Be of good heart, ~8000 Palestinian rock throwing terrorists still sit in Israeli prisons, mostly convicted, some in public trials. Also the kill ratio is 20-30 to 1 during revenge bombing and since multimillion dollar weapons systems are used, each and every Palestinian death is of a terrorist, terrorist supporter or terrorist to be. There are plans to build the first Arab town in Israel since 1948 where Palestinians can be concentrated for their and Israel's protection and control.

There is another way to do this math.
With between 5,000 and 6,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails, Israel has released less than 20% of her prisoners.
Palestine has released 100% of hers.
100% to 20% is a good deal, especially if it can then be used to claim the moral gain ground.
There's been a lot of killing over there, a lot of dispossession and families ruined.
Who was Ahlam Tamimi anyway? We know what she did. Has anyone asked why?

It never ceases to amaze me how Palestinian and Israeli "victims" constantly receive the limelight, the focus and all the incessant analysis, despite the relatively low casualty rates on a world scale. It's a pity that not even a significant proportion of this attention is diverted to the daily massacres in Syria, the ongoing torture, executions and arrests in Iran, the ongoing oppression in occupied Tibet and the ongoing oppression and genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
One wonders about the real agenda of those responsible for this misdirected focus.

It is wonderful the value that Israel places on the life of a single Jewish soldier. However, that does not of itself make Israel moral. True morality would be shown if they afforded they same value to non Jewish lives.
For instance, the lives of the 400 odd children killed during Operation Cast Lead. Perhaps the thousand or so civilians killed in Lebanon by the IDF a couple of years ago would have appreciated Israel valuing their lives as much as they clearly value the life of Gilad Shalit.

Rhys, why direct your comments against only one country? If there any country that is actually "moral" in a state of war, especially if civilian casualties result?

Bempec says "Rhys, why direct your comments against only one country?"

Because this article was about only one country and was holding that particular country up as a superior moral example.

There are many countries around the world that have worse human rights records than Israel and if there are articles about them I will comment on them. However, those countries are generally not allied with Australia, and nor are they held up by their supporters as being of superior moral character.

An example of a country that has behaved better during times of conflict is the UK. They were subjected to numerous bombings by the IRA. However, they did not retaliate by carrying out wholesale bombings of Catholic neighbourhoods in the guise of killing terrorists.