I write on the morrow of the latest terrorist attack in Israel, the suicide bombing in Hadera. The attack is especially disturbing not because it threatens to derail the so-called “peace process,” for there is in fact no discernable process; what there is, more or less, is an entirely natural disposition to live a normal life, knowing all the while that periodically, the other shoe will drop. And then yet another, for Israel is dealing with a centipede, the assaults are endless. And that, in a way, is what makes the Hadera attack so disturbing: Such events, unless they are especially bloody or are targeted at children, have become virtually ho-hum. Not, obviously, to the immediate victims, nor to the ideologues who are ever prepared to exploit such events to bolster their case; to the general public. Indeed, this very morning I had two phone calls from Israel, and what happened in Hadera wasn’t mentioned at all. One becomes inured. And now one awaits the inevitable Israeli shoe, proving that in all these years, no useful policy that might help put an end to the carnage has been developed. Instead, the terribly familiar and by now routine response. Israeli spokespeople used to, perhaps still do, resent reference to “the cycle of violence,” pointing out that the Palestinians could put an end to the cycle by putting an end to the terror attacks. Yet, whatever the accusation and the justifications, it is, by any standard, a cycle, and neither participant seems able to move beyond it.
Read on…