This was the question New York Times correspondent Clyde Haberman, not known for his pro-Israel stance, asked in a column yesterday:

It is a question that many Israelis wanted to ask yesterday [Tuesday] of America and the rest of the finger-pointing world. Not in a smart-alecky manner. Not to say, \"We told you so.\" It was simply a question for those who, at a safe remove from the terrorism that Israelis face every day, have damned Israel for taking admittedly harsh measures to keep its citizens alive...

\"We are now going to see a very resolute, and possibly global, approach to dealing with terrorism,\" Joseph Alpher, an Israeli strategic analyst, said by phone from Tel Aviv. As for his own country, he said, \"People will understand with how much reserve we have responded - and after this, criticism of the response will lower.\"

...You can\'t avoid the [\"Do you get it?\"] question when... you have seen the human wreckage caused by the suicide bombs that go off with sickening frequency [in Israel]. You ask it because Jerusalem offers a glimpse of what New York may become... Just three days ago, I wrote about the fear that now grips Israelis, how they listen for the sirens, how as the ambulances keep coming, they reach for cell phones. Frantically, they call to make sure that loved ones are all right. Often, they cannot get through because so many people are phoning at the same time. They try to hold the panic at bay.

All of that happened in New York yesterday.

Even without knowing who was behind this monstrous act, you could not shake off the televised images of crowds of Palestinians - not a handful of bloodthirsty extremists - chanting, \"God is great\" and joyously handing out candy in celebration on the streets of Nablus in the West Bank. Same as when a bomb went off in Jerusalem and killed children and their mothers in a restaurant.

Remember the suicide bomber who killed 15 innocent people at a Sbarro\'s pizza outlet in downtown Jerusalem last month?... We certainly have no shortage of Sbarro outlets in New York.

Do you get it now?