Indiscriminate

In a May 2007 article the Jerusalem Post reported that "All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert." The article goes on to say: Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

If you wonder how we got where we are today, Eliyahu's pronouncement is a partial answer. In Sunday's New York Times, public editor Clark Hoyt writes in his column:

David K. Shipler, a former Times correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book “Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land,” said in an interview that each side firmly believes it is the victim in the struggle. “Any fair-minded coverage has to shatter that paradigm,” he said. “Both sides are both victims and perpetrators at the same time.”

Exactly right.