I don't often agree with Barbara Amiel, but in her column in last week's Maclean's magazine she remarked that it seems everybody will agree that Israel has a right to defend itself until it actually does so. Then it gets vilified for over-reacting, killing civilians, and all the rest of it. But the basic facts are unchanged since 1949: Israel is surrrounded and infiltrated by people sworn to destroy it, and Israel's reaction to such people and the groups they belong to is entirely predictable: kill 'em off. That's exactly what I'd do in the same circumstances. Israel's neighbours haven't figured out yet one of the facts of life: the Arab-Israeli wars are over, the Arabs lost, it's time to move on. Israel exists, and will continue to exist; get over it.
George Bush, in a rare moment of comprehension, got it right: Israel's enemies just have to stop doing this shit. If outfits like the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah, would just stop attacking Israel, there would be peace. There's some legitimate bitterness over the original creation of Israel and the displacement of the people who lived in the territory that became Israel, but a little hard-nosed realism and a willingness to accommodate could fix that. All that prevents a solution is stupidity and short-sightedness.