The Palestinians have been goading the Israelis into war for a long time. Hundreds of rockets have been launched at Israeli civilians from sites in Gaza, and finally Israel has responded to the provocation.
First came the attack on Hamas' long-range missiles in storage in Sudan a couple of weeks ago and then came the targeted assassination of Hamas terrorist leader Ahmed Jabari on Wednesday. Jabari was responsible for numerous murders of Israeli citizens. Here's video of the attack on his vehicle:
The Israelis followed this up with precision attacks on sites where Hamas has stored missiles capable of covering distances up to 75 km. which brings most of Israel's major cities and towns within range.
The Palestinians responded with yet another missile barrage aimed at civilians, but the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted most of those missiles which posed a threat and let the rest fall harmlessly in the countryside. Nevertheless, several Israeli civilians were killed.
Whether Israel will now send ground troops into Gaza is unclear, but they're massing men and tanks on the border.
Debkafile has a story on how different the state of the Israeli military's preparation has been this time compared to their war on Hezbollah in Lebanon and operation Cast Lead in Gaza a couple of years ago. Hot Air has some good insights into this as well.
It'll be interesting to see how the U.S. and indeed the rest of the world responds. If the past is an indication there'll be calls for Israel to show "moderation" and condemnations of Israel when the Palestinian casualties start to mount. There have been no calls, however, for Hamas to stop the rocket attacks against Israeli towns and there'll probably be no condemnation of the Palestinians either.
This leads one to suspect that there's a great deal of bigotry afoot. Either the world community, including a large segment of the American media, is anti-Israel or they just don't think that the Palestinians can be held to the same standards of civilized behavior to which the Israelis are held. Or maybe it's both. It's funny how bigotry on the left is acceptable as long as it's the proper sort of bigotry.