I would agree 100% on the problem of fairness being extremely subjective. So I’m going to have to skip over that for the minute.
Restraint is difficult to judge since there’s almost no comparable situation anywhere else on the planet of such prolonged and frequent low intensity conflict, so it is hard to say whether Israel is handling it better or worse than others might. I still feel that Israel’s actions in Lebanon in 2006, as an example, were grossly disproportionate, and, worse, counterproductive to their own security and regional stability in general. At times (Lebanon in the mid 90’s for example), Israel has been able to establish tacit balances of tit-for-tat with it’s opponents that have been very successful in minimizing civilian casualties and allowing them to achieve real security – unfortunately, in many of these cases, it is the Israeli military that violated the rules of the game first by a disproportionate response.

Taking an example from my own country, Van Crevald suggested the reason that things eventually settled down in Northern Ireland is because the British were willing to take more casualties than they inflicted. What I consider a lack of restraint on the part of Israel, and a favoring for mass punishment over more restrained, but more risky, operations , is wildly counter-productive to their long term security.
(This is all a little off topic. Apologies to everyone else).

Now on the question of “fairness”... That’s a huge and likely very subjective question. I don’t think it’s one well served by blog comments. I’d welcome you to get a blog and post your own lengthy considerations of that question, if that’s what interests you. If you include the link to your blog in your username here or on any comments I happen to see somewhere else, and of course if what you have to say at that point interests me enough to click on through, there’s a good chance I’ll be happy to respond at length as well. And if not me, there’s always someone else to bait with snippy taunts online.

That has got to be one of the worst ways to respond to someone… At least if you want them to engage you in discussion, anyway. Doesn’t show much respect for anything but the sound of one’s own keystrokes.

No, representatives of Israel don’t riot when you make cartoons about them. They call you a Nazi or an Anti-Semite instead. Gotta love that easy going attitude, and unwillingness to cheapen one of the darkest chapters of European history!

Danish Newspaper Cartoons really aren’t funny.

Hell, even the Finkelstein stuff was at least occasionally well drawn (I quite liked the SuperArab one, actually).

More seriously, yeah, free speech, great etc. etc… but there’s saying something because you genuinely feel it needs to be said, and there’s saying something because your just looking for cheap controversy.

Further, note it was NOT these pictures that caused the trouble – they were reprinted in a booklet by Danish Imam’s along with some weird ones involving a fezzed figure being raped by a dog – no one knows exactly where those came from. No one cared, of course, for six months until the Saudi’s did their usual bad job of running the Hajj, and needed something to distract the rest of the Muslim world from criticism of the Saudi gov. Suddenly, mysteriously, there it is, five times a day on the front page of every Saudi paper…

Simply coming back with equally inappropriate comics only shows one’s lack of understanding of the real issue which is what exactly the same type of person that would riot in the streets over such comics in the first place.

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=176

Or how about these?

http://www.irancartoon.com/

One should note that the cartoons were originally published in Egypt on the front page several months before the “spontaneous reaction”

ALLUUUU AKHBAAAAH!