A Times editorial about the war in Israel and Gaza says, "The war is terrorizing innocent people on both sides of the border, fomenting more hatred, creating an ever larger appetite for vengeance and ensuring that the cycle of violence will be repeated, if not right away then surely at some point in the future."
On the phrase "cycle of violence," The Times editorialists should read their own late columnist, William Safire.
Here he is, from March of 2002: "By denouncing Israel's defense as part of a 'cycle of violence,' Arab sympathizers treat this latest Arab aggression and Israeli defense as morally the same. But this terror war is but a battle in the same war that has been waged against Israel for 50 years."
And here he is in another column from that same month: "Reject all 'cycle of violence' moral relativism: only the Palestinian side is targeting civilians."
The Times editorialists may claim that the phrase may not have been appropriate in 2002, but it is appropriate now, a dozen years later. Somehow I think Mr. Safire would doubt it; if anything, the Israelis have an even stronger case now than they did then, because in the intervening period the Israelis unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, and Hamas, a more extreme terrorist group than the PLO, took over the territory.
The Times editorial faults Israel for striking U.N. schools and hospitals in Gaza without faulting Hamas for using such facilities to hide weapons and tunnels designed to attack Israel.