Mr. Fisk is at it again.

Terror, terror, terror. Like a punctuation mark, the word infects every Israeli speech, every American speech, almost every newspaper article.

Yeah, kind of hard to think about other subjects with all those suicide bombers dissassembling themselves and those in their immediate environs every couple hours. Just what is it that we’re supposed to discuss amidst the flying body parts?

When will someone admit the truth: that the Israelis and Palestinians are engaged in a dirty colonial war which will leave both sides shamed and humiliated?

We do admit that it’s a colonial war, Bobby. It’s an attempt by the Wahabbi empire to colonize Jewish Palestine, replacing its inhabitants with more lunatics.

Just listen to what Sharon has been saying in the past 24 hours. “Arafat is an enemy. He decided on a strategy of terror and formed a coalition of terror.” That’s pretty much what President Bush said about Osama bin Laden. But what on earth does it mean? That Arafat is actually sending off the suicide bombers, choosing the target, the amount of explosives?

Yes, that’s right, Bob. [rolling eyes heavenward]

He’s picking the targets, calculating the charge size, lovingly packing each bomb and attaching them to the strap, choosing the wardrobe, and kissing each Islamakazi’s forehead as he sends him out to get his virgins. After all, if he’s not doing all that, he can’t be said to be responsible, right?

You know, it’s just like when George Bush pores over relief maps of Afghanistan, calling in orders to the pilots as he watches via cockpit camera.

“No, not that hill–the one over there, to the right. Wait for it…wait for it…now!”

If he was, then surely Sharon would have sent his death squads after the Palestinian leader months ago. After all, his killers have managed to murder dozens of Palestinian gunmen already, including occasional women and children who get in the way.

His “death squads”? His “killers”?

Yes, he probably would, except that Mr. Powell has been holding him back. Though he may not be doing so any longer.

Now we have an Israeli officer ? according to the Israeli daily Ma’ariv ? advising his men to study the tactics adopted by the Nazis in the Second World War. “If our job is to seize a densely packed refugee camp or take over the Nablus casbah, and if this job is given to an (Israeli) officer to carry out without casualties on both sides, he must before all else analyse and bring together the lessons of past battles, even ? shocking though this might appear ? to analyse how the German army operated in the Warsaw ghetto.”

Pardon? What on earth does this mean? Does this account for the numbers marked by the Israelis on the hands and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners earlier this month? Does this mean that an Israeli soldier is now to regard the Palestinians as sub-humans ? which is exactly how the Nazis regarded the trapped and desperate Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1944?

Yes, I remember how those crazy Jews were strapping bombs to themselves and detonating them next to women and babies. It’s in all the revisionist history books, doncha know?

No, Bob, it just means that they are looking to all historical instances of urban warfare for guidance as to the best tactics to win. They don’t intend to lose. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to make the Palestinians into lampshades.

But now everyone is cashing in on the “war against terror”. When Macedonian cops gun down seven Arabs, they announce that they are participating in the global “war on terror”. When Russians massacre Chechens, they are now prosecuting the “war on terror”. When Israel fires at Arafat’s headquarters, it says it is participating in the “war on terror”. Must we all be hijacked into America’s dangerous self-absorption with the crimes of 11 September?

Yes, we are so dangerously self absorbed. We can’t be bothered with sending brigades of philosophers to Afghanistan–all we can do is selfishly liberate it. Just what are we thinking, to want to prevent more terrorism at home, when we should instead be taking anger management courses?

I’m sorry, but this stuff just defies parody.

Must this vile war between Palestinians and Israelis be distorted in so dishonest a way?

Well, you’re the expert, Bob. You tell us.