Maine Owl

It would be and WAS a huge headline if an Iranian president were to have talked like this

Maybe I'm just naive. This Article from the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) seems to me to be black-letter international law:

Article 33

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

So then, here is the kind of thinking that is prevalent in Israel's government and military, with respect to a feeling that Isreal "is not taking strong enough action to stop the Kassams" [rocket firings from Gaza]:

Sheetrit: Wipe Out a Neighborhood [interview, Feb. 10, 2008]

Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) was explicit about what should be done: The heads of Hamas must pay the price. Hamas doesn't understand any other language; the problem is we are talking to them in English instead of in Arabic. They only understand [the language of force]. The situation at present doesn't make sense; every other country faced with rockets on its citizens would go in and destroy the area. We should warn the [Arabs in Gaza] in advance, give them a day's notice, and then wipe out a neighborhood. We should also hit their leaders, regardless of who or what they are.

The fact is that this is about a lot more than frayed nerves and occasional injuries in Sderot, a community within Israel that does suffer from the ongoing conflict. The proportions are just staggering to me when I look at real information rather than the pro-Israel propaganda bath we usually get.

Gaza has been declared an "enemy entity" (with the blessing of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) and subjected to denial of the importing of basic needs including medicine, severely limiting of exports, cutting of fuel and electric supplies , and closing of borders preventing the movement of people to and from Gaza, including those in need of urgent medical care.

Maybe the parties now involved, Israel and Hamas could talk about a cease fire? No way, according to Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal, "I would kidnap [Hamas leader Ismail] Haniye, I would kidnap or kill the other leaders, I would bomb neighborhoods, etc... We did it in Lebanon in 2006; we wiped out a whole neighborhood, the Dachya, including tall buildings, sometimes with people in it, and - what can you do? It worked! We have had nearly two years of quiet from Lebanon since then."

Normally, we take these kind of genocidal threats seriously, except where Israel is concerned. As long as Israelis look upon the Palestinians as some sort of dog race requiring wiping out, no mutual human understanding from either side will be possible.