If this Jew were an Arab, he would have been lynched long ago

But among the Jews, criticism of ourselves is the norm, not the exception.
Gideon Levy makes me sick, but I need to debunk some of his drivel, so here goes.

More than 30 Palestinian children were killed in the first two weeks of Operation Days of Penitence in the Gaza Strip. It's no wonder that many people term such wholesale killing of children "terror." Whereas in the overall count of all the victims of the intifada the ratio is three Palestinians killed for every Israeli killed, when it comes to children the ratio is 5:1. According to B'Tselem, the human rights organization, even before the current operation in Gaza, 557 Palestinian minors (below the age of 18) were killed, compared to 110 Israeli minors.

First off (and it won't be the last time I say this), the death of a child a an earthshaking tragedy. One child's death is a human disaster in its very own right. Of colossal proportions. Period.

Now comes the bad news for Gideon: Many more will die before it stops, or even gets any better. Israel is in a war for its very survival, a war initiated by the Arabs, and fought with every and all means at their disposal. Misguided idiots like Gideon Levy refuse to realize this. This war is not an excuse to murder children (at least, it is not for the Jews) but the deaths of children is one of the unavoidable consequences.
Besides deliberately targeting Jewish children, the Arabs have been using their own children as human shields, as couriers, as child soldiers and even as suicide bombers. This STILL is no reason for targeting them directly. But a choice between Jewish lives, including our own children, and Arab lives, including their children, is no choice. Particularly when you realize this war is being waged by them, against us, in varying degrees of intensity, for more than a century now.

Palestinian children would stop dying the moment the Arabs stop waging their total war against Israel. Because the fighting would stop. It really is that simple.

Palestinian human rights groups speak of even higher numbers: 598 Palestinian children killed (up to age 17), according to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, and 828 killed (up to age 18) according to the Red Crescent. Take note of the ages, too. According to B'Tselem, whose data are updated until about a month ago, 42 of the children who have been killed were 10; 20 were seven; and eight were two years old when they died. The youngest victims are 13 newborn infants who died at checkpoints during birth.

This is the point where Levy loses all semblance of sanity: He starts to use Arab figures in his indictment of the IDF. If we were to believe those, thousands of Arabs died in the Jenin battles. In fact, fifty-seven Arabs died there (almost all of them combatants), as did twenty-five IDF soldiers. If the IDF was without scruples, as Levy claims, they could have just bombed Jenin, for weeks if need be, and save those Israeli lives.

The worst thing Levy does though is subtle and insidious. He counts all the dead, on both sides, and comes up with ratio's. But included in the Arab dead are ALL THE MURDERERS, ALL THE SUICIDE BOMBERS, all the armed men and women actively engaged in the war against Israel. The willingness (of a Jew even!) to morally equate the four girls and their mother, pregnant with their fifth sister with an Arab murderer goes beyond the insane.

But like I said. This 'man' can post an op-ed in a major newspaper. Ok, it's a very leftist newspaper, but still. And he won't be lynched. No fatwa will be issued. Heated arguments may arise (if I know the average Israeli...). But he'll live.

Sometimes I like the Arabs' ways better. Not this time though. Levy does not deserve to die. Being spit in the face, yes. Death, no.