Nobody is saying that Israel shouldn't defend itself. What most of the sane world disagree with is that when 1 guy commits a crime, his whole family, his neighbors, and his friends also bear the brunt of the punishment.

I was in England in the late 80/early 90s when the IRA had its own little bombing campaign. I certainly don't remember apartment blocks being leveled or homes being bulldozed or the military shelling schools and hospitals. I might have been a kid back then but I never heard British MPs calling for the mothers of the bombers to be killed either. I can't tell which side is worse.

I agree with Singer that Australian politicians are easily duped.

They've been duped for years by the Jewish Lobby into thinking that Israel is innocent of land-stealing, war crimes, genocide, torture, the assassination of Palestinian kids, collective punishment, massacres, deprivation of liberty, killing of protestors including running them down with bulldozers (Rachel Corrie), using phosphorous munitions, the torture of Palestinian children, the starving of the Palestinian population, the withholding of medicines, etc, etc.

Australian politicians, like their American counterparts, seem brain-dead where Israel is concerned.

Israel should've been punished for its many war crimes long ago but don't tell Australian politicians! They don't want to know!

I strongly recommend the following link for Alan Hart's perspective on the situation in Israel/Palestine, and how it will develop if international Jewry doesn't wake up:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39509.htm
As for Australian pollies being duped, aside from David G's accurate statements above, consider how they were willing duped over the matter of the downing of the Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine. Having followed the Yankees into sanctioning Russia for something it is far from clear the Russians had anything to do with, now comes the blow-back which will affect our trade. Stupid, stupid, as the countries in the EU are now acknowledging.

I'm just so glad that a permanent cease fire has been successfully negotiated!
Hopefully this one will hold, at least until Arabs outnumber Jews at the Israeli ballot box!
Rhrosty.

The site provided by Singer for his article has a great resource link to the Federal Parliament members.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian_Search_Results?q=&mem=1&sen=1&par=-1&gen=0&ps=100&st=1

I have already used it to send my local member a request to add their signature to the petition and encourage others to do the same. I have also contacted my state's senators.

I keep forgetting to post a link to B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. It does really important work and putting a link in a thread like this will help them rise up search engine rankings. This is not the only way I support them but every little bit helps.
http://www.btselem.org/

They are working to document testimonials of those impacted by the slaughter. This one was from an ambulance driver who recounts attacks that killed a paramedic and injured team sent to rescue him.

Quote;

On Friday afternoon, 25 July 2014, I was working at the medical emergency call center in Beit Hanoun. At around 4:30 P.M., we received a call reporting injured people in al-Masriyin Street in Beit Hanoun. We asked the International Red Cross to coordinate our going there. About 15 minutes after we received the call, we got authorization and an ambulance headed over there with paramedics 'Aaed al-Bura'i, 25, Hatem Shahin, 38, and driver Jawad Bdeir, 52. The team didn't make it to the wounded people. Soon after they reached the street, they reported back that a tank had fired at them and they were injured. They asked for another team to come and rescue them.
The call center coordinated the arrival of another team with the International Red Cross and got authorization to go rescue the injured team. I drove the second ambulance, and there were two medics with me – Muhammad Harb, 31, and Yusri al-Masri, 54. The street is only about 200-300 meters from the call center, so we were there within minutes. When we reached the entrance to the street, we were surprised to see three tanks and a military bulldozer in the street, about 100 meters away.

Cont...

Cont...

Suddenly, with no warning, they opened heavy machine-gun fire at us. The bullets penetrated the ambulance. I tried to turn the ambulance around to get out of there, but the steering wheel must have been hit. Suddenly, I felt sharp pain in my leg and realized I'd been hit by a bullet or shrapnel. Then the windshield shattered. Because I couldn't turn the ambulance around, I decided to try reversing. They kept firing as I backed up, until we got far enough away. When they stopped, I managed to turn us around and head back to the center.
On the way there we met Hatem Shahin, one of the paramedics from the first ambulance. He'd been hit by shrapnel in his shoulder and leg. He told us that a shell fired from a tank had hit the front part of the ambulance. He said he'd managed to get away but the other paramedic, ‘Aaed, had been hit. He told us that after he ran away from there, he saw the tank fire another shell at the ambulance, completely destroying it. He thought ‘Aaed must have been killed, but we didn't know for sure.

End quote.

http://www.btselem.org/testimonies/20140727_gaza_ambulance_driver_rami_ali