Damned if you do...

Israel's disengagement plan seems not to have worked, as events of the last few days have demonstrated. The lesson seems to be:

- Don't give up ground: get attacked
- Give up ground: get attacked

It's really not too surprising, given that Israel is dealing with an implacable Islamist enemy whose goal is to utterly destroy it. It's a good lesson for the rest of the world to learn: Jihadist extremism cannot and will not be appeased.

UPDATE: The New Republic has posted an article by one of its foreign correspondents, Yossi Klein Halevi, which describes the situation in chillingly simple and stark terms:

The next Middle East war--Israel against genocidal Islamism--has begun.