Bloodletting in Gaza

Tell It to the Hand: Israel claims it's retaliating against militants in Gaza to silence rocket attacks. But the response has been characteristically disproportionate and cruel, as nearly 100 people have been killed in fighting in three days, more than half of them civilians. Among them: Mahmoud Atea, 17, whose blood a Palestinian medic shows while preparing Atae for burial. (Abid Katib/Getty Images)

Gideon Levy is justifiably incensed at the latest Israeli onslaught on Gaza. "Even yesterday evening, after the [Israeli Army] already had killed about 50 Palestinians, at least half of them unarmed, and including quite a number of women and children, Jerusalem continued to claim, 'At present there will be no major ground operation,' " Levy, an Israeli columnist, wrote in his latest piece for Haaretz. He goes on:

It's incredible: The IDF penetrates the heart of a crowded refugee camp, kills in a terrifyingly wholesale manner, with horrible bloodshed, and Israel continues to disseminate the lie of restraint. Two days earlier Israel killed more Palestinians than have been killed by all the Qassams over the past seven years. Among the dead were four children and an infant. The next day Israel killed another five boys. And who is the victim? Israel. And who is cruel? The Palestinians. [...] Imagine if the Palestinians were to kill dozens of Israelis, including women and children, in one week, as the IDF did. What an international outcry we would raise, and justifiably. Only in our own eyes can we still adhere to our restrained, forbearing image. All the talk about the 'major operation' is designed to achieve only one goal: to show it is possible to be even more violent and cruel.

As of Sunday, the latest Israeli assault on Gaza had claimed the lives of more than 80 people, at least half of them civilian. There are nasty echoes of this latest campaign with Israel's campaigns against Lebanon in 1982 and 2006. In both cases Israel faced militants (Palestinians in 1982, Hezbollah's Shiite Lebanese in 2006) who made it part of their strategy to hide among civilians and use civilians as shields for their attacks. But in both cases, those attacks, while occasionally deadly on Israel's side of the border, were relatively minor.

Israel's response was not. It was disproportionate, overwhelmingly targeted at civilians, and proof at every turn of how "even more violent and cruel," as Levy words it, Israel can be when tempted. In this latest string of assaults, Israel appears to have nothing to gain but to show that it can and will use overwhelming force. Hamas has never had anything to gain by attacking Israel other than to provoke a full-scale war.

That may be exactly what will happen next--another Israeli invasion of Gaza, another Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, another round of bloodletting that will achieve nothing more than was achieved by the previous two intifadas and Israel's previous massive retaliations. Which is to say: nothing.

More About Conflicts in the Holy Land:

• Bush's Road Map for Peace Five Years Later
• The Annapolis Summit: Shooting for the Palestinian-Israeli Moon
• Israel's Separation Barrier in the West Bank
• Israel's 2006 War on Hezbollah
• The Palestinians: A Profile
• Israel: Country Profile