One for 1,000?

Just when peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine seemed far-fetched and out of sight ... now life in the Gaza Strip has become an international humanitarian crisis. Bravo!\nThe Hamas-led Palestinians are continuing international war crimes, while the Israelis are continuing their decades-long genocide of the Palestinian people. According to the international watch-dog organization Human Rights Watch, the Palestinians have resorted to using human beings as "bargaining chips," while Israel has continued acts of military intimidation and aggression -- all in violation of established international law.\nThis newest human rights mess was sparked June 9, when eight Palestinian civilians were killed by an explosion while picnicking on the beach. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the event an "accident," a claim that never resonated with either the Palestinians or most international human rights organizations.\nFast forward to June 22, and all seemed for the better -- Olmert, for a change, apologized to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the recent deaths of at least another 13 Palestinian civilians, caused when the Israeli army conducted military strikes against suspected Hamas terrorists. Meanwhile, Palestinian militants have conducted regular rocket attacks on Israeli civilian populations since Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. This indiscriminate targeting has murdered only a few Israeli civilians, but a few is still too many. \nNevertheless, despite the reality that more than 1.4 million Palestinians live in a Gaza Strip that occupies a space about twice the size of Washington, D.C., Olmert was quoted by the Associated Press June 23 as having said: "Israel will continue to carry out targeted attacks against terrorists and those who try to harm Israeli citizens." \nRing around the civilian rosy we go, with a pocket full of death and destruction.\nAshes, ashes, humanity falls down.\nFast forward to June 25, and all hell broke loose. Palestinian militants attacked an Israeli military post, killing two soldiers and kidnapping a third: 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Since that time, Israel has embarked on a campaign of mass destruction that has included sending thousands of soldiers and military equipment into the Gaza Strip, and using aircraft to create "sonic booms" to intimidate the Palestinian people. \nAs if Israeli, American and European isolation of their democratic Palestinian neighbors was not human rights violation enough, Israel destroyed the Gaza Strip's only power plant -- necessary for running water, lights, sanitation and medical services. Hamas' radical wing has called for an exchange of Cpl. Shalit for 1,000 imprisoned Palestinian men, women and children held in Israeli jails. Israel rightly refuses, because terrorism has no place in the democratic process, not that they should hold Palestinian civilians hostage.\nHuman Rights Watch has reminded Israel that it is responsible for the basic welfare of the Palestinian people because they still occupy Palestine, and they have reminded Hamas that taking prisoners -- not to mention executing them -- is a war crime.\nMight both Olmert and Abbas ever realize that their terrorist acts only breed increased terrorism?