When I moved to Vancouver, B.C. in 1995 to take over management of the Jewish weekly there, the first decision I had to make was whether or not to eliminate the Jonathan Pollard counter.

The previous publishers, a husband and wife team and ardent Zionists, felt Jonathan Pollard was wronged by the U.S. government. Every single week from 1984 through 1995 they kept a running tally on their front page of the number of days Pollard was in prison, or just over 4,000 days at the time.

Whether or not I agreed about how Pollard was treated, I felt it was time to take the box off of the front page. It ran its course, and there was more pressing news to write about back in 1995, like innocent Israelis being killed at the hands of Palestinians.

For a moment though, I thought it might be an interesting idea of having a running tally on the Baltimore Jewish Times cover for the number of rockets Hamas has launched into Israel since it left Gaza to rule itself.

I’m sure everyone’s seen the total of Gaza residents killed in the past three days: over 300. Does the world know that Hamas launched more than 3,000 rockets toward Israeli citizens in 2008 alone? That’s almost 10 per day. Yet, most of us have no idea about the horror this creates. Nor, does the world take notice.

The only time people noticed was when Hamas forgot to launch rockets the day that U.S. Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama visited the region with legions of cameras.

Sadly, the only time it makes news is when Israel defends itself. I take comfort though in reading the comments posted on news websites which heavily favor Israel’s over due response.

Now you can just do the Pollard counter in years. Fewer numbers that way. http://tinyurl.com/8x5rrt