In Case You Were Wondering Why My Letter In Today's National Post Seemed Somewhat Truncated...

This letter to the editor appeared in yesterday's National Post:

Another view

Re: How Israel Fights, Irit Kohn, June 24.The honest version of how Israel fights is this: every few years, whenever an Israeli politician needs to win votes by demonstrating a capacity for ruthless cruelty, the Israeli Defense Force bombs people with no air defences, massacring at least a thousand.
Ian Coleman, Edmonton.

 My response was one of three printed in today's paper:

Ian Coleman’s understanding of “how Israel fights” may be the most cynical analysis of the Israel-Palestinian situation I have ever read. One hesitates to assure him Israel fights back reluctantly, not ruthlessly, and doesn’t do [it] so those in power can endear themselves to Israel’s bloodthirsty populace. 

One hesitates to tell him Israel has every right to defend itself against Hamas, a jihadi terrorist organization bent on its annihilation, when it fires missiles at Israel’s civilian populace, and which had constructed a network of underground tunnels through which it was planning to unleash a terrorist military initiative that would have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Israeli civilians; these tunnels were only revealed once Israel went into Gaza. As well, Hamas, with the complicity of the UN Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, used Gazans as human shields by placing military hardware in schools, hospitals and private homes — a war crime in anyone’s books.

Unfortunately, my final paragraph, in which I wrapped things up in a neat bow, was omitted. Here's what I wrote:

One hesitates to say such things, knowing that Mr. Coleman and those like him have closed their minds to Israel's singular plight, and in the sad realization that, for certain people, Israel will always--always--be in the wrong.