Starfish: You're absolutely right. Muhammed himself has pointed out that the ink of the scholar is far more sacred than the blood of the martyr.

But you have to understand the even-handedness of media outrage, and in which direction media outrage goes. There have been numerous reports from many different human rights organizations (Israel's own B'Tselem being one of them) of Israelis using "human shields" in their operations. Here's a link: <link> (notice that I have to resort to quoting the British press here. I haven't found any American newspapers covering this sort of thing).

There have also been many reports of IDF members shooting children in the head at point blank range. There is no accident, there. And yet there is no media outrage.

What the Palestinians need to realize is that their terrorism is being used against them. Very few American people realize that Hamas is enshrouded by Israeli borders, and Israel controls a very hefty amount of their power and water. Earlier this year, Israel cut off power to the Gaza Strip, and the Gaza people are still suffering heavily from this. Many died due to starvation. It was a collective punishment.

The Hezbollah, I would say, falls into an entirely different realm than this sort of thing, because they are legitimately defending Lebanon. They have seats in the Lebanese government. Lebanon is a democracy and the Hezbollah is a part of their democracy. They do tend to take measures too far, but observe the rates of casualties between all Lebanese people and all Israelis, and the conclusion is obviously clear: the Israelis have far more blood on their hands. This is not to say that Hamas was not democratically elected, because it certainly was, but while Palestinians need to work on getting their internationally legal land back (pre-1967 borders), Lebanon needs to work on keeping their land from being stolen. Israel has already done this with the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and I would certainly not put it past them to steal whatever else they feel is rightfully theirs.