The violence continues to escalate. Hamas has started to fire rockets which Israel replies to with F16 and helicopter attacks at targets in the middle of civilian areas.

2 killed, 20 hurt in Be'er Sheva attack
IAF hits Gaza after Kassam-2 rockets slam into Israeli field; PM weighs further reaction.

The Israeli leadership (an oxymoron according to Ha'aretz) made it's trips to Washington with its competing points of view.

A voyage of futility

Leadership is lacking

A Middle East seminar at the White House
After two weeks of pilgrimages by Middle Eastern leaders, the U.S. administration still hasn't a clue on how to deal with the conflict.

It doesn't seem that Sharon's plan to make Arafat irrelevant is working in Palestine.

Arafat's popularity is growing

The Israeli opposition to the occupation seems to be growing.

Israel's conscience
Diaspora Jews are asked to support the state, but some are backing acts of Israeli opposition to the occupation

The following article shows why the Israeli reservists are refusing to go back into the territories.

The message from the high command

An 11-year-old boy was shot in the head from short range while fleeing after he threw stones at Israeli soldiers who were posted at the roadblock next to the refugee camp where he lives. That is the version given by eye- witnesses. It took the boy a week to die, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman stated: "In the course of disturbances, use was made of means to disperse demonstrations against a youth who was identified as the chief inciter- The soldier who fired acted properly."
(...)

The IDF has totally shaken off any and all moral responsibility for the killing of these children. According to the army spokesman, one boy was a "chief inciter" (and therefore deserved to die?). No "complaints" were received about another (and therefore there are doubts about whether he was killed?). The third took part in "riots" (and therefore the verdict against him, death by shooting, was valid?).

In not one of these cases did the IDF spokesman take the trouble to do the minimum human necessary thing - to express sorrow at the death of the children. The only conclusion is that the IDF is not sorry about their killing. That is the message to those who did the killing and to the families of those who were killed. No less grave, the IDF did not even contemplate investigating the circumstances of the deaths.

When this is the reaction of the IDF spokesman to the killing of children and when the IDF's juridical system doesn't lift a finger to investigate the incidents, the message that trickles down to every soldier is perfectly clear - killing children does not result in any sort of investigation, so no harm will come to a soldier the next time he shoots a child in the head, whether the child is throwing stones or running for his life.
(...)

The wave of harsh testimonies by reserve soldiers who refuse to serve in the territories, which has inundated almost every media outlet recently - and is the most important achievement of this group so far - has again brought to public attention atrocities that are being perpetrated in the occupied territories. The fact that these testimonies come from Israeli soldiers - and not from "dubious" Palestinian testimonies, reports of "extreme" human rights groups or articles by a handful of "one-sided" journalists - has given them greater credibility.

More important, the testimonies indicate that these are no longer exceptional events but policy with a clear, if twisted, goal - to embitter the lives of the residents so that they will put pressure on their leaders to fight terrorism. That is what Israel did in Lebanon and it is displaying the same behavior in the territories. The women in labor who are not allowed to go through the roadblocks, the terminally ill patients in ambulances who howl in vain in traffic jams at roadblocks, and the children who are shot - if the IDF senior command truly wanted to, it could put a stop to events such as these. [read more]