Once Again, Palestinians Specifically Target Children

In cased you missed it while being engrossed in the farcical aquatic ceremony which was Hurricane Irene hysteria, once again there was a Palestinian terrorist attack in Tel Aviv.  Like the dolphinarium attack, which killed 21, mostly immigrant teenagers and the Yeshiva massacre, which killed a seven kids in the library and the Itamar massacre, in which small children were butchered in their sleep, this one also targeted kids.  In this case, an end of summer party at a night club filled with high school students.  Luckily, the terrorist was stopped before he killed any kids, though 8 people total were injured. 

If you've never been to Tel Aviv, you might think that people are used to this sort of thing, but then you'd be wrong.  Besides the fact that you'd never get used to kids being targeted by subhuman murderers, Tel Aviv itself has more in common with South Beach in Miami than with a war zone.  People often go to the beach almost every day and like to have fun so Tel Aviv has a much more relaxed atmosphere than some of the other cities in Israel (especially Jerusalem and cities in Judea and Samaria).  They don't think there could be a terrorist lurking to strike them at any moment and personally I've felt extremely safe there.

Unfortunately, this attack reminds you that you really aren't safe anywhere and neither are your kids, not with millions of potential murderers lurking in your midst. According to a Pew research poll in 2007, 68% of Palestinians think suicide attacks on civilians are justified.  Obviously, the percentage who would actually perpetrate such an attack is smaller, but how much smaller?  It's not 50%, but could it be 20%?  Maybe.  Murderous anti-semitism has been around long before there was a Jewish state and before any land was "occupied" by the Jews.  I also remember seeing a poll mentioned in Benny Morris' book 1948 that showed 90%+ support for the Nazis in World War II era Jerusalem amongst the Palestinians.

Needless to say, I do not have high hopes for a peaceful solution to the conflict anytime soon.  All evidence suggests that any concessions by Israel will only be viewed as a sign of weakness and will just bring the violence closer to home.  In the last 15 years, Israel has withdrawn from Lebanon, Gaza and most of the West Bank only to be faced with more attacks than before.  There have been over 6,800 rocket attacks from Gaza alone!  So what would my solution be for stopping the attacks?  Unfortunately I don't have one.  A two state solution doesn't work (as it would lead to more attacks, not less) and neither does a one state solution either (fully integrating millions of muslims would destroy the Jewish character of Israel and there is no humane way to transfer the population to another area).  So some version of the status quo, though with a more hawkish bent (complete and utter elimination of the leaders of terrorist groups that target civilians would be a nice start), is all I can come up with.