Almost without public notice, the two sides have declared war on each other. President George W. Bush stated in June 2003 that "the free world, those who love freedom and peace, must deal harshly with Hamas" and that "Hamas must be dismantled." Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage announced in September 2002 that "Hezbollah may be the A-team of terrorists and maybe Al-Qaeda is actually the B-team. … They have a blood debt to us, which you spoke to; and we're not going to forget it and it's all in good time. … We're going to take them down one at a time."

These ambitious sentiments have been accompanied by a shift in resources. The Washington Post reported in May that the FBI, "Confident that its efforts to track the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in this country are beginning to pay off, … is devoting more resources to the two Middle Eastern groups, which command more widespread support in Arab and Muslim communities" in the United States. The Post article tells about a November 2002 ruling from a secretive three-judge appeals panel that authorized federal agents pursuing criminal prosecutions of terrorist suspects to exploit the previously inaccessible vast backlog of classified wiretaps and intelligence reports from foreign security agencies. This has led to "stepped-up investigations in at least two dozen U.S. cities." The first public result came in February 2003 with the indictment of Sami Al-Arian and seven others. Current investigations are focused on the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and several individuals, including Abdelhaleem Ashqar, Mohamad Hammoud, and Ali Nasrallah.

Today, Hezbollah gave its fullest retort to date, in an interview by its leader Hassan Nasrallah to the Times of London. Nasrallah overtly threatened American interests around the world if the U.S. government does attempt to eradicate Hezbollah. "In such a case Hezbollah has a right to defend its existence, its people and its country through any means and at any time and in any place." To back this up, he noted that "There are many people throughout the world who love Hezbollah, who like Hezbollah and who support Hezbollah," he said. "Some may not sit idly by when seeing a brutal aggression against Lebanon."

Comment: It appears that Hamas and Hezbollah are no longer just Israel's problem but increasingly America's as well.

While President Bush was right to criticize the Palestinian Authority for not acting against terrorism directed at Israel, he should be ashamed of criticizing Israel for building a security fence.

Note the absurdity of the criticism's moral equivalence: while the Palestinian Authority does absolutely nothing to stop terrorists from organizing, training and slipping into Israel to murder and maim, Israel is criticized for building a fence to protect itself from such attacks!

Such criticism is no different, in principle, than criticism directed against a man who builds a fence to protect his family from criminal neighbors.

President Bush's misguided criticism implies a moral equivalence between those who act in self-defense and the terrorists who initiate violence against them, and it can have only one result: to facilitate the terrorists' attacks while undermining their victims' ability to defend themselves.

Recommended Reading:

• Israel Has A Moral Right To Its Life by Yaron Brook
  Morally and militarily, Israel is America's frontline in the war on terrorism. If America is swayed by Arafat's latest empty rhetoric, and allows him to continue threatening Israel, our own campaign against terrorism becomes sheer hypocrisy and will, ultimately, fail.
• Bush's Vision For Peace for the Middle East: A Prelude To War by Onkar Ghate
  As Israel reenters the West Bank in another attempt to drive out the terrorists, President Bush offers his vision for peace in the Middle East. Israel, he says, should withdraw to its pre-1967 borders and the Palestinians (under "new leadership") should be awarded a state. Tragically but inevitably, Bush's proposal, like the many "peace" plans before it, will bring, not peace, but more war.
• Israel or the Palestinians? Making the Moral Choice by Wayne Dunn
  Israel is doing what a free nation's government is supposed to do when its citizens' lives are threatened with force: it's responding with force.
• Moral Inversion in the Middle East by David Holcberg
  When the Israelis found themselves being attacked by groups of children and youngsters, and by adult snipers and shooters hiding behind them, they had no other recourse but to defend themselves and shoot back.

After a meeting this Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President Bush called on Arab states "to reject the culture of extremism and violence" that is a fundamental cause of terrorism. Unfortunately, the president's call will fall on deaf ears.

Palestinian culture is a culture of death. In this culture it is considered proper and moral to dress children in the garb of suicide bombers, to idolize those who kill themselves in the process of murdering women and children, to teach in school that Jews are evil and must be swept into the sea, and to govern through economic and political corruption, and through torture and murder. Palestinian culture is irrational and dangerous and not open to reason.

Israel, like any free state, has the right, if attacked, to destroy such an enemy. The blame for the violence rests not with the culture of life defending itself but with those death seekers who believe only in destruction. When will Americans and their media get it?

Recommended Reading:

• Israel Has A Moral Right To Its Life by Yaron Brook
  Morally and militarily, Israel is America's frontline in the war on terrorism. If America is swayed by Arafat's latest empty rhetoric, and allows him to continue threatening Israel, our own campaign against terrorism becomes sheer hypocrisy and will, ultimately, fail.
• The Purpose of a Palestinian State by David Harsanyi
  "There is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians and Lebanese; we are all members of the same nation. Solely for political reasons are we careful to stress our identity as Palestinians. Since a separate State of Palestine would be an extra weapon in Arab hands to fight Zionism with."
• Allowing Israel to Destroy the PLO Helps Defend the U.S. by Andrew Bernstein
  For several compelling reasons the United States must desist from restraining Israel. The destruction of the PLO will weaken terrorists who hate the United States. It will strengthen Israel, our sole ally in the area, who will no longer have to live under the daily threat of terrorism.
• Israel or the Palestinians? Making the Moral Choice by Wayne Dunn
  Israel is doing what a free nation's government is supposed to do when its citizens' lives are threatened with force: it's responding with force.
• Moral Inversion in the Middle East by David Holcberg
  When the Israelis found themselves being attacked by groups of children and youngsters, and by adult snipers and shooters hiding behind them, they had no other recourse but to defend themselves and shoot back.

Good evening. Reports that the former Italian leader Benito Mussolini is "dead" and "hanging" "upside down" at a petrol station were received with scepticism in Rome today. Our "reporter" - whoops, scrub the inverted commas round "reporter", the scare-quotes key on the typewriter's jammed again. Anyway our reporter Andrew "Gilligan" is "on" the scene "in" Milan. Andrew...

Andrew Gilligan: I'm leaning on a lamp post at the corner of the street in case a certain little duce swings by, and I don't see any dead dictators, John. But then the Allies have a history of making these premature announcements...

He's just above your head, Andrew. I know you don't like to do wide shots, but, if the camera pulls back, I think you'll find that's definitely a finger tickling the back of your ear...

AG: Well, there you are. He's not hanging from a petrol station, is he? He's hanging from a rope attached to a girder on the forecourt of a petrol station. We've become all too familiar with the Allies playing fast and loose with the facts.

Yes, indeed, Andrew. And contradictory reports that he was hanging from a lamp-post have led some observers to question the accuracy of the intelligence on which the "liberation" of Milan went ahead.

Read the rest at the UK Telegraph's website.

The current debate raging over whether or not to send U.S. troops to Liberia reveals a lot about leftists and conservatives. While leftists clamor for U.S. military intervention, conservatives oppose it, but only meekly. Why?

Morality, the leftists believe, consists not in defending one's interests but in sacrificing them. Accordingly, they advocate U.S. military intervention only when no U.S. self-interest exists (such as in Somalia, Bosnia and now Liberia).

Conservatives, who generally uphold military intervention when in the interests of the country, are morally disarmed by their own altruistic beliefs. They are unable to resist the leftists' calls to sacrifice for the needy (abroad or at home).

Thus, as long as altruism remains the prevailing morality among our politicians, Americans can't count on either the right or the left to defend their interests. Only when self-interest replaces altruism as a principle of domestic and foreign policy, will Americans be safe in their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Zimbabwe's banks were fast running out of money yesterday....Tellers have been told to hand out only the equivalent of £3.50 to each customer....[The inflation] rate is estimated to be more than 700 per cent, meaning that many more notes are required to buy the same quantity of goods. Most nations facing economic meltdown opt to print more notes, but the only press producing the highest denomination note, of Z$500 (35p), is already working 24 hours a day. Plans to produce larger notes have had to be abandoned until the country can find the foreign currency to import more ink....

A professional assistant at a clinic run by Harare municipality, who earns Z$70,000 a month, started weeping quietly. "We can't believe things will get worse. But each time they get worse. Will it ever end?"

Governor Pataki would be well advised to reconsider his support for Daniel Libeskind ["Pataki Backs Libeskind on Tower," page 1, July 22]. Mr. Libeskind has actually built few projects, none of them office buildings or in any way comparable to the proposed World Trade Center. A Times of London reviewer called his modernist British Museum "a disaster for the Victoria and Albert in particular and for civilization in general."His WTC design was not overly popular, either. During last year's LMDC survey, more respondents chose "none of the above" than either the Libeskind (25%) or Think (33%) designs.

One might acquire a sense of the man by pondering the following quotation from a collection of poetry that he wrote, Fishing From the Pavement:

"America turns its mass-produced urine antennae toward Caesar's arrogant ganglion, while history is advocated by utopians as a substitute for defecating."

This is not the sort of individual we want associated with what will be a premier American landmark.