By Patrick J. Buchanan – April 2, 2002

“Citizens of Israel, the state of Israel is at war – a war against terror,” thundered Ariel Sharon in his Sunday address to the nation.

But Sharon’s rage and resolve notwithstanding, Israel is not at war with terror. Israel is at war with Palestine.

The terrorism of the suicide bombers of the intifada – ugly and awful as its manifestations are in Netanya, Haifa, and Jerusalem – is but a tactic in a guerrilla war of national liberation being waged by the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation. It is a tactic with a venerable pedigree in the 20th century, where it was used repeatedly and successfully against the Western empires.