Okay, okay! We get it! You have a bad-ass military, but give it a rest, will ya?

The Israeli assault on Gaza continues despite world leaders pleading for a cease-fire in order to give peace a chance. When will it be okay for them to stop the assault? Apparently as soon as they secure all rocket launching sites used by Hamas. Great, in the meantime let's go solve world hunger and poverty and see if this nut has been cracked by the time we're done.

With the death toll now reaching around 500 (100 being civilians), Israel sure is doing everything to milk out all the sympathy they used to have for years of persecution and the Holocaust. The ones that used to get pushed around at recess are now the ones pushing and shoving every Palestinian in sight, without regard to whether or not they're civilians. Want a heart breaking quote? Here's one from the New York Times.

New York Times 1/5/2009

Masouda Al-Samouni, 20, said she had been preparing food for her 10-month-old son when the missile struck. “He died hungry,” she said in an interview.

Israel better start thinking of a new strategy before they become the ones looked down upon and maybe consider a cease-fire and start talking to Hamas. In the meantime, Palestinians need to locate as many militants as possible, smack them around a bit and say "Dude! You are NOT helping our cause."

Overall, though, I think the responsibility to find a way to peace lies mostly with Israel. They were given that land by the UN while every Arab country voted it down, so obviously the Palestinians are going to be a bit perturbed. But little by little, Palestinians are willing to accept that Israel isn't going anywhere -have you seen that military? It's definitely here to stay- and people don't like being invaded or having rockets launched at them, so now is the time for a cease-fire and working out some peace.

Come on, Israel. If you weren't willing to listen to the pleas of Tony Blair and Nicholas Sarkozy, then how about an OTR blog writer?