"More than 9,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails nowadays; it is a nightmarish number. Anyone who knows the Shin Bet security service and the military justice system can safely assume a significant proportion of them are imprisoned for no reason. Israeli society doesn't even ask why so many are jailed."
- Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz, 10.9.06

The English language edition of Ha'aretz has become one of my must-read online newspapers every day. Uncompromisingly critical of Israeli government policy where it is deserved, and the closest thing I have seen to a "balanced" coverage of the Middle East troubles. A comparison with the Jerusalem Post, for example, is an eye-opening experience.

Levy, one of Ha'aretz's most trenchant columnists, alludes in today's piece to the hypocrisy over the Israeli government's reaction to the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit et al, while they at the same time capture dozens of democratically elected Palestinian parliamentarians and have an enormous number of Palestinian citizens behind bars.

Reading Ha'aretz enables me to restore my faith in the goodwill of the Israeli populace. Now if only they could elect a government that could display the same humanity...