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A country lost in its own region

Israel's PM is reported this morning as saying that the tank-shelling in Gaza which killed 19 people [many children] was a "technical error" and he apologised for it. Some consolation for the families of the dead!

The Age this morning carries a sober and moderate op-ed piece by Antony Loewenstein on the issues confronting Israel including what sort of country it is, what it stands for and how it must address its position in the region:

"On October 30, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset's Security and Foreign Affairs Committee that the Israeli military had killed 300 "terrorists" in the Gaza Strip in the past three months.

According to the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem, the Israel Defence Force has killed 294 Palestinians in Gaza since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 27, but more than half of those killed - 155 people, including 61 children - had no involvement in hostilities. The group sent a letter to Olmert, demanding to know whether Israel considered "all those who were killed to be terrorists who deserved to die". The Prime Minister's statement contained "within it a twisted logic whereby the fact that someone was killed by a military proves that he or she is a terrorist".

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