Diana Ghazzawi, a Gazan blogger who is now based in North America, shares with us her worries that she might not meet her relatives in Gaza one day, if they don't get lucky from the strategic Israeli shelling on the Gazans:

This is not about politics. It's not about specifics of the horrors that are occurring in the city whose name I, Diana Ghazzawi, carry with me. It's a tiny reflection. It's thinking about the fate that allowed some of my family to live fairly peacefully and freely in Kuwait and later North America, while my aunts, their husbands, and their children and grandchildren have lived their whole lives in Ghazza. It's me worrying about parking at the mall, while they worry about the death that's raining down upon them. How strange. How very strange. My aunts, my cousins, who I've never met. Who, God forbid, if they don't get lucky, I may never meet. I can't pretend I feel very close to them, as circumstances have kept us apart our whole lives. But when you see the sights I've been seeing, the sights my father has been watching, bringing news that his childhood haunts and sisters’ streets have been bombed, you realize it's not important that you have relatives there. When you hear voices that sound like your own, and faces that look like your own, and shock and anger that are an amplified version of your own, you realize that every Palestinian is your aunt, your uncle, and your cousin.

Vexedlevantin writes a panoramic post on the Gaza massacre, and the Arab role in it:

‘The largest incursion against Palestinians in decades’. Israel openly declared an all out war against a a legitimately elected government it prefers to name terrorist organization. Naturally, calling Israel a terrorist state is deemed anti-Semitic, but we'll just put that aside for the time being. In the very words of the Israeli ambassador to the UK, ‘Israel will go as far as needed to protect the security of its people’. That's practically a Carte Blanche. This operation is aimed at toppling an inconvenient neighbour with a more Abbas-like government. Over 350 people dead since the bombing raid and rising, yet the Israeli press has the nerve to counter that unfortunate statistic with the death of three Israeli's (one of whom is a Palestinian Israeli). Sure, the lives of three Israelis’ is worth 350 Palestinians. That's a ratio more suited to a Zionist sensibility. But despite it all, ‘every civilian casualty saddens us’ (an Israeli statement). Of course civilians are just unfortunately in the way and the job has to be done one way or the other. But thats fine. One expects a the most debased of moral values in Zionists.

Vexedlevantine stresses on the core problem that allowed Israel to launched such attacks on Gaza:

But what really boils me with rage is the divided stance, statement, or even opinion of Arab states. I am specifically referring to the governments. It's a miserable day (one of many) to be referred to as an Arab. Egyptian forces opened fire this morning on Gazans trying to flee. Mubarak is provided with a golden opportunity to shine here. Instead, the Egyptian/Israeli status Quo must be protected at any cost. Is it fair to point the finger so dramatically on the Egyptians though? wouldn't any other Arab governments behave in the same manner if placed in a similar predicament? Egypt and Saudi Arabia have clearly sanctioned this massacre just as they blessed the 2006 bombing of Lebanon. One has to wonder, shouldn't we just cut our losses, save ourselves and amputate that limb before the disease spreads any further? Shouldn't one address the source of the problem and cut whats fueling it? At least partly. But who's to carry out that task? the only way is for people to rise up in protest, pretty much as they are doing in many Arab capital cities as they protest against the onslaught right now, but instead protest against the impotence of their governments. Governments that pay lip service to Arabism, brotherhood, and Islamic values, rather than actively illustrate the sentiment they blag about.

Israeli has strategically chosen the timing of this aggression which nears the premiership elections. In addition to restore the faith of it's people in it's army's invincibility especially after the debacle of Lebanon '06. Israel would more than happy to have another go at Hizbollah, and is tempting the prospect. But Nasrallah isn't prepared to be dragged in to such worm whole. Syria has “dramatically” called off it's indirect peace talks. A cookie is in order here. Israel has clearly come to the conclusion that Syria is not willing to break it's ties with Iran nor Hizbollah, to hell with indirect negotiations.
Iran and Syria are not prepared to go further than condemnation for the time being. The ‘half men’ are a safe bet. We know which side of the fence they're on and its certainly not the Palestinians one. The cherry on the cake is Abbas and Mubarak's accusation of Hamas holding them responsible for everything. […]

Hamas is a by-product of Israeli foreign policy and occupation, just as much as Hizbollah was a by-product of Lebanon's civil war. So to preach a pseudo-rational rant on how Hamas has instigated this tragedy is absolutely pathetic and short-sighted.

Omar, blogging from Canada, calls our attention to the news headlines that concern Israel:

My customized Google page includes many newsfeeds among them Aljazeera and the BBC conveniently positioned one on top of the other. On a daily basis I compare the headlines of both feeds in terms of the information provided and the news stories covered. What I have always noticed is that when it comes to news concerning Israel the headlines are always contextually different. For example, on Saturday I woke up to the horrible news from Aljazeera of “271dead in an Israeli raid on Gaza” meanwhile just below, the BBC reported “Massive Israeli raids on Gaza.” While both headlines imply Gaza under attack, one doesn’t quantify the magnitude of the attack. AP on other hand reported that “Oil jumps above $39 as Israel-Gaza conflict widens.” Notice the use of the word conflict to imply two equals, and the misleading use of the word “widens”…but I digress.

I think it’s in times like these where alternative media resources like blogs really shine. If you’re looking for a great video coverage of the terror attacks against Gaza I suggest you visit The Real News Network. On the other hand blogs like International Solidarity Movement, In Gaza, as well as a blog to which I have a personal connection, Eva’s oPt. Eva is a friend of mine who is doing all she can to get the word across, I have never met a more dedicated person. She’s currently in Gaza and wrote to us after the rocket attack saying “please don't worry for me, worry for Palestinians.”

Uramium is mocking western media outlets for using the term “Israel's war on Hamas”, instead of “civilians”:

All the western media insists that the recent war is between
Israel and Hamas, and the planes that committed Air strikes yesterday had
targeted Hamas compounds, Also all the victims are from Hamas and other police
officers.

Here's the snapshot the blogger used to support his argument:

Both of Abu Kareem and Philip 1 linked to an article written by Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. Here's an extract from the article cited:

Until about 1960 the complex origins of the Jewish people were more or less reluctantly acknowledged by Zionist historiography. But thereafter they were marginalised and finally erased from Israeli public memory. The Israeli forces who seized Jerusalem in 1967 believed themselves to be the direct descendents of the mythic kingdom of David rather than – God forbid – of Berber warriors or Khazar horsemen. The Jews claimed to constitute a specific ethnic group that had returned to Jerusalem, its capital, from 2,000 years of exile and wandering. […]

Research into the origins of populations now constitutes a legitimate and popular field in molecular biology and the male Y chromosome has been accorded honoured status in the frenzied search for the unique origin of the “chosen people”. The problem is that this historical fantasy has come to underpin the politics of identity of the state 
of Israel. By validating an essentialist, 
ethnocentric definition of Judaism it encourages a segregation that separates Jews from non-Jews – whether Arabs, Russian immigrants or foreign workers.

Sixty years after its foundation, Israel refuses to accept that it should exist for the sake of its citizens. For almost a quarter of the population, who are not regarded as Jews, this is not their state legally. At the same time, Israel presents itself as the homeland of Jews throughout the world, even if these are no longer persecuted refugees, but the full and equal citizens of other countries.