Israel should continue to make every effort to reduce civilian casualties, both because that is the humane thing to do and because it serves their interests. But so long as Hamas continues to fire rockets from densely populated civilian areas, rather than from the many open areas outside of Gaza City, this cynical tactic—which constitutes a double war crime—will guarantee that some Palestinian women and children will be killed. And the Hamas leadership prepares for this gruesome certainty by arranging for the dead babies to be paraded in front of the international media. In one such case, the Palestinian radicals posted a video of a dead baby who turned out to have been reportedly killed in Syria by the Assad government, and in another case, they displayed the body of a baby who had been killed by a Hamas rocket that misfired, falsely claiming that it had been the victim of an Israeli rocket.

Some of the hotheads like Gilad Sharon in Israel forget the “because it serves their interests” part of this equation. Both in terms of realpolitik and in terms of the morals you want to demonstrate to your children there are many great reasons to take pains to protect civilians. Will you have allies, and are you proud to call your nation Israel if you become as insensate to murder and destruction of innocents as your opponents?