Free Republic

With the second Intifada and rise to power of Ariel Sharon, Israel abandoned Oslo and land-for-peace. We will never again negotiate with Arafat, said Sharon, because Israel does not negotiate with terrorists. Two Israeli prime ministers, Rabin and Peres, had shared a Nobel Prize with Arafat. A third, "Bibi" Netanyahu, had handed over Hebron to Arafat. A fourth, Ehud Barak, had offered Arafat 95 percent of the West Bank and a capital in Jerusalem. Yet, Sharon not only made his policy stick, he got George W. Bush to sign on to it. Where Arafat had been to the Clinton White...

"Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah," roared Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon on July 27. "Every village from which a Katyusha is fired must be destroyed," bellowed an Israeli general in a quote bannered by the nation's largest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. The Israeli paper then summarized what the justice minister and general were saying: "In other words, a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire." That was Thursday. Sunday, in Qana, 57 of Haim Ramon's "terrorists," 37 of them children, were massacred with precision-guided bombs. Apparently, Katyushas...

My country has been "torn to shreds," said Fouad Siniora, the prime minister of Lebanon, as the death toll among his people passed 300 civilian dead, 1,000 wounded, with half a million homeless. Israel must pay for the "barbaric destruction," said Siniora. To the contrary, says columnist Lawrence Kudlow, "Israel is doing the Lord's work." On American TV, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the ruination of Lebanon is Hezbollah's doing. But is it Hezbollah that is using U.S.-built F-16s, with precision-guided bombs and 155-mm artillery pieces to wreak death and devastation on Lebanon? No, Israel is doing this,...