Seriously, Israel. You're psychotic.

So, Hezbollah soldiers in Lebanon kidnap two Israeli soldiers. I think we can all agree that that's bad and something should be done about it. But Israel, still in the mindset that the world is out to get it (which is largely true in the Middle East), does what it usually does in instances like this: it goes bat-shit insane, sending its (U.S.-provided) jets into enemy territory, blowing up cities, killing civilians, and giving Arabs all the more reason to hate it. This is what we in the business call a "cycle."

But, thankfully, up until now, they've only been blowing up Lebanese, and over here in the west, we can't even spell "Lebanese," so we don't care. But we do care about Canadians! Yes, seven Canadian citizens were killed by Israel randomly, madly flinging bombs into the air.

This is not to say that Israel shouldn't defend itself. Many groups -- and even some countries -- hate Israel (including our friend over in Iran) and would like to see it explode. But Israel's response to attacks upon it are waaay beyond retaliation, and this is not a new thing. A Palestinian blows up a restaurant; the Israeli Air Force levels his home village. Is this really conducive to anything but causing more violence? When Israel starts accidentally killing people who had nothing to do with a particular terrorist attack, it breeds more terrorists! Israel hasn't run afoul of foreign governments, I don't think, until now: a western government has had some of its citizens killed by Israel. If it had been the United States, everything would be okay. No matter what Israel does, the United States is behind them, one hundred percent. But the rest of the world isn't the same way and they won't watch Israel gulp down crazy pills as we will.

This is where the film Munich is valuable. Directed by Stephen Spielberg -- a Jew, by the way -- the film presents a nuanced opinion of Israel's penchant for bloodthirsty revenge. The character of Golda Meir even understands that going out and killing the people who planned the Munich massacre won't stop terrorism; all it will do is send the message that you shouldn't screw Israel. And that's a great message -- if this is junior high school. "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values," she says, rationalizing the killing of people as necessary. In the end, Spielberg's film comes out on the side of not taking revenge. Not only does revenge not work as a security method -- unless your plan is to kill every last one of your enemies, as well as their descendants -- but it psychologically turns us into the people we hate. Now, if you can deal with that, then good for you: you now have the mental equipment to become a professional assassin.

Israel is on permanent defensive. Like a person who has had nothing but bad things happen to him his entire life, Israel reacts to every comment and every action as though it is a personal attack, and sends the most missiles it can at whoever made the comment or action. Israel still lives in fear of the Holocaust, and it is this fear that prompts it to act in this way. There will be no peace in the Middle East as long as (1) other countries continue to hate Israel, and (2) Israel continues these totally-out-of-proportion retaliatory tactics.