Last weekend I had a chance to talk to a friend with family in Palestine. His sister, along with her husband and children, live in Bethlehem. They tell me she's learned one trick, and that's to open your windows when the explosions start nearby--the windows are more likely to shatter if they're closed....

The family doesn't hate jews. They've got pretty negative feelings about Israelóthey regard them as bullies--but my friend insists that this is not 1967, and they don't believe Israel can or should be wiped off the map. They argue that Israel made its point long ago, that the jews are far too tough and resilient to ever be driven out, and only a fool thinks otherwise. Their negativity toward Israel is not much higher than their contempt for the PLO, which they regard as corrupt and incompetent.

If such people exist in Palestine, why is their voice not heard? Daniel Pipes, one of the most interesting observers of the situation in the Middle East, has been saying recently that there are many such people in Palestine. I think he's probably right, and that part of the tragedy is that these people lack the power to take control of the situation.

Certainly, there's no way to say the situation is all that simple. There are Palestinian sympathizers who don't believe the PLO or Arafat are fundamentally terrorist in nature. Many also feel that if Israel would simply withdraw to its original 1967 borders, most of the fighting would end--they argue that terrorism would still happen, but only fringe groups would practice it, and the problem would eventually dry up.

On the latter two points, I can't think of a nice way of saying that I think they're deluded.

But I have to ask what's more horrifying: the prospect that everyone in Palestine wants Israel wiped off the map--or that there are reasonable, moderate people, men women and children, who are caught in the crossfire between justifiably angry Israelis and the radical elements living among them? Especially when the radical elements often quite intentionally arrange to fight in ways that they know will cause innocents to be killed?

One of the most disturbing things for moderate Palestinians is that Saddam Hussein is offering $10,000 to the familes of those killed fighting the Israelis--and worse, $25,000 to the families of any successful suicide bombers. $25,000 in that part of the world would pretty much be enough to pay for a lifetime retirement. For angry young men living on the fringes of Palestinian society, who may already badly resent the Israelis, that kind of offer might tip a small percentage of them over to the lunatic fringe's side.

I cannot blame Israel for taking strong action to defend herself. In fact, if by some bizarre sequence of events I found myself Prime Minister in Israel, I can't say I'd be doing much of anything different from what Ariel Sharon is doing right now. I'm a little irritated with the Bush administration, whose messages have been too mixed for the last couple of weeks or so on this issue. I'm pleased, however, that the President and the Secretary of State have been adamant in their public support for Israel lately.

But in all this I really hope the Israelis do what Bush did when we invaded Afghanistan. When we did that, we were adamant in reminding people constantly, almost ad nauseum, that our enemies were not the Afghan people, but the terrorists and those who harbored them. I think Israel (and her Zionist sympathizers around the world) would be doing themselves an enormous favor to say the same thing, loudly and clearly, at every possible opportunity, about the Palestinian people. They should say it until people are sick of hearing it--and then they should say it some more. They should chant it like a prayer, at almost every public utterance.

It may be hard for them to do that in their anger right now, but I hope they will. Because they, too, are going to have to live with the Palestinians, one way or the other, and they need to do whatever they can to encourage moderate elements there.

I genuinely feel for the innocents in Palestine. We must remember there are 8 million of them, most of whom have never bombed anyone.

God have mercy on them, and grant our friend Israel strength in this time of crisis. And here's hoping we are soon able to wipe away Saddam Hussein and his cronies--which should help Israel and Palestine both, in the long run.