I wonder what’s wrong with me...

...because, somehow, I just can’t get terribly worked up over Israel’s “aggression” in Lebanon. Yes, I’m sorry that civilians are dying there, just as I’m sorry civilians are dying in Israel.

Perhaps if Hezbollah and Hamas weren’t using civilians as shields, and conducting military-style operations while wearing civilian clothes, the death toll would be lower. Perhaps if the UN was something more than an anti-Israel, anti-USA debating society good for nothing beyond big talk and raking in bribes from despots, the death toll would be lower.

The world – and Hezbollah – were “shocked” when Israel reacted strongly to the kidnaping of two of its soldiers. “Goodness,” people said, “if you let a little thing like that provoke war, you’re no better than they [whoever they might be] are.”

It never occurs to any of those high-minded peace-loving types that just because a nation doesn’t stoop to their level, that doesn’t mean they are going to see the light. In fact, history demonstrates, over and over, that they will continue to do whatever they want for as long as they can get away with it.

Israel seems to understand that. We don’t.

Israel also understands, as our own so-called "leaders" do not, that protection of all one's own citizens is a nation's first duty, and if doing so involves inflicting condign punishment on other nations or groups, so be it.

Though I am sure to be accused of being a Muslim-hater – which I assuredly am not – I admit to not feeling kindly disposed to people who will send their young out, strapped into girdles of plastique, to blow up innocent Jews. Nor am I feeling any feelings of goodwill and brotherhood toward those wack-jobs in Iran who are ranting about the “destruction of the Zionist State,” looking forward to some kind of Armageddon apparently predicted in the Koran and prepared to use any force necessary to convert the rest of the world – once they’ve finished off the Jews, that is – to Islam.

The plain fact is that too many Muslims (who are, themselves, certainly peace-loving and tolerant of all people of good will) seem to have adopted the Mafia code that says you offer unquestioning support to anyone who’s in your “family,” no matter how despicable they are. And the non-Muslim liberals of Europe and the USA, particularly those in the media, being the tolerant folks they are, will back them right down the line.

The world is, alas, full of people who hate Jews. I’ve never understood the reasons for that. It seems certain that three-quarters of the United Nations and 90% of the Arab/Muslim world would be thrilled to see Israel vanish under mushroom clouds. And Iran seems to be planning for exactly that.

In the meantime, “diplomats” talk their big talk, meet, talk some more, deplore and decry, without coming up with what seems a simple, basic solution: make both sides stand down, and do whatever is necessary to ensure that Israel and its Arab neighbors live in peace, free from the threat of destruction from fundamentalist Islamic zealots.

My personal feeling is that it would speak well for the world’s Muslims if they would be a bit more open and vocal in disavowing the radical terrorists in their ranks instead of taking offense every time someone mentions that inhuman acts are being perpetrated in the name of their religion.

Silence – or making excuses for the terrorists, or attacking the Jews for defending themselves, or attacking the USA because it supports Israel’s right to exist – is all too easy to interpret as a sign of complicity.

But pay no attention to what I think. I'm a Muslim-hater, of course.

Even if I'm really not.