Israel's response to the recent Kassam rocket attacks on Sderot has been measured and appropriate, Kim Howells, Britain's Minister of State for the Middle East, told The Jerusalem Post, disregarding Palestinian appeals for the world to rein in the IDF. Howells, on a three-day visit to the region, hinted in an interview Wednesday night that financial aid to the Palestinian Authority might be withheld if the PA did not seriously begin tackling the terrorism in its midst.

Again, eventually this international support for Israel will dry up. How can we be so sure? Because the overwhelming inertia of international diplomacy is structurally against Israel:

After being handed a note by one of his aides, Howells remembered the settlements. "We'd like to see some serious movement on the settlements, on the expansion of settlements, stopping illegal outposts on the West Bank," Howells said. "That's something we feel very strongly about. I think it would very much work in Israel's favor as far as public opinion in the UK is concerned, and elsewhere, too."

But in the meantime - and for once - Israeli self-defense is being treated as would the self-defense of almost any other country in the world: legitimately.
Oh, and incidentally:

"The Palestinians are receiving more aid per capita than any other people on the face of the earth, and we want to see some proper response," Howells said, hinting at a decrease of economic aid if the Palestinians don't fight terror... Howells dismissed PA claims that it doesn't have the wherewithal to effectively take on Hamas and the other terrorist organizations. "Look, they have 60,000 troops in the PA, they have all the equipment they need. What they need is the political will to do it," he said.

[Cross-posted at Mere Rhetoric]