So Israel has, according to reports, killed almost 200 civilians in Lebanon. I do understand that they need to secure their country and that if people were launching rockets into DC or Boston that were randomly falling in the city and sometimes killing people, we'd want to stop that and rightly so. But at what cost?

A military analyst for CBS said that, because Israel uses military force to recover its captured soldiers whereas the US only searches for them w/o using force, Israel places a greater value on "human life" than we do. Um, I somehow don't see killing a highly disproportionate number of citizens (and mainly civilians at that) in other countries to rescue a few represents a greater value placed on human life. It is placing a greater value on ISRAELI life, and by implication a lesser value on the lives of others.

There was also an ambassador from Israel who said that the difference between Israel and the groups like Hezbollah were that everytime Israel kills a civilian in one of their countries, its an accident and a great tragedy, whereas when they kill an Israeli citizen, its a victory. While I agree that the second half of statement is true of groups like Hezbollah and that that makes them morally worse in an important way, I think the first half of that statement vastly overstates the Israeli government's moral high ground. I don't think they purposely kill civilians, but when they do so accidentally its not because of a tragic mistake despite their utmost efforts to avoid so. They take calculated risks of hitting civilians to achive their goals, and it doesn't look like they are too hesitant to launch missiles or bombs that will, not only possibly, but probably kill civilians (sometimes if fairly large numbers as in Lebanon). They aren't trying to target civilians, but i doubt they are very broken up when they do, as long as they get their target.