. "THE BLAME GAME IN ISRAEL AND THE U.S."@en . . . . . . "by 70.145.169.91 Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday that by allowing militants to continue firing rockets against innocent Israelis, Hamas has left the Israel Defense Forces with no choice but to operate in the Gaza Strip. \"The time has come for action. The military operations are continuing and Hamas bears the responsibility,\" Barak said, during a meeting with various defense officials including IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin. \"We pulled out of Gaza, we tore Israelis from their homes, just for quiet in the communities in the Gaza envelope. These were painful concessions that we made for quiet, and Hamas has continued its fire without reason,\" he said at the opening of the meeting. source: Haaretz.com \"They are firing on innocent civilians and have left us no choice. We will operate with force to change the situation, and we will change it,\" the defense minister vowed. Since Wednesday (27 Feb), 180 rockets have been fired at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip - 20 of them long-range 122 mm Iranian GRAD rockets which struck Ashkelon, a city with a population of 120,000. Most of the rockets were fired by Hamas. Despite the evidenceobtainede from rocket parts that shows \"We are talking about regular Iranian-made rockets,\" an intelligence official is quoted as saying. The 122-millimetre rockets have a range of about 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) and carry a large payload which caused heavy damage to buildings in the southern coastal town of Ashkelon, which bore the brunt of the Grad rocket fire. These rockets are now being fired daily into Israel from Hamas occupied territory. Yet, there are those , not unlike here in the USA, who publicly proclaim human rights abuses occured in Israel's air attacks to neutralize rocket sites in Hamas occupied Gaza. The blame game is played by the group called B'Tselem. This group claims it is a human rights watcher in the Mid East. In fact it is a collection of leftist secular radicals who, as you will read, are nothing but Marxist radicals within Israel who are advocates for the Palestinians. This group has no direct affiliation with those groups in the United States who are advocates for the Palestinians. But they are ideologically the same. Leftist anti-military \"peace nicks\" who demonstrate and write articles advocating principles that are pro secularist Marxism. B'Tselem's statistics have also been criticised for defining as \"civilian\" Palestinians killed while engaged in attacks on Israelis. In response to B'Tselem's 2004 summary of casualties, the Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA), an Israeli digest, argued that \"the figures reported by B'Tselem about noncombatant minors includes children shielding combatants as they prepare and launch Qassam rockets or shielding gunmen as they engage in battle against Israeli forces.\" This was in response to a clarification by B'Tselem that the term \"did not participate in hostilities\" may include bystanders. Caroline B. Glick, deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, in an editorial for this journal asserts that B'Tselem is a radical leftist organization with a documented history of falsifying and distorting data, not unlike the main stream media in the U.S.! The Movement for Civil Rights and Peace was formed in 1973 by Shulamit Aloni, a former Member of the Knesset.. As a member of the Israeli peace camp she opposed the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip and called for a peace settlement with the Palestine Liberation Organization from its birth. The party advocated secularism, the separation of religion and state, and civil rights, most notably women's rights, a topic that was very close to Aloni. There are two other leftist groups participating in this pro-Palestinian movement. The first is Mapam, that was a descendant of the left wing of the Poale Zion (Workers of Zion) movement. It merged with HaShomer HaTzair (\"Youth Guard\") and, in 1948, Labour Unity; the latter included some of the right wing of Poale Zion, who had joined David Ben Gurion's Mapai but then broken back away. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook, with a strong Stalinist policy, and represented the left-wing Kibbutz Artzi (\"Nationwide Kibbutz\") movement. The other is Meretz-Yachad, that defines itself as a Zionist Green left wing social democratic party. It has inherited Meretz's membership in the Socialist International. It sees itself as the political representative of the Israeli Peace movement, in the Knesset - as well as municipal councils and other local political bodies. It's basic stated principles are anything but principles for the benefit of Israel. It emphasises the following principles (not necessarily in order of importance): Peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, based on a two state solution as laid out in the Geneva Accord. Dismantling most of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Human rights issues: Struggle for the protection of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Rights of the minorities in Israel (such as Israeli Arabs and foreign workers), fight against their discrimination, and support of affirmative action. Women's rights and feminism. Gay rights. Struggle for social justice: Making Israel a Social Democratic Welfare state. Protecting workers' rights and fighting against their exploitation (especially, though not exclusively, in the case of foreign workers and immigrants), Separation of religion and state, and religious freedom, Liberal secular education and Environmentalism. __NOEDITSECTION__ From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki."@en . . . . "by 70.145.169.91 Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday that by allowing militants to continue firing rockets against innocent Israelis, Hamas has left the Israel Defense Forces with no choice but to operate in the Gaza Strip. \"The time has come for action. The military operations are continuing and Hamas bears the responsibility,\" Barak said, during a meeting with various defense officials including IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin. \"We pulled out of Gaza, we tore Israelis from their homes, just for quiet in the communities in the Gaza envelope. These were painful concessions that we made for quiet, and Hamas has continued its fire without reason,\" he said at the opening of the meeting. source: Haaretz.com \"They are firing on innocent civilians and have l"@en . .