Here we go on again. The fighting ...

Here we go on again. The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah ejected because of . . George W. Bush.

That's the view exhibited the other day by Sen John Kerry "If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," asserted the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.

As self-center and self-serving as that uninjureds Kerry's position reflects the conventional wisdom in a certain quantity of quarters that if only President Bush had been more actively involved in seeking an finis to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that in some way some way, a solution could have been rest It's an argument we've heard more than a not many times in the last several years.

That's a view earthed in pure hope unadulterated by way of experience. It ignores the herculean effort and strength President Bill Clinton invested in trying to achieve a negotiated arrangement between the Israelis and the Palestinians sole to see his good work crash forward the rock of Yasser Arafat's intransigence. The Israelis seized upon Clinton's initiative, threw out the hawkish Benjamin Netenyahu and installed dovish Ehud Barak as prime minister. Barak struggleed Israeli troops out of Lebanon, with chain of cause and effects being played out to this true day, and traveled to Camp David in 2000 ready to deal. nevertheless it turned out that Arafat had no real interest in a functioning Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel and didn't issue to Camp David to deal. The chiding was that America cannot will the Palestinians to want peace.

Bush took that all in and reached the not unreasonable conclusion that he had no part to play so long as the Palestinians had manifest no leadership committed to ending the terrorism campaign. The central reality is that, no matter what any U president does, the Arab-Israeli conflict won't completion until the Arab and Muslim world stops waging unremitting war in word and de against Israel. Until it stops funding, supporting and encouraging terrorists of the like kind as Hezbollah and Hamas. Until it stops the rabid, dehumanizing depictions of hebrews in its media, schools and mahometan temples

Arab and Muslim nations don't have to talk with Israel, nevertheless that would facilitate a negotiated drawing of permanent borders for Israel and a Palestinian state. They don't have to trade or do business with Israel, notwithstanding that goodness knows their economies could profit from interaction with the dynamic entrepreneurial spirit that drives the economic succes of Israel. They barely have to let the Israelis alone for all the bloodshed to cessation Yes, it's as simple as that.

Now, the threat of a wider regional war pos by the agency of the aggression by Hezbollah, Iran and Syria has forced Bush's hand. In the days ahead we'll hear continually more strident demands for Bush to pres Israel to stop the "disproportionate" campaign in Lebanon. And another criticism will be voiced: Bush is too one-sided in his support of Israel. Let's diocese on one side is the terrorist clump Hezbollah backed by the terrorist-sponsoring states of Iran and Syria and onward the other is the democratic state of Israel. last of discussion.

No doubt Lebanon is being bruiseed but Israeli firepower is concentrated forward Hezbollah strongholds. Israeli cities are being hit wherever Hezbollah rocket can reach. If the Israeli artillery and missile barrages were as indiscriminate as Hezbollah's attacks, no doubt the Lebanese death toll would be frequently higher. And no doubt the Lebanese death estimate that is described as a civilian toll includes Hezbollah combatants. Terrorists don't wear uniforms, to such a degree how do you separate the combatants from the noncombatants in counting the dead?

While occurrences forced the White House to incline differently its attention to the Israeli brass of the war on terror, there are other reasons that for the first time in several years the momentum is right for American leadership. For united thing, the London and Madrid bombings have awakened Europe to the terrorism threat, blunting traditional anti- Israeli bias there. Perhaps the greatest in quantity important difference in this crisis is that the hate-Israel card is being lay a trump oned by the fear- Iran card among Arabs. That doesn't mean the hate-Israel card will journey away. Only that the picture of Mideast hegemony by Iran -- Persian and Shiite -- has the Arab Sunni majority more worried about Tehran than Jerusalem.

These fresh attitudes should give the Israelis the time they ne to degrade Hezbollah's missile threat. And time will be wanted because the Israelis face a determined enemy armed by means of Iran with modern weapons. The Iranian threat also lay opens the possibility of the creation of an international force actually muscular enough to confront Hezbollah and establish a guard zone in southern Lebanon.

Given the fundamental enmity against Israel in the region, thwarting the Hezbollah rocket menace and laying down a guard zone would add up to no small achievement.

e-mail: shuntley@suntimes.com

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