Israel: Aye-Yay-Yay-Less In Gaza

SMOKESCREEN OR WHITE PHOSPHORUS? MAYBE BOTH?

I have neither the expertise nor the sources to opine intelligently on charges that Israel is using white phosphorus, cluster bombs and other munitions banned by international treaties to which it conveniently is not a signatory. Such allegations are kind of sort of inevitable. But I'm half Jewish and all around furious that Hamas rocket attacks in response to an act of war on Israel's part -- a year-long blockade of Gaza -- have killed fewer Israelis than I have fingers but resulted in deadly air strikes on heavily populated Palestinian civilian areas and now a full-scale ground invasion.

Hamas is evil. Got that? Hamas is evil. But Israel's response further reveals it to have drifted so far from the shore that it is only good at one thing anymore -- beating up on Arabs to prove that it's still tough -- and it just doesn't give a shit that the images of kids being blown to smithereens makes the Gaza incursion an even bigger global public-relations disaster. No matter, this bloodbath is playing well at home in the run-up to national elections that likely will be won by the thuggish Binyamin Netanyahu.

Make no mistake about it. The timing of this one-two punch is not accidental. Israel -- whose talking points are chillingly similar to the U.S.'s when it invaded Iraq -- intended to do the deed before the Bush administration skulked into the sunset since hardly any other foreign power of consequence approves of its aggression.

One more thing: If Hamas is destroyed, another probably more radical group will fill the power vacuum.

And another: Gaza is not a province of Iran.

Top photograph by Getty Images