Time, place and manner

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Following renewed rocket fire into southern Israel by ‘militants’ in the Gaza Strip, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert borrows the rhetoric of former US president George W Bush:

“The response will come at the time, the place and the manner that we choose.”

Time: Any guesses? By the way, Israel goes to the polls on February 10.

Manner: Mr Olmert has already indicated that the manner will be “disproportionate.” Again.

For a contrasting note of sanity, here’s the man who ought to be Prime Minister of Australia, Tim Costello:

When I was last in Jerusalem the group that moved me most deeply and gave me hope that things could one day be different was the Parents Circle Families Forum, which World Vision funds. I met Israeli and Palestinian parents who could not agree on politics or policy but unanimously agreed on one thing: The killing must stop.

They met face to face, abandoning positions where they might hate and seek vengeance, to share the unspeakable pain that bonded them into a most unlikely group. Each had lost children from violence. Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces and Israelis at the hands of Hamas rockets or suicide bombers.

I was in tears listening to parents speak with a moral clarity borne out of intense suffering: The killing of children must stop whatever else.