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You're a wise lady. One can understand the near breaking point of the Israeli soldiers, who have seen so many of their non-combatants murdered by suicide bombers, who they can't seem to detect and who can and do strike at will.

But war especially must be prosecuted in fear of the Lord. And even though I can empathize with the Israeli soldiers; this particular style of disposing of one's enemies screams nazi style.

A quote is attributed to Golda Meir that goes something like this: we do not hate you for killing our children; we hate you for forcing us to kill yours. And to me what that meant was that she hated Israel being forced to carry out the outrages similar to those perpetrated (sp?) on Jewish people during WWII and before.

I think your interpretation - and the reporter's - is simplistic: The dead Force 17 commandos were in a closed space with their killers who had no way of determining if they had concealed weapons. Even badly wounded, unless there was a clear expression of surrender, these men were a deadly threat. That the fatal wound was to the head, from within a few feet, does not indicate they were "executed."

Force 17 ain't a bunch of heretic Seventh Day Adventists with their wives and kids next to them. These were soldiers. Second rate for the job they had, but that's no excuse.

At what point did these men surrender?

The fact is, they didn't surrender. There is absolutely no proof here or anywhere else that these guys surrendered; in fact, their presence INSIDE the building is a pretty good indicator that they did not.

Some others came out early and surrendered, and they were taken off and are still very much alive. But these folks didn't come out. These are the hardcore loyalists.

Unless you come walking out of that building with your hands in the air, or otherwise demonstrate thet you are surrendering and are DISARMED, you have not surrendered. If you haven't surrendered, that leaves your opponents no choice but to kill you. No one is obligated to risk themselves to treat a terrorist with kid gloves if he still has a weapon in hand. If you are armed and not surrendering, they can and should blow you away the minute they come around the corner or bust into the room- no matter how close the quarters. In fact, in tight quarters you had better do it with extreme speed. As a terrorist friend of Arafat, your opportunity to surrender ended when the Israelis yelled at you from outside to drop your weapons and come out. The Israelis used their bullhorns to offer the chance. That's a fair sight more thasn the Palestinians ever give the kids they blow up.

It's just common sense. These guys weren't taken away in live in handcuffs and later found on the side of the road somewhere dead. They were inside a building which they had been shooting out of for hours. They were shooting when the Israelis entered, and fighting all the way.

These people send others to blow themselves up among civilians, with nails packed around their bombs to increase the damage, into areas where they know for a fact that no military armed personnel are present. Why on earth should anyone think they will simply surrender instead of trying to take as many Israelis with them as they can before they die?

Do you want to be the one to go into Arafat's building while they are shooting at you to see if you have time to ask them nicely to drop their weapons and come out before you catch a Palestinian bullet? Don't you think it would be a little more intelligent to go in there shooting?

You want to step over a live enemy to get past him and to your objective?

If you do you WILL get shot or knifed in the back.

My uncle tried that with a German. He got a bayonet run up the length of his leg because he should have plunged his own bayonet into the apparently dead man FIRST, or shot him, to make sure the man was as dead as he looked. He shouldn't have stepped over the guy because he had room to go around.

But if your opposition isn't surrendering, you have to kill them until the survivors do surrender. You might have to kill all of them, depending on their loyalty to their cause.