We are heartbroken by the death of Max Donald Steinberg, a Los Angeles native who volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces in the elite Golani Infantry Brigade. On July 20th, Max valiantly fell in the line of duty on the frontline of Operation Protective Edge. The people of Israel mourn his loss and honor his legacy.
We salute this soldier, this son of Israel, who fought with unmatched courage and selflessness in defense of the Jewish state. Max made the ultimate sacrifice and we are forever indebted to him. May his memory be a blessing for our people and serve as an eternal inspiration of valor for all the people of Israel.
We extend our deepest condolences to the Steinberg family – parents Stuart and Evie and siblings Jake and Paige – and to all who knew and loved Max.
At the request of the family of Max Steinberg, the Jewish Journal will forward letters and emails of condolence. You can email to steinbergfamily@jewishjournal.com or send to Steinberg Family: Tribe Media Corp. 3250 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1250 Los Angeles, CA 90010.
The remains of some of the nearly 300 victims of the Malaysia Airlines plane downed over Ukraine were making their way to the Netherlands on Tuesday as a senior Ukrainian separatist leader handed over the plane's black boxes to Malaysian experts.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a news conference on Monday that a train carrying around 200 body bags was on its way to rebel-held Donetsk and then to Kharkiv, which is in Ukrainian government hands, from where the bodies would be taken back to the Netherlands to be identified.
The train left the crash site after the Malaysian prime minister reached agreement with the separatists for recovered bodies to be handed over to authorities in the Netherlands, where the largest number of victims came from. Early on Tuesday, senior separatist leader Aleksander Borodai handed over the black boxes in the city of Donetsk.
“Here they are, the black boxes,” Borodai told a room packed with journalists at the headquarters of his self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic as an armed rebel placed the boxes on a desk.
Colonel Mohamed Sakri of the Malaysian National Security Council told the meeting the two black boxes were “in good condition”.
The handover of the bodies and black boxes, and reports by international investigators of improved access to the wreckage of the airliner four days after it was shot down, occurred against calls for broader sanctions against Russia for its support for the rebellion, although Western leaders are struggling to agree on a united response.
Shaken by the deaths of 298 people from across the world,Western governments have threatened Russia with stifferpenalties for what they say is its backing of pro-Russianmilitia who, their evidence suggests, shot the plane down. At the United Nations, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution demanding those responsible “be held toaccount and that all states cooperate fully with efforts toestablish accountability”. It also demanded that armed groups allow “safe, secure, fulland unrestricted access” to the crash site.
“We owe it to the victims and their families to determine what happened and who was responsible,” said Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who traveled to New York to negotiate the U.N. resolution. Australia lost 28 citizens in the crash.
The Kremlin said in a statement late on Monday that Vladimir Putin spoke to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on the phone, with both giving a “high assessment of the resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council on the investigation into the catastrophe.”
Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers were scheduled on Tuesday to discuss further penalties against Russia, but the most they are expected to do is to speed up implementation of sanctions against individuals, and possibly companies, agreed in principle last week before the plane was brought down.
But Western leaders struggled to come to a united response against Moscow. France came under pressure on Monday from Washington and London over plans to deliver a second helicopter carrier to Russia.
Diplomats say more serious sanctions against whole sectorsof the Russian economy will depend largely on the line taken bythe Dutch, because of the high number of Dutch victims. “It is clear that Russia must use her influence on theseparatists to improve the situation on the ground,” the Dutch prime minister said.
“If in the coming days access to the disaster area remainsinadequate, then all political, economic and financial options are on the table against those who are directly or indirectlyresponsible for that,” said Rutte.
'WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE?'
U.S. President Barack Obama said it was time for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia “to pivot away from the strategy that they've been taking and get serious abouttrying to resolve hostilities within Ukraine.”
He said Putin and Russia had a direct responsibility to compel separatists to cooperate with the investigation, and that the burden was on Moscow to insist that separatists stop tampering with the probe, he said. “What are they trying to hide?” Obama said at the White House.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry laid out on Sunday what he called overwhelming evidence of Russian complicity in the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane, and expressed disgust at how the bodies of the victims had been treated at the crash site.
But Russia's Defence Ministry challenged accusations that pro-Russian separatists were responsible for shooting down the airliner and said Ukrainian warplanes had flown close to it.
The ministry also rejected accusations that Russia had supplied the rebels with SA-11 Buk anti-aircraft missile systems – the weapon said by Kiev and the West to have downed the airliner – “or any other weapons”. Putin said in a televised address that the downing of the airliner must not be used for political ends and urged separatists to allow international experts access to the crashsite. RECOVERY EFFORTS
European security monitors said gunmen stopped them inspecting the site when they arrived on Friday, and Ukrainian officials said separatists had tampered with vital evidence,allegations echoed by Obama. But the spokesman for the European security monitors said they had unfettered access on Monday, and three members of Dutch disaster victims identification team arrived at a railwaystation near the crash site and inspected the storage of thebodies in refrigerated rail cars. Peter van Vliet, whose team went through the wagons dressedin surgical masks and rubber gloves, said he was impressed bythe work the recovery crews had done, given the heat and thescale of the crash site. “I think they did a hell of a job in ahell of a place,” he said. As they went about their work, fighting flared in Donetsk,some 60 km (40 miles) from the site, in a reminder ofthe dangers the experts face operating in a war zone. The government in Kiev denied sending the regular army into the center of Donetsk, which pro-Russian separatists captured inApril, but said small “self-organised” pro-Ukrainian groups werefighting the rebels in the city. Four people were killed in clashes, health officials said. The rebels’ military commander Igor Strelkov said on his Facebook page up to 12 of his men died in Monday's fighting. Donetsk is at the heart of a rebel uprising against rule byKiev, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has vowed toretake the city as part of what Kiev calls its “anti-terroristoperation” against the separatists. Television images of the rebel-controlled crash site, where the remains of victims had lain decomposing in fields among their personal belongings, have turned initial shock and sorrowafter Thursday's disaster into anger. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said an Australian investigation team was in Kiev but had been unable to travel to the site. He said there had been some improvement with the Ukrainian government offering access. “But there's still a hell of a long way to go before anyone could be satisfied with the way that site is being treated,”Abbott said. “It's more like a garden cleanup than a forensic investigation. This is completely unacceptable.”
Additional reporting by Peter Graff in Hrabove, Pavel; Polityuk, Natalia Zinets and Elizabeth Piper in Kiev, Jim Loney,; Doina Chiacu, Ayesha Rascoe and Mark Hosenball in Washington,; Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Allison Lampert in; Montreal, Lincoln Feast and Jane Wardell in Sydney, William; James in London, Julien Ponthus, Elizabeth Pineau and Emmanuel Jarryin Paris, and Gabriela Baczynska in Kiev; Writing by Giles; Elgood and Peter Cooney; Editing by Bernard Orr
Legal scholar and Florida State University College of Law professor Dan Markel died on July 19, after being fatally shot in his Florida home on July 18. Much has been said of his prominence in the legal community, which was on its way to legend. But too little has been said about my friend Danny, the man himself.
Danny was abrasive. There is hardly a friend of his (or colleague, I imagine) who can’t remember a time when Danny pushed them past the point of comfort. He used to show up in Los Angeles (where he lived for a number of years, frequenting IKAR and B’nai David-Judea) and invite himself to a Shabbat meal at my home. He’d turn up empty-handed, having just come from some legal conference or another, with an insufficiently sheepish grin and a presumptuously sprawling hug.
This habit of his — of imposing himself on people and the world — showed itself in his legal scholarship, which was daring (he once argued for the irrationality of anti-incest laws, for example). But I remember it also as a feature of Danny’s personality, and it was one of my favorite things about him.
For all his intellectual sophistication, Danny was a simple man (the best so often are). He seemed to proceed this way: He was a Jew; the Sabbath was upon us; therefore, he had good claim to a seat at my Sabbath table. Danny was right, of course, and he had extended me the same courtesy, back in 2005, when I was fresh out of law school and single, in need of a seat myself.
Danny imposed himself again and again on my husband, Zach, and me first by setting us up, and then by pressing Zach to take a flight from L.A. to D.C. just to meet me. He even told Zach where to take me for dinner. The idea of a bicoastal setup was outlandish, but then, so was Danny. Though I like to think Danny respected my intellect, when he goaded Zach into meeting me, Danny focused almost entirely on my physical attributes. This irritated me (later, when I learned of it), except that it did the trick. Danny knew what he was doing.
In the near-decade of our friendship, Danny was always unalterably himself. He spoke his mind freely, never tempering his views to suit his audience. This ruffled flocks of feathers but also won him as many admirers. I remember one meal he showed up to at my home, back in 2009, when things were going very well for him but not for me. Zach and I were struggling with infertility, and Danny was unhesitatingly forthright about his prodigious familial success, his second son on the way. Those boys were everything to him, and Danny saw no reason not to celebrate every second of their existence, whatever the company.
Although he considered himself a progressive, the truth is that Danny was a throwback. A Jew who so thoroughly loved being Jewish — doing Jewish things — that his spirit lifted those around him. He didn’t believe in klal Yisra’el so much as live it. Other Jews weren’t co-religionists; we were his brothers and sisters. He would insist on borrowing your favorite sweater, but he’d also coach your career, check up on your progress, press you to be your best self. You never doubted his love.
Which, in the end, is why it’s nearly impossible to imagine life without him — that a heart so full of love could be made to stop. He had so many hopes and plans for his two little boys, Ben and Lincoln, whom he worried over with febrile intensity and loved that way too.
There’s a Jewish saying that one who arranges three shidduchim — matches that end in marriage — earns a place in the world to come. Danny like to brag that setting up Zach and me, plus another couple he knew, had nearly guaranteed his spot. He had only one match left to go.
I like to think Danny got his spot anyway. It’s hard to imagine anyone refusing Danny — or that the Almighty could be so chary with a mensch who gave so extravagantly of himself. Zach and I owe him everything. If only he were still here to remind us.
Abigail Shrier (@abigailshrier) is a writer and graduate of Yale Law School living in Los Angeles.
Israeli troops killed 10 infiltrators who came through a tunnel from northern Gaza into southern Israel.
The infiltrators emerged from the tunnel Monday morning between two kibbutzes near the Gaza border, the Israel Defense Forces reported. The IDF said its radar captured the infiltration.
One cell of infiltrators was struck by Israeli airstrikes, the IDF said, and a second cell was killed in a gunfight with Israeli troops.
Residents of the two kibbutzes, Erez and Nir Am, and some surrounding southern Israeli towns were ordered to remain in their homes with the doors locked for several hours on Monday morning as the IDF searched for more possible infiltrators.
Israel’s Shin Bet security service reportedly had warned the IDF of a potential infiltration in the area.
A letter written by a 24 year-old Israeli soldier called for reserve duty near the Gaza border line:
“Last Wednesday, we received the phone call: we were called to defend our country. Some of us had to put aside studying for Finals and other exams, others left their wives and children behind, some left their work. And so, we kissed our wives and girlfriends goodbye. Then, we packed our bags with pretty much anything we could stuff inside to help make this 'stay' on the field as bearable as possible, put on our IDF uniform and went down south.
We are among the very few who can actually say they are defending and protecting the citizens of Israel. I can't elaborate too much, because of security issues, but we are working with a radar that provides a live warning to the troops and the people living near the Gaza Strip.
Leaving, well, life like this is not an easy thing to do. It is not simple to go back to my days as a soldier, not too many years ago, but in what seems a like different lifetime. Going back to eating army-food, sleeping on sand, guarding at night…
Nonetheless, in spite of the bad conditions and my longing home, I am fully motivated, and very proud to protect the state of Israel. Nothing can stop us. Not the scalding sun, not the life we left behind, and most certainly not the missiles Hamas fires at us.
Unlike previous operations, this time my family is also spending days and nights under fire. This creates a powerful connection, a mutual feeling that keeps us stronger.
I wish we will live to see peace one day, but right now, I only care of one thing – winning!”
A letter written by Sara (23) who was called for reserve duty at Israel's Home Front Command:
“To you, the person reading this letter,
I was called for reserve duty in the middle of the day, while I was with the children I am working with. I cried. It was after the bodies of the three abducted teens were found, after a few days of running for shelter with my children in the middle of dinner, and I didn't know how to contain all of my emotions.
At first, I felt like this reserve duty is interfering with my life, didn't want to go. The children I left behind were far more important to me. Now, 11 days into Operation Protective Edge, I am proud to say I serve in the IDF, and feel like this reserve duty is the right thing to do, the best thing I can do for my country. I am proud in the army I represent. Yes, this war is frightening, and we all want it to end and for people to stop living in such a surreal reality, but this operation is the right thing to do. I hope it will end soon, and wish everyone quiet, peace and serenity. “
A letter written by Yoav (28) who is currently on standby near the northern border line:
“We are now deep into a military operation, an operation we knew was coming as soon as the latest operation came to an end back in 2012. Not because we did not get meaningful results, but because we stopped, held ourselves tight and pulled ourselves backwards while the international community told us how we should live our lives in this unbearable reality where Israeli civilians are being threatened by terrorists who control a civilian population, holding them and the people of Israel hostage.
Today, just like two years ago, we experience this captivity by a terror organization operating in the Gaza Strip, only in this round we are a bit smarter and our defense systems have improved significally. The leaders of this terror organization have also improved their offense systems, but so far we are willing to provide an appropriate response.
What hasn’t changed from the last operation and the one before is the people, the civilians who say over and over again that they are tired of this absurd situation of life under fire. They also say they are tired of the government making decisions shaping their way of life in the shadow of the international community, to which it must always explain our every move. Frankly, I don’t get it.
The international community, who always tell the state of Israel how it should act in a territory they don’t even know, who don’t understand the consequences of sitting with our hands tight around our backs when facing terror on a daily basis. I am positive you wouldn’t have sat tight if this was your reality.
I am now looking at the WhatsApp messages sent by my Miluim (reserve) unit, and see the people’s spirit of volunteering. Those people work hard every day in order to create a better life for themselves and for their families, and in times of need willing to drop everything and volunteer for reserve duty, so that the people in the line of fire will get a chance for a better, quieter, life.
This is the most beautiful side of Israel.”
In the evolution of a place there is sometimes a waymark between free-spirited childhood and the discreet somberness of maturity. But what if the in-between actually signifies the third point of a classic Hegelian dialectical triangle? A rough and rowdy cowboy town at one point, an overly-wrought sophisticated metropolis at the other, and the third being some subtly unstated “third way” that draws on the contradictory nature of the first two states to create a superior third? Jackson Hole may be that mythical intersection, deftly incorporating elements of the small town with the big city, a realization of humanity's most advanced thought: the idea that recognizes its good self in all things.
In 2011 John Kasarda published a book, Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next, describing a new urban form placing airports in the center with cities growing around them. I've been to many of these airport cities, and found them soulless, clone-like, thick with franchises and the commerce of expediency. Jackson Hole has an airport, the only one in America in a National Park, but there is nothing Xeroxed about it. The largest elk migration in the world is just outside the door. Try to find that anywhere else. After traveling to metropolises and micropolises (populations between 10,000 and 50,000) around the world, this place seems different, something evolved to a higher plane, but what? I scratch about and come up with what I think a suitable descriptor: a montropolis….a mountain town that offers up not just the riot of the natural world, and the cosmopolitan rewards of a first-class city, but then goes beyond. The components: 1) a rich art culture 2) luxury and elegance, but of a rustic flavor 3) an abundance of wildlife 4) family friendliness 5) A strong conservation ethos and 6) a range of snow and ice adventures. These six ingredients, mixed generously together, concoct Jackson Hole, perhaps the first montropolis. After settling in, I decide to test my notion, and head to town to check out the art scene. Jackson Hole has a bewilderingly disproportionate number of artists and galleries: over 50 art galleries in a township of less than 10,000, and you can practically throw a snowball in any direction and hit an artist.
Afterwards, I take a stroll through the town square to check out the shopping. High-end offerings such as Rodeo, 22 Home, Belle Cose, Wool and Whiskey, and CocoLove, a world-class chocolatier, now inhabit this town, and give it a Beverly Hills-with-altitude feeling. Oh look…Harrison Ford just came out of that shop. For dinner I meet up with Gavin Fine at Il Villagio Osteri, a seriously good Italian restaurant, and part of his Fine Dining Restaurant Group, which includes Rendezvous Bistro, Q Roadhouse, The Kitchen, and Bin 22. Gavin's story is not dissimilar to so many who live here. He came out years ago from restaurant-rich Chicago for a weekend of skiing and never went back. He'd been working at for Lettuce Entertain You in Chicago, and just found everything about Jackson more fulfilling, authentic and to his taste. “I chose Jackson Hole to stay and live because of the soul and the character. It's not a stop off the highway. It's a vast valley that sucks you in. And you never leave.” It sounds like Hotel California, though they actually do have that spirit from 1969. We compare notes over wood-oven fired Guido Sarducci pizza and housemade orecchiette, and he says his philosophy is “you're only as good as your last meal.” I counter, “Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it.” The following day, under columbine skies, I head out to see the wildlife up close and personal. Some beasts are unavoidable…I keep running into traffic jams on the road as folks slow down to gawk at moose chewing branches a few feet from the pavement. But the grand display is the American Serengeti, the 25,000-acre National Elk Refuge, where up to 10,000 wintering elk make their grounds
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It could be argued that the original Native Americans here embraced a conservation ethic as they revered these peaks that stretched their sky. There was a great spiritual connection. And the environment was so harsh and resources so limited it took a preservation stance to survive. But the movement first found traction in 1897 when a Colonel S.B.M. Young, acting Superintendent of Yellowstone, proposed to expand Yellowstone's boundaries southward to encompass portions of northern Jackson Hole and protect migrating elk herds. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. stood beneath the gleaming silver blades of the Tetons in 1924 and was mightily impressed. The Yellowstone Superintendent at the time seized the opportunity to explain the hope of protecting and preserving “this sublime valley” from unsightly commercial development. Rockefeller decided to purchase offending private properties with the intention of donating them to the National Park. It took more time than anticipated. The creation of Grand Teton National Park finally occurred on September 14, 1950, when Harry S. Truman signed the bill. Now, 97% of the land in Teton County is protected. One synecdoche for the whole of the valley is the Teton Raptor Center. It started in 1997 when Roger Smith, a philosoraptor and wildlife biologist, started receiving calls to take in injured raptors. As he took in more birds, he expanded to rescue and rehabilitation, and then education and conservation. The center is now based in a set of old red barns at the base of Teton Pass in Wilson, and seems about to burst its seams with birds of prey.
A few days ago some international reporters contacted to me to obtain my insights about the wider regional implications of the recent Israeli-Hamas war raging on in Gaza. They were quite surprised when I said very plainly; “blame Iran’s regime first and blame Iran’s regime last” for the senseless killing and destruction going on in Gaza and Israel today. For those of us Iranian American journalists who understand Persian language and watch Iranian state-run propaganda television from time to time, we see and hear the Iranian regime’s leadership boasting about their financial and military support to Hamas. The Iranian regime’s cronies proudly proclaim on their television broadcasts that state funds are sent directly to Hamas “fighters against the Zionist entity” in Gaza. Each year millions in petro-dollars are pumped from the Iranian regime’s coffers into the bank accounts of Hamas leaders in the Persian Gulf states and millions of dollars’ worth of arms, explosives and rockets are sent from Iran and smuggled into the hands of Hamas terrorists in Gaza each year. The financial and military viability of Hamas in Gaza lies in the hands of the deviant ayatollahs in Iran who like puppeteers direct their proxy Hamas to launch attacks and rockets into Israel. So in essence if you removed the Iranian regime from the equation of the war between Israel and Hamas, there would be no mass scale destruction, death and war since Hamas would not be in any position to launch such a conflict in the first place.
What is particularly sad is that the U.S., European nations and the media in the West during the last two weeks of the current war between Hamas and Israel have failed to point the right finger of fault at Iran’s evil radical Islamic regime! Why are no Arab protestors in the streets of Berlin, London and Paris denouncing the Iranian regime for bringing upon the people of Gaza this level of death and destruction by funding and arming a terrorist entity that is using human shields? Where is the Obama administration’s outrage over Iran’s leaders directing their proxy Hamas to continue launching rockets at Israel instead of stopping the conflict? Is no one (aside from Israel’s leaders) blaming the Iranian regime for continuing to pour gasoline on the flames of this current conflict in Gaza instead of reigning in their Hamas proxy? The answers to these questions are quite simple… it’s just plain easier to blame the Jews and Israel. But Israel did not start this conflict and Israel has repeatedly accepted calls for a ceasefire—but yet the ayatollahs in Iran direct Hamas to continue with the bloodshed.
The journalists who I spoke with asked me why the Iranian regime did not reign in Hamas and stop the bloodshed. That answer is very simple as well…they do not want stability in the region especially during their international negotiations for retaining nuclear weapons capabilities. The Iranian regime’s leaders wish to keep Israel, its biggest threat, embroiled in a conflict instead of focusing its diplomatic and other efforts on Iran. Likewise the Iranian regime’s mullahs want to make Israel look like the “bad guy” that is supposedly killing innocents in order to shift the focus of the world away from Iran’s evil regime that is seeking nuclear weapons.
Lastly what truly disgusts me as an Iranian American journalist is that the Iranian regime pours millions of dollars into the hands of these sick Hamas terrorists who do not value either Muslim or Jewish lives instead of feeding the millions of starving poverty stricken people in Iran! The Iranian regime fails to pour millions into developing the infrastructure of Iran but instead sends this money to a faraway land to terrorists who cause death and destruction! Again and the again the Iranian regime’s leaders show that their disgusting radical religious dogma has zero interest in helping to improve the lives of average people in Iran but instead it values blood being shed in Israel and Gaza so they can achieve their political ends. Shame on the Obama administration and the governments in Europe for not publicly laying the blame of this latest Hamas-Israel war on the Iranian regime that continues to fund and arm Hamas to pursue conflict, death and destruction in the region. Iran should be pressured to reign in their proxy Hamas and end their involvement with funding these terrorists– instead in seems like the international community is still asleep at the wheel when it comes to the Iranian regime.
With so many words being written daily on the operation in Gaza, I've decided to make my contribution by attempting to concisely sum up the main important trends, and by identifying the noise that can be ignored.
Support for the operation
The more Israel sees, the more it becomes clear that the operation was essential. The discovery of the extensive network of tunnels through which Hamas terrorists can infiltrate Israel has had a shocking effect on the Israeli public. Not that the tunnels were a big secret. They weren't. But looking at the images of terrorists popping out of the ground in close proximity to Israeli communities, RPG launchers in hand, has made a difference. Naturally, the loss of the lives of so many soldiers is heartbreaking to Israelis. Yet, thus far, I get the impression that in recent days Israelis, amid the loss, have become even more adamant in their belief that the status quo ante can no longer work and that Israel has to make an effort to change it even at a relatively high cost.
The tunnels
Forget rockets. Israel has an answer to the rockets – at least for now. Of course, that doesn't make them agreeable to anyone, but it makes them less scary and less intimidating than they once were. All in all, the battle of rockets was won, by Israel. The real problem is the tunnels. Just imagine the horror of having to lead a life near the Gaza border, knowing that someone might be crawling under your home with explosives or a hand grenade. Just imagine the bloodbath if one group of infiltrators will be successful in its attempt to attack a Kibbutz or an Israeli neighborhood. How many lives of civilians do you expect those Hamas infiltrators to spare?
The operation’s goals
I no longer think Israel wants an immediate cease-fire if this means going back to the status quo. Israel wants to be able to find and destroy more tunnels before the operation's end. It also wants a new arrangement in Gaza that puts into place a mechanism that dismantles future threats. It wants to find a way to gradually reduce the ability of Hamas to attack Israel (the Egyptians seem to see things in similar way). Here is one example of the problem with the status quo (besides the obvious need to get rid of Hamas' arsenal of rockets): Last year, Israel removed a restriction on imports of building materials into the Gaza Strip. The decision allowed Palestinians an import of 70 trucks a day of gravel, metal bars and cement for construction projects. This gravel and cement is found below ground level now, in the tunnels, and thus, Israel is unlikely to go back to letting such material go in, without having in place a way of verifying that the material will only be used for construction of, well, things that Gaza truly needs, such as houses and roads.
Loss of life
It is terrible that so many people have to lose their lives in this operation. It is also, unfortunately, unavoidable. Israel is doing a lot to reduce the number of civilian casualties. How much? As much as letting its own soldiers die for this purpose. When the Americans decided to tame Kosovo, they only sent airplanes. Israel has sent its troops into Gaza because it doesn't want to only send airplanes and reduce whole neighborhoods into rubble. Of course, if someone believes that there is a better and more peaceful solution to the whole situation – a solution that only depends on Israel's good will – then he'd be justified in contending that the loss of life is unnecessary. I've yet to hear of any serious solutions of this kind.
Public discourse
The brutality and bluntness of the public debate within Israel is troubling. Some demonstrators of the radical left were beaten, words are flying, threats are being made. This is ugly. Surely, better education is needed to make people more tolerant of dissenting views. Yet it is also important to say that responsibility for having a civilized discourse does not solely lie with the conforming majority. Provocations in a time of war should be carefully considered. Let me make it simple: you wouldn’t send a fanatic fan of one European soccer club to provoke a group of another club during a very tense game – because you know what is going to happen next. Avoiding such provocation is not surrendering to violence – cautioning about the result of such provocation is not condoning violence; it is just a wiser policy.
Things to ignore
Demonstrations in Europe: Not because they are not troubling, but rather because it is a problem that Israel can't solve. The demonstrators want Israel to implement a policy that would essentially mean an inability of the country to defend itself against attacks. That is advice no country would follow.
What-American-Jews-think debates: I tend to believe that most American Jews understand and support the Israeli operation. Some aren't supportive, and are loudly voicing their dissent. Honestly, I don't think they will get much attention from Israelis at the moment – and their dissent is likely to decrease their ability to get the attention of Israelis later. If that's their choice, so be it.
Annoying columnists: Israelis or non-Israelis. Instead of reading and getting angry, don't read the ones that only aim to anger you (do read the ones with which you don't agree but aim to inform and provoke thought).
Proportional response discussions: This is a form of anti-Israel propaganda, no more, no less. Let the PR professionals deal with it, and don't bother yourself with discussions that have no meaning in real life.
John Kerry hot mic gaffes: In recent months we've seen Kerry's (and the Obama administrations') limited ability to have a real impact on developments in this region. If Kerry knows how to stop this war, let him try. But don't lose sleep as you wait for this to happen.
