When Israel first began to murder Lebanese civilians indiscriminately, I found it hard to understand why the response of the U.S. government and most policy analysts on "both sides" of the American ideological "spectrum" was to condemn Syria for its aggression against Israel.

But after talking to my father yesterday, I now have a better understanding of the grammar that governs Israeli action and its interpretation. If any of you are confused in the coming days by "news" reports, "opinion pieces," or governmental proclamations, it will be useful to keep the following principles in mind:

1) If Israel drops a bomb, launches a missile, or a fires a gun at an Arab person or persons, this means that Israel not only has been but currently is being attacked by the person or persons whose lives it is ending.

2) If an Arab of any age is blown into pieces, cut open, maimed, incinerated, or buried under rubble, that Arab was a terrorist or a "human shield" for a terrorist or--and this is most likely--living near a "back yard" or "basement" filled with advanced weaponry imported from Syria and/or Iran.

3) If Israel drops a 10-ton bomb on or launches a cruise missile into an apartment block or water-purification plant, or if it uses multiple bombs and missiles to end the lives of 20-30 residents of a hillside village, Israel is, at the very instant it fires the weapon in question, actually avoiding and preventing civilian casualties.

4) If Israel lobs bombs and missiles at random into apartment blocks in the city of highest population density on earth, killing dozens of people daily, after which Israel kidnaps the entire freely elected government of an ostensibly sovereign "national entity," then Israel is conducting a patient, house-by-house search for a single "kidnapped" soldier.

5) If someone expresses revulsion and disgust upon learning about the violent death or wounding of an Arab person or persons, especially an Arab person under the age of 12, the revolted and disgusted indvidual is a vicious, cruel, bloodthirsty partisan of murderers.

6) If you are Jewish, the Israeli government and its actions are "you," and you not only must but do wish this government to continue doing what it does and being what it is as the culmination of 2,500 years of "Jewish suffering."

Postscript. A contextual or "meta-grammatical" note, perhaps organizing and directing the use of previously listed principles:

If Israel uses its army to annex, destroy, pave over, and then rebuild (as Israeli settlements) the towns, villages, or farms of Arabs; or if Israel uses its army to build walls through the towns, villages, or farms of Arabs, thereafter driving these same Arabs from the West to the East side of these walls; or if Israel uses its army to construct highways through the towns, villages, or farms of Arabs, thereafter using the army to prevent these same Arabs from using or being near or being seen from the highways; or if Israel uses its army to surround the towns, villages, or farms of Arabs, preventing these same Arabs from ever leaving their residences and contacting Arabs in similarly surrounded towns, farms, and villages; or if Israel uses its army to blow up, burn down, or bury the homes and/or persons of any Arabs who try to stop the army from executing any one of its orders; if any one of these conditions obtain--then Israel is always and only waiting, patiently and hopefully and with heartfelt longing, for a "partner for peace."