I take back everything bad I have ever said about John McCain:
“If anyone came to my hometown in Phoenix, AZ and set off a bomb on a bus and killed 18 people and injured 100 of them, my citizens would expect us to respond,” US Senator John McCain, R-Ariz, told reporters in answer to a question about whether he approved of Bush’s condemnation of Israel’s attempt on Hamas leader Rantisi’s life.
“Do you want to call that a cycle of violence? You can call it what you want, but these acts of terror, these organizations, funded by the Saudis, at least encouraged by Yasser Arafat, are inexcusable in their tactics
Brandon
Consider this quote from a Hamas spokesman in Haaretz:
“These threats don’t frighten Hamas or the Palestinian people, because the occupation has already made use of everything at its disposal to end the intifada and the Palestinian resistance.”
Hopefully, Hamas is soon going to find out how untrue that statement is.
Andrew Lazarus
The truth is, the Sharon government is showing a lot more carrot than I expected to go with the longstanding stick. That means it’s possible, as well as necessary, to go after the political (and tactical) support of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. One idea might be removing settlements ONLY in the areas where Hamas and IJ are weak, with a promise that others will follow if and when Hamas is dismantled elsewhere.
I think the question about Rantisi, BTW, is not justification, but whether it was counterproductive (this has been the case with many other assassinations, even of skilled bombmakers who are hard to replace, not press flacks, who are not).