They have THE BOMB and haven't used it... There's your restraint!

I have to say, political, religious and moral ideoligies aside, in this era of the U.N. and constant requests on retaliating countries for restraint, it is so damn refreshing to see a country defend itself at the force that IT deems reasonable.

It wasn't more than a few hours after the initial rocket attacks, murders and abductions of Israeli soldiers, that right away the world was calling for Israel to practice restraint in its retaliation. Israel, thankfully, ignored these ingorant and ridiculous pleas. How's this for restraint - Israel has nuclear weapons and has not used them yet. You happy? There's your freaking restraint.

I think that even though the world cries out, as they always do when there's an opportunity against Israel, there is finally some understanding that enough is enough. Land for peace has been a failure. They left Lebanon in the hopes of peace and got war They left the Gaza Strip in the hopes of peace not even a year ago and got war.

The problem is the same as it always has been. Were Israel to lay down its arms and hope for peace, there would be another Holocaust. Were surrounding countries and militant groups to lay down their arms, there is no question there would be peace. Therein lies the problem.

The days of pretending there is moral equivalency are long gone. The days of Israel holding back in the hopes the maybe, just maybe, this one time diplomacy and conversation would end the bloodshed are long gone. The days of believing that becoming the only country in history to return land won in a legal and justified defensive war in exchange for peace from neighbors are long gone. The days of irrelevant and often counterproductive foreign "forces" are long gone. Dare we say that the United Nations as an organization is obsolete. They are certainly ineffective. Look at conflicts across the world where the U.N. has placed its peacekeepers. There are numerous places across the world where they have failed and none where they have succeeded. And this is not just a function of the Middle East, because it has happened in many more areas as well - look it up, it's true.

Most people don't even know what a Palestinian is. If they only truly understood the history. There is no nation of Palestinians. Palestine was a British controlled land prior to 1948. It was named after the ancient Phillistines of Biblical times who constantly fought in the area. In 1948, under the Partition Plan that was rejected by the Arab countries, Israel was created. It was only a tiny strip of land, compared to the still very small strip of land it is today. In 1967, Jordan and Egypt along with a number of other Arab countries surrounding tiny Israel declared war simultaneously. In 6 days Israel managed to defend itself, and in-fact to annex buffer zones extending Israel into what once was Jordan and Egypt displacing thousands of Jordanian and Egyptian residents. Jordan and Egypt did not want these refugees in their country and in fact blocked them from entering. These same refugees were offered the opportunity to become a part of the Israeli state, according to many, a huge mistake by Israel who should have exiled these people back to their countries. From these mostly Jordanian and Egyptian refugees came the birth of the Palestinian and the claims of a lost homeland that was never truly theirs.

Perhaps Israel needs to do a better job educating the world, but is that really their responsibilty? Perhaps the world just needs to better educate itself. Until then, it is nice to see a country that truly believes in the action it is taking, and feels no need to answer to anybody but its own civillians who need protection. And it is just as, if not more refreshing to see a country like the United States and its leaders throw its unwavering support behind one of its greatest allies.