This is also moral clarity - for me

www.opendemocracy.net/5050/meredith-tax/gaza-jewish-right-and-muslim-right
and,
www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/ben-waite/peace-and-israeli-right
both give a serious appraisal of the current situation by established authors.  Mine is not and I am not qualified.  My contribution is, sadly, a very minority plea for:

peaceful co-existence and tolerance (an unacceptable word in the circles that I move in because you must not tolerate evil!);

normally, non-violence in the spirit of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr (all three are now seen as rip-roaring successes and Gandhi is even getting a statue in Parliament Square, London);

keeping within the UN Charter, the Declaration of Human Rights and the normal accepted standards of what is lawful; (Israel comes over to me as being dismissive of the UN and every resolution against her over the decades.  In recent years, its attitude towards its great friend, financial backer and ally, the US is not much better - even disrespectful, at times)

and using a UN peacekeeping force when that is voted on in the UN.

I write because Israel is in our sphere of influence.  She is one of us, in being a Western nation in the heart of the Arab Middle East.  We support each other.  In addition, most of my Christian friends have a natural affinity with Israel that makes them solidly behind her and in supporting her in her latest war.  A few of my church friends do have reservations about Israel's aggression and conduct in her latest war.  Therefore, I think I can be constructively critical about ourselves in the spirit of this quote:
"What is wrong with the world?  I am.  Yours truly,  GK Chesterton"  In other words addressing the plank in our own, Western eye, first.  "We are the chief of sinners" and not the Muslims, Palestinians, Arabs.  Here goes:

SUMMARY

The war objective was to stop the rockets from Hamas that still, incessantly land in fields or get shot down by Iron Dome.  Therefore, mutual ineffectiveness.  Mutual incompetence.  Mutual incomprehension.  One-sided slaughter.  (And, one sided laughter off stage - the 's', for 'smart' is missing from 'laughter'.  In other words, Israel needs to be a lot smarter.)

In other words, both sides are as bad as each other but, the side that my family, friends and church support is the side that is least smart, easily does the most slaughter, for many weeks and, in supposed self-defence!

I am told that Hamas has intimidated or killed the gullible Gazans and used them as shields.  Even so, that is no excuse for Israel's killing, by missiles and bombs, of any non-combatants when the poor quality Hamas rockets only seem to cause casualties in Israel after Israel has gone in, by almighty firepower, to wipe out all the rocket launching sites!

Hamas has certainly killed informers.  The IRA did the same.  Ian Paisley and Martin Maginnis, after many decades of mutual hatred, violence and killings, became known as the Chuckle brothers.  There is hope, then for Israel and Palestine; and, for Netanyahu and Abbas to become the new Chuckle Brothers.  Learn, O Israel from N Ireland's example - please.

Fortress Israel's right to defend itself, when no country is anywhere near to attacking and invading her, should be by Iron Dome and, through talks with 'terrorists'.  Certainly not by war that has been the hallmark of the 'Christian' West for 1700 years and copied by the Jewish 'West' since about the 1920s when more Jews started returning to the Holy Land.

The trigger for the war was the killing of the three Israeli teenagers near Hebron, on the other side of Israel from Gaza.  But, it is Gaza that gets it in the neck!  Why should the wrong half of Palestine be destroyed to the tune of £4 billion, and those not involved be punished by all the slaughter in a war that, if it must, should have been waged on the West Bank?

Mark arch apologist Regev, Israeli government spokesman, maintains, "Hamas is trying (my emphasis) to kill our people."  As if that is a good enough reason for actually killing over two thousands Gazans and rising!  You only attack, O Israel, weak enemies like Hamas.  What a shameful, cowardly act by people who benefit from my country's - the UK's - full support and armaments.

Yet, British men and women (I expect this includes Christian believers) are manufacturing armaments that are sold and/or subsidised and are sent to Israel to continue the horrific deaths for non-combatants.  When Israel is not formally at war, Palestinian terrorists are routinely wiped off the earth by the IDF and Mossad (motto:  "For by wise counsel thou shalt wage thy war").  So, why this third, ineffective, Gazan war, now that is so immoral and counter-productive?

It seems, from what I have not been told by even Israeli patriots, that not a single Hamas rocket has ever killed or injured a single Israeli before or between Israel's three wars on Gaza.  But, over the three wars, this further unwarranted, lethal and illegal response from Israel must have killed or injured tens of thousands of Gazans.  Therefore, Israel's behaviour reminds me of the 'N' word that dares not speak its name.  But Peter Ustinov did.  He said, "The Jews were the first victims of the Nazis and the Palestinians are the second."  Israel's behaviour is certainly so typical right wing, 'righteous' behaviour to obliterate 'evil'.

Israel's nuclear, like even their conventional, weapons are a fat lot of use in stopping the nuisance, noisy Hamas rockets from flying over.  But WMD would be so useful to you in the genocide you appear to be engaged in.

Israel's obsessive security fears leads it down the blind alley of thinking only of a military solution that never comes.  All party talks of give and take by all, seems way out of reach for Israel because 'you must never talk to terrorists' (Netanyahu).  You must never ever sup with the devil.  And that is all there is to it.  Hence, O Israel, you live in constant, paranoid yet unreasonable, fear of annihilation.  An unhappy State and state to be in.

Most of my Christian friends side with Israel because she has a special place in God's heart and is crucial in Yahweh's plans for winding things up in the end days.  Never mind the one-sided nature of our side's wars with Gaza.  Never mind our 21st century wars with other majority Muslim nations.  It all heralds Armageddon and Christ's return.  Although, for the State of Israel all these wars get them absolutely nowhere but, for the Church of God, it gets them closer to the Second Coming - and, the end of the world for the lot of us.

Our Western (Christian/Jewish) wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and Gaza in this century, alone were all on Muslims or, irreligious or secular Muslims like Saddam Hussein.  No wonder there is now an almighty backlash from the young, macho, shocked and very hate-filled Muslims we have helped radicalise and fuel with violence.  We have taught them far too well.  We have violently opened the Pandora's Box of horrors on innocents of all faiths and of none.  "What is wrong with the world?  I am.  Yours truly,  GK Chesterton"

Non-violence has only ever been spoken, in my hearing, not by anyone supporting Israel but by one Palestinian MP in an interview on the 'Today' programme on 17 July 2014.  Six times he mentioned 'non-violence' and said that Hamas "is ready for a two state solution."  He said, "Equity for all; no-one to be killed; and no double standards."  (Bagooti, a one time Fatah Presidential candidate)

The life of an Israeli is, of course, very many times more valuable than that of a Gazan who elected the terrorist gang, Hamas.  They are dispensable.  The life of an American or a Brit is worth even more than an Israeli!

With complete impunity, we can kill and injure many thousands of Gazans for simply having the temerity in targeting Israelis, even though not a single Israeli was ever hurt by the rockets, before we declared the all out war on Gaza to teach them a lesson.

War is a living, breathing hell of horrors

Israel was born out of violence and terrorism to overthrow, in 1947 the British imperial force that conquered Gaza in 1917.  Since Britain withdrew and independence was gained in 1948, Israel has engaged in numerous wars with its neighbours - all in legitimate self-defence, you must understand.  The three most recent were in 2008, 2012 and this year - all against Gaza.

1. When is Israel going to live in peace with ALL its neighbours?  Well done for living in peace with those countries that you do do.  Now, go one country better.  Can you, O Israel?
2. When, after three wars, will Israel finally achieve its war objectives and stop the Hamas rockets having to be shot down by Iron Dome?  Three wars and still the Israeli taxpayer has to fork out for the rockets having to be shot down.  Quite disgraceful.  So, in accordance with the Old Testament Scriptures of tit for tat, over 2,100 Palestinians died horrific deaths and thousands more suffer appalling injuries and hundreds have their homes destroyed.  Mostly non combatants for Gazans but only five Israeli non combatants died.  More like tit, tit, tit ... for tat.
3. What a wimp you are, Israel having to rely on only Iron Dome to defend yourself from pretty useless Hamas rockets.  Relying on Iron Dome would satisfy natural justice and international law.  That will never do.  So you go for all out war, yet again on poor defenceless Gaza.  Real nations, like the United States of Aggression and the United Killers - whoops, Kingdom always defend themselves by going to war to knock out for ever the annoying Hamas rockets or to wipe out governments that don't comply with the wishes of themselves, the big boys.  After all these years of trying, O Israel you have not succeeded but you do, of course, try your best to be a good Western ally and to follow our example!  We succeeded in Afghanistan and Iraq to get our way by violence, of course.  When will our ally, Israel succeed in Gaza?
4. For me, I am ashamed that my country's name, UK stands for United Killers/Better Together because, we have waged war in every single year for, at least, the last 100 years.  2015 may be the first year since 1914 when we are not killing foreigners somewhere around the globe!  (The Guardian 12 February 2014 - four page spread of evidence)
5. Today, 24 August marks the 200th anniversary of our attack on the USA and our burning down of the White House and other buildings in Washington.  As with Israel attacking Gaza today, also for the most dubious of reasons.  So, 1814 the USA; 1914 Germany; 2014 Gaza; 2114 ?
6. Oh dear!  So many excuses from Israel for so many innocents accidentally on purpose slaughtered, when it was all the Gazans' fault for electing Hamas or not allowing the innocents to escape to UN shelters and schools or, for being in the UN shelters at the time the IDF missiles landed!
7. But never mind.  Every Israeli is so apologetic, indeed, heart broken for every non-combatant killed or injured, explaining that this was far from their intention.  Yet, the killings, injuries and destruction continue.  Most inexplicable!
8. When will normal service resume in Israel and Palestine with Mossad and the IDF conducting extra judicial assassinations to bump off terrorists in Gaza?  At least, this would leave the non combatants, the women and children well alone, who only get killed when Israel is warring on Gaza.
9. A very good point from Charles, "Where are the roads and rail, the industry and infrastructure of the new Palestinian state?"  Could it be that they have been destroyed by Israel and their missiles and army in one of their wars?  Or, could it be that it was hardly worth building when Hamas knew the IDF would soon be along, again to destroy it all.  Surely not?  Perhaps, too, it shows the depth of hatred that many Palestinians must have for Israel.  No point in building nice new motorways and railways when there is still no unbreakable peace agreement with Israel.
10. Yet, Muslims and Jews, all have Abraham as their father!  Revenge is so sweet for all of us but those who are religious are meant to be so much more righteous than the irreligious.  What happens, in fact, is that Israel's furious response in slaughtering the innocents in Gaza, is tit to the square of 77 for tat!
11. What was Israel thinking of when it withdrew from Gaza without it being part of a long term peace with justice settlement with all the Palestinian factions/groups?  For me, the so well meaning withdrawal was such a serious mistake that it proves how incompetent the government was at the time - at least, with that stupid decision.  Gaza was even part of the Promised Land, too.  How can you, Israel, know better than the Almighty and give away an important part of the Promised Land and not even trade it away for peace?  O, you dear, idiotic, incompetent, disobedient ungodly Israel!
12. Yet, I am trying to get read one of Linda's books, 'Israel, God's Servant: God's key to the redemption of the world' by Torrance and Taylor.  How can Israel be God's poor suffering servant when she is killing so many of His creation, even if they are not citizens of His Chosen Nation, Israel?  They are still children of Abraham, like themselves.
13. When three wars have still failed to stop the rockets from the military wing of Hamas, do you not think it would be sensible for Israel to change this failed and useless military strategy and actually to try talking directly with Hamas military and/or political representatives?  Aha!  But that would mean compromise and Israel can't possibly compromise with evil - of course not.  In fact, this week (19 August 2014) talks are taking place in Cairo.  It only took many thousands of casualties and three wars in six years to get the right wing, righteous government to break every principle in the book and talk to terrorists, albeit indirectly!
14. Do you think that it would be a good idea for Israel to try and get inside Hamas thinking to understand where they are coming from?  Why is Israel so hated by Palestinians?
15. Yesterday, I played back more than once to make sure that I heard it correctly, the BBC foreign correspondent, Kevin Connolly, say on 'From Our Own Correspondent': "These confrontations are hopelessly asymetrical.  Many of Hamas rockets are out of date or homemade where Israel's missiles are powerful and sophisticated."  Do you personally believe that this is a mistake or a lie?
16. Connolly graphically put it like this: "It's as though Gaza is a kind of junction box, for the dysfunctional neural wiring of the Middle East fused a long time ago." Again, he said, "In the war of 1967, Israel came back and has occupied Gaza or, controlled life inside it, ever since."  Are you maintaining that Kevin Connolly is lying?  He said that, now Israel and Egypt maintain strict controls on all movements of the people in Gaza.  Is this wrong?  Connolly's was a dispassionate and beautifully crafted piece.  It began with a vision of what Gaza will, one day look like and with a touch of amusement, too; went on to contain much realism and ended on a message of hope.  His comments started and ended with the delightful, scurrying and laughing children of Gaza.  I recorded it.  It is only five minutes long.  I would love you to hear it.  I will attach it to this e-mail.
17. War is a living, breathing horror of hell for the non combatants.  Therefore, Israel's right to defend itself from rockets that, from what I hear and read, kill no-one before and not during one of Israel's three wars on Gaza, should only extend to using its powerful and sophisticated Iron Dome .  Do you understand why I am maintaining this position that killing a total of over 2100 and injuring thousands more is somewhat over the top for disturbing the peace and quiet of Israel's leafy residential areas?  In other words, in this scenario, you only have the right to defend yourself by the very effective Iron Dome and not by killing Gazans.  Is this fair and reasonable?
18. Does not moral clarity demand that when you know your enemy is using non combatants to help protect them and that therefore, for every one combatant wiped off the earth, you are also wiping off another truly innocent soul that, therefore, you should rethink your policy of warfare and try non-violence and talking?  "Jaw, jaw and not war, war", as Harold Macmillan once said (and not the ubiquitous Churchill, as I thought!)
19. Or, does killing children ensure that they cannot possibly turn into terrorists?  Is this what it is, really all about?  At present, the UN puts the current death toll of Operation Protective Edge at 1,975 on 18 August 2014.
20. Don't you understand that there was protection for Israelis before this further war?  The Iron Dome anti-missile defence system.  Now, with this immoral and unnecessary war, Israelis who were not dying before are now dying.  That is tragic, if it were not so comic  - and incompetent by your foolish government.
21. I see Israel as the 52nd state of the USA, with the UK as the 51st.  In other words, when I see my side, my own beloved nations, doing such illegal and immoral and unnecessary things as attacking, invading and occupying first Afghanistan, then Iraq and, now, Gaza on three occasions, I do get very concerned.  The horrors for those innocents who are targetted simply never impinges on our consciousness.  Out of sight, out of mind.
22. Do you understand why people who think like me shake our heads in sorrow and view Islamic State and all the other Muslim horrors as a backlash for all our misdeeds and odd massacres of Arabs during our wars in just this century, alone?  We really are setting a very poor example to the young, pumped up, macho Muslims when they see NATO, made up of mostly traditional Christian nations, like the USA/UK, acting with such impunity and aggression on and in Muslim nations since the Christian Crusade - whoops, War of Terrorism (WoT) - started on the 7 October 2001.  That WoT was also a brutal and barbaric over-reaction to 9/11, in my opinion, even if it was to bring Western democracy, the pursuit of happiness and freedom to the poor pagan and benighted people of Afghanistan and Iraq.  Desmond Tutu said it was a criminal act and not a declaration of war.  Our subsequent War of Terrorism was illegal in going for regime change of a government that had nothing to do with 9/11; and, of course as we now see, it was disastrously counter-productive.
23. Like readers of the 'Jewish Chronicle', do you also view money given to the thirteen aid agencies of the Disasters Emergency Committee, as going to Hamas?  Did you wish that the DEC appeal had not been put out on the BBC or placed in the Jewish Chronicle?
24. Having read every word of Charles' article, why does Israel continue to play into Hamas's hands and to allow itself to so easily get provoked and, so violently, too?  This time, it is Israel that is like that sleeping giant in 'Gulliver's Travels' that gets all wound up in string and confusion.  Or, is might is right Israel, the Goliath and weak, pathetic Gaza, the ill equipped boy David?
25. But, I hear you say, 'Israel is a Western, democratic and free country that has an established body of law.  If I criticise Israel for its foreign policy, I am an anti-Semite.  If you are not for us you are against us and the full weight of the Israeli State will drop on you like a ton of bricks.'
26. According to Melanie Philipps, if I assert that Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem and brought up in Nazareth, was a Palestinian Jew, as I do, I am an anti-Semite.
27. I heard Melanie say on the 'Jeremy Vine' show on 17 June, "Iran can be useful to us if it is in Iraq killing people we want killed."  Unfortunately, Melanie morality does not chime with moral morality.  But it does chime with too many of my Bible believing Christian friends at my church!
28. Do you take on board that, for the small minority like me, we see Israel like this:- as having an obsessive and compulsive fear that it is about to be wiped off the face of the earth by Muslim extremists and jihadists.  Yet, it is Israel that has WMD and the mightiest of modern military weapons to protect her!  How can she possibly be exiled, once more, from Yahweh's Promised Land?
29. Israel's taxpayers should certainly be paying for the destruction of buildings and infrastructure that they are responsible for and that was entirely uncalled for when, between the wars, they were killing Hamas terrorists by extra-judicial assassinations, anyway.  Then, they were more likely to be the men of violence that were being killed.  For the third time, my own side, my friends and brethren who should know better, are killing innocent Gazans who, like yourselves, O Israel, want to be left in peace and quiet. 
30. Can iron Israel not laugh in derision at such an implausible notion as Hamas and Hezbollah being able to extinguish the nuclear armed State of Israel with its even more powerful financial and military backers, the US,UK, EU and NATO?  Make friends of your enemies, O iron man Israel.  You did with Jordan and Egypt, years ago.  Then, you will get your long wished for "sustainable quiet for the people of Israel" (Israel's ambassador to the UK) from the noise of rockets being shot down by Iron Dome.
31. So many of my Christian friends pray only for the peace of Jerusalem, as they are commanded to do in the Jewish/Christian scriptures.  What about the peace of Gaza City and the other 190 world capitals?
32. Please, let's have ALL of Israel having quiet from the noisy Iron Dome working overtime as the war proceeds apace.  But when will Israel wipe out, for ever, the pretty useless Hamas rockets that was the reason they went to war, yet again, on the 8 July 2014?
33. Now, war over on Tuesday 26 August 2014.  Fifty days of futile, pointless and barbaric killings of mainly children and men and women who had no wish to harm a single Israeli.  One Jerusalem newspaper called it a dismal draw and Netanyahu's popularity poll rating dropped as the war continued.  Anyway, it was well worthwhile, of course, giving the evil Gazans a good drubbing, if only to show them who was boss.

“When the strong doesn’t make victory, he is defeated, and when the weak is not defeated, then he won,” explained Hamza Ismail Abu Shanab, an analyst and the son of a senior Hamas member killed by Israel in 2003. Article in Haaretz: 'Hamas Emerges Buoyant Despite Bloodshed and Devastation in Gaza' by Jodi Rudoren on 3 Sept 2014