"Nothing is safe, it's as simple as that!" (says BG Dan Halutz, Israeli Army Chief)

Hey, guys! This is getting personal. My niece, her husband and their two little girls are presently in Beirut and have to fly out of this airport. General Halutz (and the leadership in Israel): Haven't you gotten it through your heads, and after six thousand years of bloodshed and tears, that peace doesn't arise like the proverbial phoenix from bomb craters like the one shown on the runway in the photo above?

It can only come about today (for your great country and people) when you show some signs of friendship to the Palestinians who feel trapped in their territories, both in Gaza and the West Bank (which is still under your authority). The actions of the Hezbollah are pretty awful at times, but they don't represent all of the Arabs in Gaza, the West Bank and certainly not the multicultural population in Lebanon!

President Bush is actually correct this time when stating that Israel has a right to defend itself, but precipitous attacks by your air force on the Beirut Airport smack of our invasion of Iraq, and you can see pretty clearly what that's doing to the US, both at home and to our boys and girls who are in harms way while the Sunnis and Shiites fight relentlessly for control of that sad, divided country.

The child on the right, lying in a safe house, so to speak, in Gaza is not "at war" with Israel any more than the Lebanese are. But just think! After another eight or ten years of sleeping on the floor to avoid Israeli bombs and missiles, how do you think this young boy might feel then?

Let's show some statesmanship, Israeli leaders, and listen to the pleas of the Palestinians before the current conflict escalates out of control, ... and something awful then happens to the young soldiers who were kidnapped/captured over the past week or so. There is a psalm in both your Torah and my Bible that says something like, "The meek shall inherit the earth." (Psalm 37:11)

Bomb craters on the tarmac at Beirut's airport certainly don't smack of "meekness" to me.

And surely you Hezbollah insurgents/terrorists: Can't you see that returning the two or three young men to their families in Israel will get you more in the long run than continuing tit-for-tat military activities in Gaza or elsewhere?