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The proof of this proposition is that in the Middle East terror is not merely an instrument of the weak against the powerful Western enemy. It is an endemic feature of local politics. In fact, most of the terror practiced in the Middle East is not anti-Israel or even anti-West but intra-Arab and intra- Muslim. It is a way for Syria to check Jordan, for Iran to subvert Iraq (and vice versa), for Lebanese factions to deal with one another, and for Libya to tame its enemies everywhere.
To see the Palestinian issue as the all-encompassing root cause of terrorism is not just a misperception. It is a danger. To await the messianic resolution of the Palestinian issue (messianic because the terrorists reject any imaginable compromise) is to invite dangerous despair and passivity. It is to neglect those things that can be done to restrain terrorism by way of this- worldly means, such as political, economic and military pressure. The U.S. air raid on Libya was followed by months of relative quiet. With Karachi and Istanbul the respite is over. Perhaps a new wave of terror is about to begin. To expect that after 20 years of passivity, a single act of American retaliation should have put a permanent end to terrorism is absurd. Only the steady, unwavering application of all forms of pressure against terrorists and their more easily found sponsors will have any lasting effect.
There are men around who, in the name of some cause, take machine guns onto airplanes and into synagogues and kill as many as they can. One of the overriding obligations of the age is to use every available means to hunt down today's machine gunners and deter tomorrow's. The pursuit of peace is also an obligation. But it is an entirely different enterprise.