Quotable quotes from Israeli officials

On the real war--the propaganda one:

"There is an unequal war going on there between a power and a terror organization, and the only way to hurt us is to get those images to hurt us in the battlefield of public opinion," Danny Seaman, the head of Israel's Government Press Office, said last week before the strike on Abuelaish's [*] home. "In that sense, the less pictures coming out helping them the better."

There could hardly be another explanation for the fact that Israel banned the presence of international media from Gaza (contrary to a ruling from its own Supreme Court), but you wouldn't expect them to actually admit it quite like that.

On proportionality:

The following quote from an interview with Major-General Gadi Eisenkot that appeared in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth in October, is telling:

"We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective these [the villages] are military bases," he said.

"This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised."

Which goes together nicely with this account of the IDF plan in Gaza City.

And then there's Olmert saying he got Bush to tell Rice to reverse America's vote on a cease-fire resolution.

They just say this stuff. Pretty remarkable.



* "Abuelaish" = "Abu Al-Aish", as in, the peace activist doctor with the three dead kids. Shouldn't we have a consistent romanization scheme for this language already?