Originally from the
Guardian UK:
As the votes were counted in the Palestinian election and the scale of Hamas's landslide became apparent to the world, Aya al-Astal drifted away from her home and wandered towards the fence along the border between the Gaza strip and Israel.
The nine-year-old girl's parents realised she was gone as they watched the election results on television. They do not know precisely what happened, but the Israeli army later said Aya was behaving in a suspicious manner reminiscent of a terrorist - she got too close to the border fence - and so a soldier fired several bullets into the child, hitting her in the neck and blowing open her stomach.
The article goes on to note Palestinian outrage that Israeli soldiers have killed twice as many Palestinians in the the last week - both of them children - as the number of Israelis killed by Hamas all last year.
More after the fold.
The Israeli Amen Corner at DailyKos --you know who you are BiminiCat, DHinMI, Mike S, Paul in Berkeley, PhillyGal et al-- will try and shut a diary like this down by littering it with trollish comments and mewling flame wars. Don't be sucked in. They hate it when you don't respond.
I'm speaking past those people to the general DailyKos readership and I'd like to know your thoughts:
The Americans always give excuses for Israel...Israel is like a spoilt son. [The Americans] never pressure them. They kill our children and no one says anything. If there is a reaction by Palestinians to these incidents they call us terrorists.
I'm sick of the violence in the Middle East, and I'm sick of American politicians inflaming that violence by falling over themselves to shower Israel with whatever it wants while that country constructs what is in effect the world's largest prison; a prison in which they can shoot 9 year old girls at will.
I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of listening to right-wing Jews in America slander an American hero murdered by the IDF; a murder that our pathetic, AIPAC-cowed "representatives" can't muster the will to even ask be investigated.
Rachel Corrie
It's taboo and I'm saying it. To hell with anyone who would speak against the truth of this disgraceful state of affairs. Our one-sided support for Israel is a national disgrace. That our government lets Israel murder our own citizens without a peep is a national disgrace. That Israel can shoot Palestinian children without making a ripple in American media is a national disgrace. That Greg and Cindy Corrie are vilified and ignored by our media is a national disgrace. That we pour billions and billions of our tax dollars into Israel every year to help it warp our own political system into ever-deepening levels of complicity in hypocrisy and violence is a national disgrace.
With the next ginned up war --this time on Iran-- being trumpeted night and day on radio, television and in the newspapers, isn't it long past time we stopped indulging this spoilt son of ours?
"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel...
And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell." - Phil Zelikow, Exec Director of the 9/11 Commission
Cut off aid to Hamas? All for it. But cut off aid to Israel too until both sides find some way to stop killing one another.