Self-Defence

The Righteous State's latest bout of ethnic cleansing has drawn the customary chorus of mild disapproval. Perhaps provoked by accusations of failure over his previous disproportionate yet overly restrained self-defence activities in Lebanon, Olmert bar Sharon has pronounced that "Nothing will prevent us from continuing operations to protect our citizens", using the very same methods that have been working so well since the intifada started. The Righteous State's new rampage is a response to the continuing rocket attacks from Gaza which, as so often with these volatile Middle Easterners, are not a response to anything. The Upper Miliband reiterated, for those who might not have heard of it, Israel's right to security and self-defence, and then proceeded to deliver a lecture on international law and minimising the suffering of innocent civilians. In the face of such an ethical nonentity, it is perhaps churlish to comment. Doubtless someone from the Righteous State's anti-antisemitism squads will remind him in due course that, whatever the relative scale of the damage done by Palestinian rockets, those rockets are at least considerably more real than those which were pre-empted by Operation Iraqi Liberation. Representing our greatest and closest ally, Condoleezza Rice will be in Jerusalem tomorrow, which will of course help matters no end. A spokesbeing observed brilliantly that "The violence needs to stop and the talks need to resume", but apparently forbore to comment on the extent to which US aid and military hardware will be denied the Righteous State until that happy state of affairs should come about.