I know that Israel wasn't occupying the West Bank in 1953. But it wasn't engaged in an insurrection against an occupying power either.

The term "freedom fighter" when it is juxtaposed with "terrorist" as an alternative label, normally refers to some kind of insurrectionary situation. The implication is that when you are on the run, so to speak, you may have no choice but to fight dirty. Maybe that's true - at any rate it's the way a lot of people in those situations see the choices. But that wasn't the situation Sharon was in in 1953 any more than it is today.

Whatever, what happened in Qibya was an atrocity - one of those "unspeakable acts of terror, murder and mayhem that some people are committing today", and the analogy with Lieutenant Calley seems apt enough.

Pretending that one side is clean and the other side is dirty in its methods, or that one side has leaders that are honourable and peaceful and the other has not is grossly oversimplifying. If Sharon had been born a Palestinian, he'd very likely be in Hamas, and denouncing Arafat as a sell-out.

Peace can only come when someone stops the killing and stops the reprisals which follow on previous reprisals - and the side which has done most of the killing and has most of the power is the side which can best do that.

In the present situation two bunches of extremists are in effect cooperating in keeping the killing going, round after round. On one side the extremists are in opposition, under an ineffectual administration, and on the other side they are in control of the government.