Collateral Damage

Just as Benjamin Netanyahu was appearing live on Al Jazeera International today, describing the war in Gaza as a noble war for "civilization" versus "barbarism," the Israeli Air Force bombed an appartment building in Gaza, killing Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan together with his wife, and three of their children and five others. There's some civilized behaviour for you.

Shortly after the attack, AJI showed disturbing images of small burned bodies being pulled out of the ruins of the building. Images few western TV-channels would ever show out of concern for their sensitive viewers, thereby reducing Palestinian civilians to abstract numbers - not even "collateral damage" but simply invisible.

This policy of targeted killings without any concern for the loss of civilian lives - a war crime if there ever was one - has been condemned by international human rights organizations as well as the European Union, and rightly so. It's exactly the kind of barbarism that Netanyahu claims to be fighting.