One of the most common "criticisms" of Israel is the the infamous "disproportionate response", i.e. the fact that when Israel is attacked, more people die among the attackers than in Israel. This widely regarded as a bad thing.

The primary reason for this is Israel's immoral use of bunkers and missile warning systems and the fact that large parts of Israel's civilian populations live in constant fear and run into bunkers within 15 seconds of hearing an alarm. Because of this very few Israeli civilians still die in the ongoing conflict and the world is rightly, so it appears, upset about the fact that so few Jews die these days.

Of course, few non-anti-Semites will admit that they are condeming Israel for building bunkers to protect civilians and hence the "disproportionate response" argument is better than the "Israel evacuates border regions during a war" argument. ("Look at the evil Jews! They use disproportionate response hence more Lebanese than Israelis died" sounds better than "Look at the evil Jews! They build bunkers for their school children hence fewer Israelis than Lebanese died".)

But there is a second reason as this article explains:

The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1151941.html

Israel has powerful allies among the Arab population.

Mosab Hassan Yousef now lives in California since many non-anti-Semites and peaceful Muslims seem to dislike him for the evil crime of stopping terror attacks, which is apparently one of the worse offences against peace activism. (How will there ever be peace without terror attacks?)

"I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef said by phone from California, "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."

Ironically, perhaps, Yousef is not the only Arab in Israeli uniform and nor is the only person related to Hamas leaders who is on Israel's side. Another Hamas leader's sister is married to a Bedouin in Israel and her son is in the Israeli army (and has fought in Gaza).

I am beginning to wonder how there will ever be peace between Jews and Arabs if the Bedouins keep being friends with the Jews.

And to take the cake there has been a (Israeli-style) "discussion" in the Knesseth (Israeli parliament) in Jerusalem about the Mossad passport affair between two Arab MKs who screamed at each other, one accusing Israel of the horrible crime of a wholly proportionate response (only the terrorist died) and the other defending the kill and adding that “If my passport could help in the assassination of Mabhouh, I would be willing to give it to you. I would be willing to give you my regular passport as well as my diplomatic passport.”

(Hat tip: Israellycool)