Cartoon was offensive distortion of facts

I am very offended by an editorial cartoon published in the Aug. 2 Daily Herald. Yes, I realize it is a cartoon. But one could easily draw the conclusion that the Palestinians in Gaza shot one rocket into Israel and that was met with many rockets back from Israel because Israelis (Jews) believe in the Old Testament phrase of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

The cartoon ignores the facts surrounding this war, and it is part of an overall fiction that is being distributed by many in the media today.

The simple facts are these: The Palestinians and presumably Hamas kidnapped, tortured and murdered three Israeli teenagers. Then, Hamas increased their continual rocket attack into all of Israel. The number of rockets has now surpassed 25,000.

Israel retaliated with airstrikes and then eventually invaded Gaza to diminish the rocket attacks and hopefully demilitarize the Gaza Strip. In doing so, they discovered many tunnels, mostly built with cement, which were used to infiltrate terrorists into Israel.

Israel has warned Gazans in advance of missile and tank attacks through the use of leaflets, cellphones and telephones. In doing this, they have endangered their own soldiers.

No other army in the history of the world has done this in order to minimize casualties.

They also discovered that Hamas was planning on an attack of Israel on the Jewish High Holidays.

Even though this is a cartoon, I request that the Daily Herald be more evenhanded in its treatment of reporting the news and publishing of cartoons.

Steven Weinberg

Libertyville