Barak wanted advice on where to strike back. The officers, who had been chafing at a policy they considered too restrained, were happy to oblige with a detailed target strike list. Within hours, Israeli Cobra attack helicopters were in the air over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, unleashing their missiles on five carefully chosen Palestinian security sites, one of them close enough to rattle the Gaza headquarters in which Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was holding court. The Palestinians screamed that Barak had declared war. It was not a millionth of what we can do if it was really a war.
War is an awkward term to apply to a conflict in which the balance of forces is so lopsided.
Israel's military is among the world's most heavily armed and proficient. Arafat's scruffy troops have neither tanks, artillery nor aircraft. But if it wasn't quite war last week, it was nevertheless a fierce mess. While regional leaders agreed to a summit this week in Egypt, their ambitions were contained by the need to squelch the bloodletting. The tortured relationship between Israelis and Palestinians was not the only thing at stake.