilians, but uses them as its primary resource in war.
Every modern Israeli house is required by law to be equipped with an internal bomb shelter. In every city there are attack sirens linked to real-time launch warning systems. Under regular rocket fire, these systems save lives daily. In Gaza however, there are no bomb shelters, not even temporary ones, and no attack sirens. Perhaps the Hamas were too busy smuggling rockets and targeting Israeli towns, they didn't have time to provide their people with elementary means of protection? 
While Israel sends its army to protect its citizens, Hamas' methodical use of civilians, particularly children, as de-facto human shields has been widely covered. Even they themselves boasted about it. During the current conflict Israel closed schools and prohibited public events to minimize the chance of a rocket causing many casualties. In contrast the "brave" Hamas militants choose the basements of family houses as headquarters, forcing the unfortunate family to stay in the house so Israel won't bomb it. Also in response to Israeli evacuation warnings, a.k.a  the "knock on roof" routine, they rush in civilians to stand on the roof of designated air-strike targets.
Israel targets armed Hamas militarists and military targets only, and most of the dead and wounded are armed Hamas militants. But in the densely populated Gaza urban areas in which Hamas hides from the IDF, and when Hamas uses civilians as they do, loss of life among uninvolved civilians is almost inevitable, no matter what precautions the Israeli army takes. Under these circumstances Palestinian body-count is sure to be much higher. 

Q: But why does Hamas use its own population as cannon fodder? Don't they care about their own?

It's for the same reason they fire rockets at Israel in the first place. They dream of the destruction of Israel, but can't beat Israel in a fair fight, so they hope to achieve their primary gains in the public opinion arena. They simply seek to cause as much death, blood and destruction as possible and attempt to twist it to their benefit. Rocket fire on Israel towns has no military objective, it is simply aimed to terrorize Israeli population and try to weaken Israel's resolve. Palestinian deaths are used by Hamas as a propaganda leverage to try and claim in the media that Israel commits war crimes, when in fact Hamas is the real war criminal. These strategies of Hamas constitute by-the-book terrorism if ever there was any.

Q: Israel is reacting Disproportionately, pounding Gaza using tanks and warplanes, and all this over a few rockets which mostly land harmlessly in open ground.

Be most alert when people try to use the D word on you, especially if they are wearing bright-blue helmets. How are we to measure proportionality? Suppose Hamas fires 12 rockets on into a civilian area of Sderot (a southern Israeli town), hoping to maybe hit a crowded room or nursery. Does that give Israel the right to fire 12 rockets into Han-Yunes? Why, that would be totally unacceptable by any humane standards.  In that sense Israel is reacting even less than proportionally. 

Here is the real equation, it's called "war". Hamas' declared goal is the destruction of Israel, they do everything in their power to bring that end, including firing rockets at Israeli towns, attempting suicide bombings at cafes and restaurants in Israel, and kidnapping Israeli soldiers. Israel does everything in it's power to prevent Hamas from achieving its goals, including bombing any facility that Hamas uses against Israel.

Anyway, did the US react "proportionately" to 9/11? No, they went and destroyed Al-Qaida supported Taliban in Afghanistan. Did the UK react "proportionately" when Nazi Germany fired V2 rockets into England? No, they erased Dresden. Proportionate reaction is the wrong move against terrorism, it just encourages it to grow iteratively and become more defiant, since your response is expected and deemed acceptable. The free world must hit terrorism before it has a chance to grow.

Q: Many of the Palestinian dead are Hamas guerrilla, but some are innocent uninvolved civilians. Why is the Israeli army killing women and children?

Israels primary concern is for the safety of its civilians in south Israel towns, and the life of its soldiers. That being said, the IDF takes great effort and exercises extreme caution to avoid harming uninvolved civilians in Gaza. This is much more than can be said about Hamas, which methodically employ rocket fire at Israeli towns and suicide bombings, intentionally attempting to kill civilians. The IDF uses its military intelligence and has developed specific technologies and routines to minimize civilian life loss. However it is not acceptable that Hamas will get away hiding behind its population, and if Hamas chose densely populated areas in which to hide and launch missiles from, then the blame is on them. Besides, Hamas themselves train and send their own women and children as suicide bombers, so who are they to blame others for killing civilians?

Q: What ever happened to all the suicide bombings of cafes, buses and restaurants in the heart of Israelin the past decade? Has Hamas changed its ways?

Definitely not. Remember the greatly disputed Wall that Israel built around Gaza and the West Bank? Well, it is working. Hamas and other terrorist groups can no longer physically get to Israel and blow themselves up, though not for lack of trying. Presumably that is why the rocket fire has intensified, they need some other way to blow off steam. The wall has been called by Palestinians and supporters the "Apartheid" wall. Well, I agree to the "Apart" part.  Israel definitely needed to part from suicide bombers.

Q: Why did the Israeli army destroy mosques, fire at a UN compound where civilians were taking refuge, fire at a UN relief truck, ... ?

Q: Hamas was elected democratically therefore it is a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

False. Hamas did win parliament majority in the 2006 elections, however in June 2007 Hamas seized control of the Gaza strip, ousting rival Fatah movement and legitimate president Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah now control the west bank and Hamas control Gaza, though there is nothing democratic about it.
Hitlers Nazis in 1933 was the largest party in the Reichstag, that doesn't make the Nazis a democratic movement. 

Q: Hamas aggressions are justified since Israel is occupying Gaza. "End The Occupation, Free Palestine!"

Entirely false! Until the beginning of this conflict, there was not one Israeli citizen or soldier inside Gaza, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in summer 2005. How did Hamas respond, did they turn inwards to build their nations economy, schools and hospitals? No, they intensified the hostilities, firing more rockets. There is no occupation in Gaza. Israel generally accepts the formation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West-Bank, and there are ongoing peace negotiations with legitimate Palestinian leaders, of which Hamas is not one. Hamas is a forward outpost of Iran, with proven ties to Iran, whose primary objective is the elimination of Israel.

Q: Israel is wrong to Collectively punish the Palestinian population because of Hamas' deeds.

International law does prohibit collective punishment of a population during occupation. However certain obvious facts make the C word non-applicable here:
a) As mentioned in the previous answer, there is no occupation of the Gaza strip.
b) Hamas is in a state of war against Israel. Therefore actions such as a blockade on Gaza are perfectly legal. So is reducing the supply of electricity and gas. Surely no one expects Israel to continue supplying Gaza while rockets are fired at Israel from its territory? Hamas should have thought of that before they started.
c) Israel does not target civilians.

Still, Israel does let in electricity, gas, food and medicine to prevent a humanitarian crisis. In reality it is Hamas who is collectively punishing their own population, as well as the population of Israeli towns, while Israel is collectively aiding the Palestinians.

Q: The Jews should go back to Europe where they came from in 1948 and leave the Palestinians their rightful land which they have been sitting on since forever.

Arab propaganda constantly uses this false argument to try to undermine the legitimacy of Israel. This argument is usually attempted on uneducated people, since it is immediately identified as false to anyone who is even loosely familiar with regional history. Books have been filled about the legitimate claim of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, but to keep a long story as short as possible, lets start at the beginning:

a) Judaism, Christianity and Islam all agree that Abraham came to Canaan (Israel of today) from what is now modern Iraq at around 2000 BC. All basically agree that two of his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, became the fathers of the Israelite and general Arab nation, although Islam starts only much later during the time of Muhammad. So no one was here before the other.
b) Fast forward about a thousand years, the nation of Israel is living in Canaan, its capital in Jerusalem, ruled by King David and later his son Solomon. The Israelites and later the Jews have regarded Jerusalem to be their one and only holy city from that time on. The Philistines are documented in the old testament as living more or less in modern Gaza of today. Other nations are living around Canaan. Although it is likely that modern day Arabs are somehow linked to these peoples, it is impossible to find out the exact nature of these ties.
c) Following conquest of the land by the Babylonians at around 500BC, many peoples, both Israelites and others, were exiled from and to Canaan. Many Jews were exiled to other parts of the Middle East and later disperse also to Europe and Africa.
d) From then and until the modern era, it is impossible to trace exactly from where each person came from. Apart from the Jews, the oldest people in the region who's common roots are still somehow traceable are the Bedouins, nomadic desert people who's origins are traced back to roughly 7th Century BCE in the Arabian Peninsula. In any case they are definitely distinct from and not identified with modern day Palestinians. Many non-Jewish people came from Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey and other places, forming the modern Arab population of today's Middle East.
e) Muhamed spread the word of Islam in Arabia around 7th Century CE, with the Qur'an as the central religious text of Islam. Although Islam today claims that Jerusalem is one of it's three holy cities, third in importance following Mecca and Medina (both located in Modern Saudia-Arabia), there is curiously no mention of Jerusalem in the Qur'an, while Mecca and Medina are mentioned multiple times. Jerusalem is mentioned countless times in the old testament, the primary religious text in Judaism.
f) Fast forward to 1947. Following the holocaust in which 6 million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany, the UN General Assembly approved a partition plan to divide Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state (the word Palestinians was not yet invented then). Although the the newly formed state of Israel accepted the plan and extended a call for peace to all its neighbors right from the beginning, the Arabs were not happy with the split, nor the remaining 99% of the Middle East that was already in Arab hands, they wanted it all, and in response attacked Israel, later aided by invading armies from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Luckily for Israel they did not succeed then, nor in following attempts. 

Q: The Israeli assault further fuels Palestinian hatred and animosity and instead of peace will only spawn more future violence.

This is the sad truth of the Middle East. Yes, attacking Hamas in Gaza will not do much to bring understanding between Israel and the Palestinians. But what should Israel do in the face of unprovoked rocket attacks on its towns?  What would you demand of your government if rockets were falling in your living room for 8 years?
Besides, Palestinians don't really need any encouragement when it comes to hatred and animosity. Israeli schools teach of the values of human life, self-worth, human rights and democracy much like in any western society (even if Israel does not always appear so in the world). On the other hand the Palestinian education system brainwashes and indoctrinates their youth from a young age with hatred of Jews and the west, martyrdom, violence, and terrorism.

Q: Why can't Israel and the Palestinians just come to their senses and make peace? (Why can't they all just get along?)

An overwhelming majority in Israel truly wants that. Israel has made peace with two of its neighbors - Egypt and Jordan. There was an ongoing peace process with former President of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat and his current predecessor Mahmoud Abbas. However Hamas now occupies Gaza. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, openly declares its goal as the destruction of Israel, and is of course violently opposed to any peace process. There can be no peace with Hamas. Elimination of Hamas is a vital step towards peace.

Q: Where are Hamas leaders in Gaza hiding?

Israeli intelligence has been cited saying that they are hiding underneath the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Hamas leaders are cowering in the one place they know Israel will never bomb, a hospital which Israel massively refurbished in the 80s for the benefit of the Gazan population. That there gives you Hamas in a nutshell - cowardly terrorists using their own population as human shields.

Q: Why was the operation named "Cast Lead"? (In Hebrew עופרת יצוקה)

The operation began during the Jewish Holiday of Hanukkah, which commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. "Cast Lead" comes from a classic Hebrew Hanukkah childrens song "In Honor of Hanukkah" originally written by Haim Nahman Bialik, which goes: "My father gave me a dradle, a dradle of cast lead ... in honor of Hanukkah".
Another verse of this song goes "My mother gave me a latke (potato pancake), a hot and sweet latke ... in honor of Hanukkah". A popular jest among singers (who perhaps aren't favorable to latkes) is to mix the two verses making it "My mother gave me a latke, a latke of cast lead".