WARBLOGGER FFM CRITICIZED THE ISRAELIS, but warblogger Eric Alterman isn’t having any of this pantywaist stuff:

I don’t know if killing the military chief of Hamas, together with his family, is an effective military measure-as surely someone will rise to replace him and it will make a lot more people angry, perhaps even angry enough to become suicide bombers. It may not bring Israel and the Palestinians any closer to peace or mutual security. But I don’t have a moral problem with it.

Hamas is clearly at war with Israel. Hamas feels empowered to strike Israeli civilians inside Israel proper and not just on the war zone of West Bank. Sheik Salah Shehada could have protected his family by keeping away from them. He didn’t and owing to his clear legitimacy as a military target, they are dead too.

So tough luck, fella.

War is hell.

John Podhoretz agrees.

UPDATE: Alterman is sounding even more warbloggerish in today’s entry:

If you ask for war, you are asking to have your civilians slaughtered, unless you can keep the war on the other side’s turf. Well, Hamas asked. I have always believed that if Israel were to do the right thing — for itself as well as for the Palestinians — and uproot the settlements and turn the entire West Bank and Gaza (with minor modifications) to a demilitarized Palestinian state, it would probably require a Palestinian civil war to enforce the peace.

Hamas is an irredentist force that will not settle for half a loaf, one of many on both sides, unfortunately. They must be defeated militarily in, in order to do this, it is necessary to kill a great many innocent civilians. It’s an unpleasant fact of life to admit, but there it is.

Yep.

UPDATE: Warblogger N.Z. Bear is chiding Alterman for excessive bloodthirstiness. Well, sort of. I see where The Bear is coming from, but I took Alterman to mean that, well, war is hell, and lots of bad stuff is going to happen once you start one. The legal analogy is estoppel, where certain conduct means you’re not allowed to make certain arguments. Here, Hamas wanted a war, so while the IDF may be morally responsible for its actions, Hamas and its supporters won’t be heard to complain about those actions.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Bear has responded. Note that I’m using a legal analogy, but I understand this is a moral issue. Meanwhile, The Idler has a piece on why Israel did it.