'Restraint' is deceitful, and 'forbearance' is vain (Gideon Levy)

[Scurrilous]

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"Even yesterday evening, after the IDF already had killed about 50 Palestinians, at least half of them unarmed, and including quite a number of women and children, Jerusalem continued to claim, "At present there will be no major ground operation." It's incredible: The IDF penetrates the heart of a crowded refugee camp, kills in a terrifyingly wholesale manner, with horrible bloodshed, and Israel continues to disseminate the lie of restraint. Two days earlier Israel killed more Palestinians than have been killed by all the Qassams over the past seven years. Among the dead were four children and an infant. The next day Israel killed another five boys. And who is the victim? Israel. And who is cruel? The Palestinians.

This victimhood is not new, nor is our self-deception. The current lie: 'restraint.' Israel is demonstrating 'restraint' in the face of the Qassams; this assertion continues to spur the commentators and security experts to urge it to embark on the anticipated 'major operation.' But this operation began long ago. It reached its peak yesterday.

Our desperate attempt to have our cake and eat it, too, to claim that there is no 'major operation' at a time when the IDF is killing dozens every day, is nothing new. It has existed since the days of the 'enlightened occupation' and 'purity of arms,' through 'the major operation that has yet to begin' - all of them impossible desires. A senior minister who was asked last week about the siege on Gaza replied: 'Occupation of Gaza is less moral.' In this way, we have once again established ourselves a relative and distorted values system, with no absolute morality, only a double standard. Behind every action of ours in Gaza, even the terrible one this weekend, hides an option that is even worse. The fact that we are not yet carrying it out helps us to present ourselves in a positive light, to boast how moral we are.

During the past two years, we have killed almost 900 Gaza residents. About half of them were people who did not take part in the fighting. That is how restraint looks. At a time when we are counting the Qassams and their victims, in Gaza they are counting the dead. Presenting things as though we have not yet entered Gaza or "beaten the hell out of Gaza" is meant to deceive. Yes, more can be done."

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