The Global* War on Terror

The government of Israel is annoyed that Benedict XVI omitted Israel from a list of recent terrorist attacks:

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday deplored attacks in "countries including Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Britain". Israel said he had failed to mention a 12 July suicide bombing in Netanya that killed five Israelis.

In a perhaps unrelated development, Dick "Last Throes" Cheney spoke at a fund raiser for a Staten Island congressman last night and offered his own list of terrorist incidents of recent years:

Since 9/11 they have continued to kill -- in Casablanca, Mombassa, Jakarta, Bali, Riyadh, Istanbul, Baghdad, Madrid, most recently, of course, in Egypt and in London.

Which also omits any attacks on Israel. Now we suppose Dick could say that he was only listing al Qaeda attacks, but since when have such fine distinctions ever stopped him before? Which lends itself to a couple of observations. One is to wonder there might be some soft-pedaling of the rhetoric as Israel tries to manage its withdrawal from Gaza -- indicating that even "moral clarity" can be calibrated to the exigencies of diplomacy. Doesn't that sound a tad French?

More broadly, we wonder if policy towards Israel is a potential chink in Dick and George's pan-Christian Front. This Front encompasses everyone from Evangelical Zionists who believe that the Jewish State is a necessary precursor to Armageddon, to the details men in the Vatican diplomatic corps who fuss about the distinctions between 1948 and 1967 borders in Jerusalem, access to the Holy Sites, and who, frankly, aren't a million miles removed from the Vatican that snoozed through the Holocaust.

Regardless of these meanderings, the specific issue could be settled a simple question to the White House: are terrorist attacks in Israel covered under the Global War on Terror? Follow-up: if so, why didn't Cheney list them?