From where I'm sitting the historical contours are somewhat different. I understand what is asserted by Israel, but I think an examination of their historical t

From where I'm sitting the historical contours are somewhat different. I understand what is asserted by Israel, but I think an examination of their historical treatment of Palestinians makes it pretty clear that they're interested in basically removing them from the area at any cost. In my own opinion, this history makes their claims about not wanting to harm civilians not very credible. I've drawn a lot of parallels with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and I think that this is another place where history is repeating itself. The US claimed over and over again that it was fighting "justly" and would not be committing violence if it wasn't the cleanest way to resolve the threat, but retrospective analysis shows that this isn't really what was happening on the ground.