Part of me agrees with Jay Fitzgerald's assessment of Israel's offensive against Hizbolla, that it was over the top. But another part sees a different rationale, especially now that I've pulled Tom Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem down off the bookshelf and re-read the first half, centered on Beirut.

Friedman sees tribalism as the fundamental political reality in the Middle East.

The reason one can still find such tribe-like conflicts at work in the Middle East today is that most peoples in this part of the word, including the Israeli Jews, have not fully broken from their primordial identities, even though they live in what appear on the surface to be modern nation-states...

And tribal politics often have a different set of rules and dynamics than what we're used to. Freidman uses an old Bedouin legend to illustrate the point, and the story underlies, perhaps, what we are seeing with the Israeli response today.

...One day, according to this legend, an elderly Bedouin man discovered that by eating turkey he could restore his virility. So he bought himself a turkey and kept it around the tent, and every day watched it grow. He stuffed it with food, thinking, Wow, I am really going to be a bull. One day, though, the turkey was stolen. So the Bedouin called his sons together and said, "Boys, we are in great danger now -- terrible danger. My turkey's been stolen." The boys laughed and said, "Father what do you need a turkey for?" He said, Never mind, never mind. It is not important why I need the turkey, all that is important is that it has been stolen, and we must get it back. But his sons ignored him and forgot about the turkey. A few weeks later the old man's camel was stolen. His sons came to him and said, "Father your camel's been stolen, what should we do?" And the old man said, "Find my turkey." A few weeks later the old man's horse was stolen, and the sons came and said, "Father your horse was stolen, what should we do?" he said, "Find my turkey." Finally, a few weeks later, someone raped his daughter. The father went to his sons and said, "It is all because of the turkey. When they saw that they could take my turkey, we lost everything."

So to Western eyes, the Israeli reaction to the kidnapping of its soldiers may seem disproportionate, but I doubt that we are the intended audience.