Dr Filth -
Your criticisms of Israel's actions are not without merit. Some of the tactics and weapons used are unnecessary and indiscriminate. However, there are always two sides to every story. Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza (and an organisation considered to be heavily involved in terrorism by Israel, the United States in the EU) are a political entity whose stated aim is to wipe Israel from the map. Their political covenant can be read here...
http://www.standwithu...rs/Hamas_covenant.pdf
As you can see, one of the opening lines in this document is a quote from Hassan al-Banna, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”.
This quote is not in the above document by accident. It is quite clear that Hamas have no intention of making peace with their Jewish neighbours. In fact, if you read the whole document, it's quite disturbing – advocating nothing less than Islamic world domination over what it sees as a massive 'Zionist' plot; a goal derived directly from the Islamic religion.
In addition, Hamas have conducted countless attacks on Israel using suicide bombers and rocket attacks in recent years and continue to do so. In the case of rocket attacks, they routinely and deliberately set up the rocket launch sites in civilian areas (often next door to schools and hospitals) so that if Israel responds in kind, there is a high probability that innocent Palestinians will be killed by the retaliatory strike.
As I stated earlier, I agree that Israel is hardly whiter than white in this conflict but by the same token neither are Hamas and the other Islamic groups who are involved. To portray one side as the poor unfortunate victim of the big bully next door is to seriously misrepresent and over-simplify the true situation and nature of this conflict.