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It's nothing but gang warfare

As always Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, is spot on in his assessment of the newly increased warfare between the Palestinians and Israelis:

"On both sides of the fence locking in the Gaza Strip, there is a war of desperation going on. Hamas is fighting against the insufferable siege that the Gaza Strip has been under for many months, and the Israel Defense Forces is mostly preoccupied with avenging Hamas' actions. Both sides are busy with displays of power and retaliation. It was sufficient to hear last week the commander of an IDF company, which lost three of its men, who called on his troops to kill as many terrorists as possible and to destroy the area from which the attacks came, to understand that the differences between the two opposing sides are increasingly becoming distorted.

The ethical differences are also being blurred. For example, if the B'tselem report is correct, and the IDF has resumed using flechette tank shells, then killing is being done without distinction, precisely as Hamas does. Both sides avoid any dialogue with the other, Israel conducts the scandalous international boycott of Hamas and anyone who tries to end this unbearable cycle, such as former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, is immediately and shamefully condemned by Israel."

Al Jazeerah reports on the meeting of Jimmy Carter with the Hamas leader as follows:

"Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has called for Hamas to be included in peace negotiations, saying they are willing to "live as a neighbour next door in peace" with Israel if Palestinians approve a deal.

Carter said on Monday that Hamas leaders told him they would accept a negotiated peace agreement, if voted for by the Palestinian people.

His comments, delivered in an address to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations and a subsequent news conference at the King David Hotel in West Jerusalem, came after he met several Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, the group's exiled political bureau chief, in Syria last week.

Carter said Hamas leaders had told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president whose Fatah faction controls the West Bank, if Palestinians approved the deal in a vote."

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