reports like this one break my heart. in an effort to arrest a hamas founder, an israeli incursion killed eight other palestinians, including a pregnant woman, a thirteen-year-old boy and two police officers. they also demolished several homes. the end result? a huge funeral procession chanting "bombing is the only answer."

it's been said before, but one more time: so much for the violence-leads-to-peace argument. i'm not out to cast israelis as the bad guy here, because the aggression quite obviously runs both ways. but i think it's astounding that the american media pays so much more attention to suicide bombings whose victims are israelis than to incursions like today's. the count at the end of the article says "at least" 1,888 palestinians and 706 israelis killed in the last 20 months, yet many people continue to see the palestinians -- underresourced, living in refugee camps and under near constant siege -- as the sole aggressors here. i wish the united states could support a just peace rather than remaining mindlessly partial to israel in this conflict.