I wrote this two days ago. Since then, we have heard some strong words from some in the G-8, especially George Bush and Tony Blair. While I trust them to "stay the course", I can't say that I trust countries such as France, Russia and many others, to do or say anything that is in more than their immediate interests. Time will tell...


July 17, 2006: 01:35 GT (Over Madrid)

I arrived into JFK this morning at about 05:00 ET. I haven’t slept well the last few days. Mostly, I’ve been anxious about the war with Hezbollah, but this last night it was the misery of trying to sleep on the flight from Portland to New York. I think I managed about 3 hours.

I started smoking again…

Somewhat disoriented, I made my way over to JFK’s terminal four. I was supposed to fly out around eight in the evening, but I walked over to the El Al ticket counter to see if I could get on an earlier flight. Everyone at the counter was somber. I asked if there was news and that’s when I heard that Haifa’s rail station had been bombed… eight dead.

How many dead does Israel have to have in order for the UN or Europe or Russia or CNN to pay attention? Forget about the BBC…`

I read about entire cities and towns being shut down in Israel: Naharia, Haifa, Karmiel, Tiberias. Everyone is ordered to stay in or near their bomb shelters. The terrorists attack civilian targets. They lob their rockets over toward a city and hope that it kills, maims and destroys. But CNN reports that Israel yet again is bombing the Beirut airport and fails to draw distinctions between the two events… Israel attacks certain targets for military purposes.. They take out an airport in order to cut a supply chain of Katyusha rockets. Same is true for bridges, border crossings, even gas stations and oil depots. They limit the enemy’s ability to move around and transport weapons. Are innocents killed in this process? Of course! This is war.

But the nuance that nobody reports honestly is that the only human targets purposely attacked by Israel have been leaders and fighters of terrorist organizations. If the terrorists hide in a civilian neighborhood, Israel will still attack them. But it is not with the purpose of attacking innocents.

That is the province of the terrorists. Whether it has been Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO, Al Fatah, Islamic Jihad, or any of the other countless hate organizations in the last 60 years, their goal has been to create terror, to demoralize and immobilize the Israeli population by making them afraid to live their normal lives. That they have only partially succeeded has to do with the fact that ultimately, Israelis have nowhere to go. They must fight and survive or die.

I’ll leave the "why" for now. But it is infuriating that the anti-Israel bias is so strong and so prevalent in the international press. Why is Israel singled out? She was attacked on her own soil, across internationally accepted borders, by a terrorist organization that should have been disarmed by the Lebanese government six years ago. Is the world press paying any attention to the murder of Israeli civilians? As always, the focus of this press is on "disproportionality".

What would they like Israel to do? Sit inside her own borders and fire rockets willy-nilly at Lebanese towns and cities? If Hezbollah fires 400 missiles at Israel, then Israel must only fire 400 missiles back? What kind of crazy calculus is that!?

When a country is attacked, they have a right to defend themselves… period… end of story.

There is a solution to this. Let's get real about who is causing this grief. Condemn the culprits in no uncertain terms and take action against them. Stop pointing the finger at the victim and stop excusing the perpetrator.

If the world leaders truly made it clear that these mind games by Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria, N. Korea will not fly and won’t be tolerated, we might see some changes.

But if the world ultimately doesn't take real substantive action against these criminal, murderous organizations and nations, we and our children will pay an incalculable price.

Israel has learned this lesson painfully over the years. The US was jolted with a lesson of its own on 9/11 as was England and Spain. Israel, the US and to some degree, England have shifted their thinking and their foreign policy to reflect this new reality. Unfortunately, much of the rest of Europe and rest of the world has not.