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Good comments. I think I did say that I detest Sharon and his brutal policies; indeed, I have been involved with American Friends of Peace Now. I believe the Palestinian people are entitled to their own state on better terms than have been offered, and I am offended by Israelis who attempt to define Palestinians out of existence (I feel similarly about China/Taiwan and Greece/Macedonia, where outsiders have tried to usurp a people's self-definition). Nonetheless, I am very gloomy about the current prospects.

What I was responding to in the blog item was the article in the current Atlantic Monthly about the logic of suicide terrorism. The argument presented in the piece is that the renewed occupation, hateful as it is, is the only way Israel can interfere in the suicide bombing infrastructure and sustain the claimed 80% interception rate.

Perhaps the "tens of thousands" I guessed is hyperbolic. But the situation we are in has tremendously empowered the most violent extremists on both sides, the folks who are not interested in a two state solution and want to destroy any peace process. If withdrawal of the IDF from the occupied territories makes successful suicide bombing easier, there logically will be a whole lot more of it.

And an end to the occupation which occasions a bloodbath will lead to reoccupation -- again, to the delight of extremists.

Like I said, I can't see a way out of this.

The point raised, though, is why anybody would find that necessary. In many parts of the nation you will find yourself effectively parked on a freeway/expressway during rush hour. If you were so inclined, you could pick a location where that is apt to happen on an overpass, load up a van with explosives, set a short timer, stop it at the key location, get out, and walk away. (To mutilate a hackneyed rhyme, he who bombs and runs away, lives to bomb another day.) In open societies which are hit by terrorist bomb attacks, the bombs are almost invariably left in cars or containers to explode when the bomber is at a very safe distance.

I found the original commentary to be a bit hyperbolic, particularly as they relate to the effect of a withdrawal of the present massive occupation of Palestinian towns. The past few weeks, also, suggest that the occupation, as brutal as it is, is losing its effectiveness. While there have been some unfortunately large-scale incidents, a typical suicide bombing kills few people other than the suicide bomber. For the author's vision of "tens of thousands" of Israelis to perish in such attacks, it would take more than a hundred thousand, and perhaps millions, of successful suicide attacks

Recall that the one of the most devastating suicide bombings - the Park Hotel incident which Sharon used as a pretext for launching the long-planned "Field of Thorns" operation into the occupied territories (renamed as "Defensive Shield") killed 22 people - even in a worst case scenario, it would take thousands of incidents of that magnitude to give truth to the "tens of thousands" figure presented by the author. Further, given the IDF's claim to intercept 90% of would-be terrorists, it would take ten times that many attempts. Sad to say, some of Israel's extremists who openly favor the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians would probably consider that to be a good trade-off. Both side's extremists are darn scary.

(I doubt that the author intended to present such "fuzzy math". I don't mean to attribute any anti-Arab sentiments to the author through this dissection of his views, but I am not surprised that this type of sensationalism occurs in a society such as ours, which as a whole is deeply prejudiced against Arabs and Muslims. While the author is correct that the present occupation has expanded the pool of extremists willing to support suicide bombings, most Palestinians simply want to live normal, peaceful lives.)

There is some irony in that Ariel Sharon ran on a platform of "let the IDF do its job" - that a "war on terror" could be won through a brutal application of force and dubious tactics such as assassinations, collective punishments, and the bombings of civilian neighborhoods - yet his tactics have served to massively increase the number of suicide bombings and attacks (and even moreso, attempts) within Israel. This, coming on the heels of the most promising negotiations in Israel's history - no, not Camp David II, but what followed at Taba - http://www.gush-shalom.org/generous/taba/index.html . Sharon didn't just oppose peace - his campaign ridiculed it. (His campaign slogan, "Sharon Achshav" ("Sharon Now"), was an intentional thumb in the eye of "Peace Now" - known in Hebrew as "Shalom Achshav".) http://www.peacenow.org.il/English.asp

Contrary to the author's opinions, Sharon's choices - the abrogation of what was left of the Oslo Accords, a complete refusal to negotiate for peace, declarations that the Palestinians would never have a bona fide state and would never control more than 40% of the occupied West Bank, use of brutal military force and months-long 24-hour house arrest against millions of Palestinian civilians, endorsement of cabinet members who overtly favor ethnic cleansing not only of the Occupied Territories but also of Israel's Arab citizens, and other similar policies, mean that it *is* possible to contrast Barak's polices with Sharon's and to see that Sharon's policies played an enormous role in the escalation of the crisis.

As for Hamas.... Where would Hamas be if not for Israel, and for politicians like Sharon. It was Israel that funded a nascent Hamas, in the hope of weakening the secular PLO. (That dream has largely succeeded, but in the form of a night terror.) It has been leaders like Sharon whose brutal tactics - from Kibya to the invasion of Lebanon, from Sabra and Shatila to the present occupation - whose choice of force and brutality against millions of civilians has the known effect of further weakening secular leadership in favor of the extremists. Sharon's Likud Party is very much like Hamas in spirit - right down to its *express* refusal to acknowledge that the Palestinians have any right to a state (having amended the party's platform and constitution to forbid itself from endorsing a two state solution) and its warm embrace of political leaders who embrace the expulsion of the other from the lands they hold as well as those they covet.

It is no small wonder that Hamas and Likud thrive in each other's presence. When Hamas perpetrates a suicide attack and the peace process is harmed, it advances its own goals - and those of Ariel Sharon.

Our low density car culture makes us most prone(and most high-density, as it were) during rush hour. A suicide car-bomber who sought to wreak terror on Americans in such a way as to make us most apprehensive would just merge into bumper to bumper traffic going 5-10mph on an urban loop, somewhere in "flyover country", and then detonate.