I basically haven’t written about what’s going in Israel yet, even though I have certainly been thinking about it quite a lot. Sometimes it is very frustrating to watch the various ambassadors on TV being interviewed night after night saying the exact same things regardless of the questions they are asked. So, I’ll try to just address a few things that I think are deserving of attention.Israel does not–I repeat, DOES NOT–target civilians. In fact, Israel expends an incredible amount of energy trying specifically not to target civilians both because of the morality of it and because, inevitably, they will be held to a higher international standard (anti-Semitism, anyone?). To this end, Israeli planes distribute flyers from the air telling civilians to leave certain areas, and often, compromise Israel’s own military strategy in the process (ATTN: Lebanese Civilians…you should leave this specific Beirut suburb at around 9pm tonight…hint, hint…but don’t tell Hezbollah…hint, hint). In addition, Israel only chooses targets that are specifically military in nature, either fully or partially. For example: runways, radar, weapons stashes, military bases and outposts, sites of rocket launches, ports, roads that weapons travel on, etc.The trouble is that the other side doesn’t follow the same rules. Not only do they directly target Israeli civilians (where have all the Katyusha rockets landed?), but they also don’t care much for their own civilians. Hezbollah regularly hides weapons in civilian houses and then doesn’t let their civilians leave when everyone knows the bombs are coming: they want their civilians to die…it’s good for the image (or bad for Israel’s, either way you want to look at it). Palestinian terrorists have also been known to use civilians, including children, as human shields (same concept, really), and to use ambulances to transport explosives and weapons in the West Bank and Gaza.Israel bombs military targets, and sometimes, civilians get killed. If civilians are living in a house that is repeatedly used to store weapons that are launched into towns, Israel has no choice but to go after that target, with whatever warnings they can reasonably offer. Any other country would do the same.