Did Israel break the ceasefire first? Did it overreact to Hamas rocket attacks?

It is a shame that most of the mainstream media got this wrong and I thank CNN's Rick Sanchez for actually asking a legitimate question: was it Israel that first broke the ceasefire with Hamas by killilng six Hamas members in Gaza? Sanchez and CNN backed this question up with fact checking and confirmation with other media sources.

This demonstrates to me how culpability is shared between both parties. We've got to get the two sides in this never ending feud to the table to work on lasting peace before the whole situation explodes into a Pan-Asian conflict.

I believe that Israel has the right to defend its citizens against the homemade rocket attacks. However, Israel is not excused from showing some military restraint and sound judgment when doing so. A response was called for, but what happened is so overblown that it is only making the possibility of peace seem farther away.

I'm a former Army artillery officer and I know that Israel could respond with more surgical strikes that would reduce civilian casualties, yet remain very effective against Hamas. I don't understand, and nobody has explained why that course hasn't been taken. I understand the inevitability of collateral damage, however, I think that the toll in innocent lives lost is way too high to justify this type of response.

Now, all I'm hoping for is that one of President Obama's first acts would be to send Hillary Clinton to the region to clean up this mess.