On the "very ugly"...

A good post... well done.

I just wanted to add something I have thought about a lot since I first heard the news about the Fogel massacre (and it was nothing less than a massacre): What was gained?

Murderous intent aside, let's think about this for a moment...

Itamar is the "settlement" where the tragedy took place, and it is a hot-bed of activism and pro-settlement activity. This isn't suggesting that any of that is WRONG, only that it is often associated with acts by Israelis against Palestinians that raise questions even in Israel. They adamantly oppose current Israeli tendencies towards disbanding the settlements as part of a land-swap agreement, and insist that where ever they build, Israel rules.

Now, attacking a place like Itamar might seem like exactly the sort of thing militant Palestinians might want to do... but killing two parents and their children isn't exactly going to motivate the other 1,300 settlers to want to "move" out of the territory, even in the minds of someone twisted enough to commit these murders.

I'm thinking that killing these people, in the manner and place that they did, wasn't to "kill the Zionists" as so many think it was. No, I think it was to get the Israelis mad enough to do something in retaliation against the Palestinians. Imagine the fallout that would follow a riot in the streets of Itamar in which a Palestinian day worker was beaten or (God forbid) killed by the rioters... even ONE such action by "armed and determined" settlers would be more than enough to fire the rage and frustration of every radical Muslim from the Southeast Asian coasts to Toronto, Canada, and it would make the last intifada look like a picnic in the park.

THAT is what the radicals within the PA, the leadership of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and much of the Sh'ia leadership in Iraq want to happen... Israeli retaliation against "Palestinian freedom fighters" (their words, not mine).

That is the ONLY rational reason for seeing what happened happen as it did...