{!hitembed ID=”hitembed_1″ width=”500″ height=”300″ align=”none” !}

In the aftermath of Israelis being caught burning alive an innocent Palestinian teenager -in retaliation for the deaths of three Israelis- and the subsequent beating an American citizen, a major military campaign has been launched on the people of Gaza. So far the bombing has killed 81 Palestinians, including 22 children according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the bombings under Operation Protective Edge have no end in sight and announced yesterday that “The operation will expand and continue until the rocket firing on our cities stops, and the quiet returns.” There have been zero Israeli casualties so far from the rocket attacks.

Operation Protective Edge’s lethality has been explained by the Israeli military as a result of Hamas using civilian homes and other buildings as cover. So in order to target Hamas the Israeli military is forced to kill innocents.

Israel accuses militants of deliberately endangering civilians by using homes and other civilian buildings for cover. The military has also directly targeted the offices and homes of known militants that it says are used as command centers. The military typically contacts the families first to ask civilians to evacuate before striking its targets.

Yigal Palmor, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Hamas is firing rockets from “within houses and streets and neighborhoods which are populated with civilians … exposing these civilians to retaliation and to backfire.”

If the peace process was not already dead it is now.

Israel has proven itself completely uninterested in peace, which is their right. But it is also America’s right to step back from Israel and let the votes fly in the UN. If this is how they want to play the game so be it, but America has no interest in further entrenching itself in this tribal blood feud. Time to walk.