"War at Home: The Seattle Shootings"

Paul Loeb (excerpt):

It's tempting, particularly for those of us who are Jewish, to use this shooting as an excuse for supporting Israeli military escalation, and to blur the urgency of halting the bombs and shells falling on equally blameless civilians in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Haq eventually surrendered to police. But according to this logic we must teach a lesson to his compatriots--who continue to fire rockets and set off suicide bombs, attacking innocent women, men and children in Israel--because terror will understand only the language of force.

Except that Israel has followed this punitive approach again and again in the forty years since it occupied the West Bank. It's never brought security, only more bitterness. Five days before the shootings I appeared on a Seattle Jewish radio show along with the local head of Jewish Voices for Peace and an activist who worked to support Israeli policies. Though it was a friendly dialogue, the rabbi who cohosted the show kept treating those of us who challenged Israel's actions as starry-eyed dreamers, unwilling to acknowledge the realities of a violent world.

But it isn't naive to suggest that Israel's massive attacks on Lebanon and Gaza will embitter a new generation.

On this last point, Riverbend (writing from Baghdad), agrees.