Friends have been asking me for my opinions on the situation in Israel right now and I haven't had much of an answer for them. What is there to say? This is a vicious cycle of violence that appears to have no end in site - though you certainly didn't need to login here to read that. It’s virtually identical to the uprising that began in 1982 after a small assassination attempt on an Israeli diplomat in London. The result back then was years of war and the decimation of Beirut, one of the world’s special cities, from which the city, and Lebanon, had just begun to emerge. With at least another week of bombings planned, it appears that Beirut will again be set back. Honestly though, if Lebanon had any inkling of a government, this would have been stopped long ago. Lebanon has been harboring Hezbollah terrorists for decades and is spineless in standing up to them. Now, they have paid the price for their weakness. If they are being blindly led by Syria and Iran, then the same applies. Israel is responding to an “unprovoked attack on its sovereign territory” and in a location surrounded by neigbors who want their destruction, they need to take such attacks seriously. Yes, Syria and Iran are the larger problems, but let’s take one step at a time. As usual, the economist has some of the best and most balanced reporting on this subject, and today’s article entitled The Accidental War paints an informative picture. Also worth watching, the Arab woman on Al-Jazeera earlier this week, who condemns Muslim behavior. Incidentally, a missile landed in my family’s kibbutz – Shaar Haamakim – this week, though thankfully, nobody was injured. Let’s pray that no more innocent lives are lost to this conflict.