Ask yourself this, though. If another country came to you and told you, "Hey, we're going to bomb your town - get out of your homes now." - are you going to feel any better about them blowing your home to pieces?

You can understand why many Lebanese (especially the older ones) might be more hesitant to leave their properties. They remember what happened to the property of Palestinians who left during the 1948 war - it was seized and declared as abandoned by the Israeli government. I'm sure you know how incredibly important land is in that part of the world - and then you could see why people might not want to leave?

Also at issue are the exact targets Israel is hitting. Why go after the UN outpost? Why go after Christian towns in Lebanon? Hizbollah is not hiding there. This is one thing I truly do not understand.

Your original argument seemed to be that it was okay to classify all Muslims as terrorists. I was just pointing out that that's a crude stereotype. A small segment of the Muslim population engages in terrorist activities - you can't classify the entire community by those actions.

Now, I know your response was - well, where's the Muslim outcry? First of all, keep in mind that their has been significant Muslim support - some of it behind the scenes. For example, after September 11th, one of the biggest groups to offer free help to US law authorities with translation and other services were Arab-Americans.

But I think you want public outcry, right? On this point I'm not sure, but I'd be pretty confident in saying that the reason there hasn't been as much as you want has to do with Arabic culture. Let me offer an analogy, and hopefully that'll help me explain what I'm trying to explain.

Let's say you have a family member that commits a horrific crime - rape, or child molestation, or anything else (hypothetical here - I don't mean to offend). Now, would you report them to the authorities if you knew of their activities?

I think most of us in the Western world would, despite any reservations we have about familial ties. This is where our culture differs from Arabic culture. In an Arabic society, that family member would probably not get reported - and its not because the family supports what that individual member did. Rather, its just the emphasis Arabic culture places on family - its the core self-identifier for much of the Arabic world. There, the problem would be dealt with in-house, possibly with much more severe consequences than if the authorities were involved. The mindset is just different - the saying about airing dirty laundry would apply here.

I think some of the Muslim umma (community) feels the same about involving "outsiders" such as the US and other Western powers in the affairs of Muslims and Islamic states. Certainly, there are "Muslims" that are terrorists (ignoring the fact that much of what they do violates the Quran). But I think there's a greater percentage of Muslims that disagree but want the problem taken care of in-house. And of those Muslims who do support the terrorism (but aren't terrorists themselves), much of it goes back to education and the economics that Eric talks about below. I don't think bombing these communities is the best way to communicate a message of mutual peaceful coexistence. If we can address the economics needs, and work to educate those that do support terrorism, we'll have a harder solution, but a more lasting one.

I disagree with the bolded part, but your point about economics is a really good one. I don't think it can never be fixed though - if relative depravation can be acheived, and the poverty of the Palestinian people can be ameliorated, we'll have a hope for peace.