we regret the incident and we will regret the next - 8 to 1

So we now know that the defintion of a massacre is 50 civilians and above, not 35, not 25, nor 15. The well overused platitude, "every civilian death is a tragedy" can be used to mask the deaths of 35 villagers because it is not a massacre asnd therefor simply melts into the background of what is acceptable in war, it changes no course, alters no perceptions, causes no one to reconsider their actions. "Every civilian death is a tragedy" is the line used when nothing is going to occur that is any different from the action that caused the tragedy and leads to the inevitable use of the line "every civilian death is a tragedy", when the next smart bomb falls on dumb flesh.
.........................................

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153292032964&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

In a replay of the Suez Crisis, with the US now in the place of the UK and France, will the Bush Admin use the current fiasco as a cover for yet another fiasco, an attack upon Syria. An incident will of course be easy to manufacture, a border vioaltion by Israel can quickly be portrayed as an open attack by Syrian forces, leading to an invasion based on the "right of self defense".

idf spokesman: "We are continuing with our message that we are not interested in fighting with Syria," the officer said, "But we are fully prepared for a Syrian attack, in the case of which we will strike back extremely hard."

Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the US that America would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.

I feel safer already.

Robert Fisk on SBS news last night in his final comment said that his reading of the level of hate being generated by the Israeli attacks and the civilian casualties will lead to a repeat of 9/11. Polls taken in Lebanon have revealed that unlike the stated intentions of the IDF in destroying the support for Hezzbollah, it has increased markedly, up from around a consistent 30% in the druze and christian communites, to a staggering 80%, the level of destruction caused by the "precison, pinpoint, surgical" bombing has once again elevated the leadership and rank and file of Hezzbollah to the status of heros. We clearly are not seeing what they are seeing, the steady stream of broken, bloody children's corpses pulled from the rubble of destroyed "terrorist infrastructure" (read houses). After so many years of fighting, the Lebanese had imagined that they had seen the last of their children die beneath the rubble of their cities, now a new generation will be forced to dig their bothers graves, and in their digging, will they be thinking of who supplied the bomb as much as who delivered it?

From the uber-pro israeli, Itamar Marcus, Director of the Palestinian Media Watch on foxnews:
Well, the Israeli soldiers know that they are doing absolutely what has to be done. They know they wouldn't dare just for their own conscious consider killing civilians. Israeli soldiers can go as long as they have to because their conscious is clear and I think the Israeli governments conscious is also completely clear.

http://www.pmw.org.il/home.htm

http://asiapacific.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/33436


James Heffernan:

Is it sheer folly to think or hope that one day Israel might be willing to talk to Hamas or Hezbollah? And if you ask how Israel could even consider talking to an organization that denies its right to exist, don't you think Hamas and Hezbollah could ask exactly themselves the same question? How many more innocent people on both sides will have to die-in Lebanon and Israel-before we stop fighting each other, stop denying each other's right to exist, and start fighting the plague of war itself?