My old friend Tim Hames is optimistic about the situation in the Times (the good one) today:
As victories rank, not being destroyed, disarmed or discredited is not that impressive. It is hardly Henry V at Agincourt. The idea that the Six-Day War represents the military standard for the Arab world is a somewhat humiliating notion. Allowing for the feeble record of the original Nasser, Israelis should not be too disturbed by the prospect of another incarnation. Nor was the Arab street that equivocal about Israel’s existence before these clashes started.
After outlining several convincing reasons why Israel should be satisfied, he concludes:
Israel relied too much on air power at the start of these exchanges and allowed its opponents a propaganda opportunity. Yet, in the end, Israel’s survival does not depend on Arab “hearts and minds” or opinions expressed by television viewers who live many thousands of miles away. It relies instead on winning crucial battles. If this is a “defeat”, then Israel can afford many similar outcomes.
Meanwhile, on terrorism in general and the reaction to it, Janet Daley speaks sense (as ever) in The Daily Telegraph:
This is a critical moment. What we must call the “free world” will either decide that it must unite unequivocally against a force so dark that it is almost incomprehensible to democratic peoples, or else succumb to a daydream of denial that is nothing more than appeasement.
The unspoken issue here is that there are “free riders” in the “free world.” A lowest common denominator approach based on who were our allies during the Cold War might be thought of as inappropriate now.