One bizarre thing that about terrorism is that it’s nearly impossible to define exactly what it is. For example, I think most people would agree that drawing Israeli soldiers out of a border facility and then gunning them down is clearly terrorism. I think that sending tanks and bulldozers into the Rafah refugee camp before dawn and destroying 32 homes out of spite is also terrorism.

It’s interesting to note that the four soldiers killed were Bedouin Arabs serving in the Israeli military (such a unit was described in a New York Times article a few weeks ago). Why are the guard posts on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip generally manned by Arabs? It’s obviously not because Palestinian militants are less willing to attack them than they are to attack Jews.

(On another note, a Google search for Rafah yields a long list of stories of home demolitions in that one refugee camp. It seems pretty clear that the policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinians isn’t discouraging terrorism or militancy.)