The Cycle of Violence

Here you can read Lee Harris's extremely sophisticated analysis about why Palestinian Terrorism is different from (and worse than) other historic state building terrorism (such as occurred in Algeria). The entire article is worth reading, but I was particularly taken with this paragraph:

The 'cycle of violence' is a cant phrase, like so many other cant phrases circulating today, in that it permits us to feel as if we have said something profound when in fact we are talking utter nonsense. Yes, violence, once begun, often breeds violence -- but, as history amply demonstrates, violence breeds violence no matter how the other party responds to it. Fighting violence breeds it, but so too does appeasing violence. Furthermore, massive and overwhelming violence, far from continuing the cycle of violence, often stops it in its tracks, like the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I think this paragraph attracted me because, living as I do in a liberal bastion, I'm consistently inundated with bumperstickers that say, "War is Never The Answer," "Give Peace a Chance," etc. As I've mentioned before, a Ghandi-like passivity works only if your enemy can be shamed. In our case, starting with Carter's abject apologies to the hostage takers in 1979, all we did was convince radical Islamists that we were an easy target.