I really started taking a look at what's been transpiring. I'll share with everyone what I've been looking at:

Here's a snippet from Wikipedia on the status of the Gaza Strip, as of 2005.

"In February 2005, the Israeli government voted to implement Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip beginning on August 15, 2005. The plan required the dismantling of all Israeli settlements there, transferring the lucrative hot house industry to Palestinian control to spur economic development, and the removal of all Israeli settlers and military bases from the Strip, a process that was completed on September 12, 2005 as the Israeli cabinet formally declared an end to military rule in the Gaza Strip after 38 years of control."

Okay, so since Israel withdrew its citizens from the settlements, things kinda went downhill. Here's more on the conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia:

"After Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, pulling 9 thousand settlers from Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005, tensions had remained high in Israel due to Israeli shelling of densely populated areas in the occupied territories and Qassam rocket attacks launched by Palestinians from Gaza into densely populated areas such as the Israeli city of Sderot, reported to have exceeded 800 rockets in the past seven months, although there had been no casualties since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.Between the end of March and the end of May 2006, Israel fired at least 5,100 artillery shells into the Gaza Strip Qassam launching areas in an attempt to stop them from firing.

On June 9, during or shortly after an Israeli operation, an explosion occurred on a busy Gaza beach, killing eight Palestinian civilians. An investigation was promised by Israeli authorities, Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz appeared alongside IDF General Klifi to announce the findings of an internal military enquiry. The enquiry disregarded the chance of Israeli artillery fire causing the deaths as "nil". The Israeli authorities theorised the deaths could have been caused by old ordnance. They also theorised that the deaths were caused by a Palestinian planted mine. A spokesman for the US based Human Rights act aired the opinion that the injuries sustained by the Palestinian victims were "inconsistent" with an explosion from beneath the sand. Israeli shelling was temporarily suspended, but resumed soon after and reached more than a thousand shells per week by the end of the month. Other Israeli missile attacks included one on the Gaza highway on June 13 that killed 11 Palestinians and injured 30, and on June 20 that killed 3 Palestinians and wounded 15."

Okay, so both sides haven't been on their best behavior, that's obvious. However, major media in the U.S. would have you believe that Israel went all-out against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon because of the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, which was the first act that prompted the Israeli bombing campaign. However, that's not exactly the case: Once again, we turn to Wikipedia:

"The conflict began on June 24, 2006, when Israeli operatives seized Osama and Mustafa Muamar in the Gaza Strip. On June 25, an allegedly retaliatory Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers and the capture of Israeli CorporalGilad Shalit. Israel then launched Operation Summer Rains (Hebrew: מבצע גשמי קיץ, Mivtza Gishmey Kayitz), on June 28."

Here's what Professor Noam Chomsky said about the events during an August 8th shown on Znet.org:

"Recall the facts. On June 25, Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured, eliciting huge cries of outrage worldwide, continuing daily at a high pitch, and a sharp escalation in Israeli attacks in Gaza, supported on the grounds that capture of a soldier is a grave crime for which the population must be punished.


One day before, on June 24, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, Osama and Mustafa Muamar, by any standards a far more severe crime than capture of a soldier. The Muamar kidnappings were certainly known to the major world media. They were reported at once in the English-language Israeli press, basically IDF handouts. And there were a few brief, scattered and dismissive reports in several newspapers around the US.

Very revealingly, there was no comment, no follow-up, and no call for military or terrorist attacks against Israel. A Google search will quickly reveal the relative significance in the West of the kidnapping of civilians by the IDF and the capture of an Israeli soldier a day later.
"The paired events, a day apart, demonstrate with harsh clarity that the show of outrage over the Shalit kidnapping was cynical fraud. They reveal that by Western moral standards, kidnapping of civilians is just fine if it is done by "our side," but capture of a soldier on "our side" a day later is a despicable crime that requires severe punishment of the population."

The entire Chomsky interview can be found here.