“Israel does not target civilians”

I am heartily sick of hearing apologists say "Israel doesn't target civilians." 

 

So what? It's basically admitting, "Yes, they kill children but at least they didn't mean to." Even Hamas hasn't had the chutzpah to say, "It's their fault for living where we happened to be bombing." I am sure they would claim not to target civilians either, for all that would be worth.

 

And yes, Hamas is a terrorist organisation. You will not hear any rationalisation of them from me. But is being semantically better than terrorists the best we can do? Is that the standard we are willing to walk past now? 

 

Hamas is not Palestine any more than the Netanyahu government is Israel or Jewry as a whole.

 

Mossad is known to be extremely effective at counter-terrorism and surgical strikes. If the objective were to neutralise Hamas, it would be logical to deploy Mossad rather than the IDF. 

 

But that wouldn't look as strong to the domestic audience at a time when the prime minister, who has been in power on and off for over twenty five years, is mired in corruption scandals. 

It leads one to wonder whether the objective is to eliminate Hamas, or eliminate Palestine.