LONDON -- Fifteen Israelis, half of them children, were killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Sbarro's pizzeria in Jerusalem on Thursday. A comparable number were killed by a suicide bomber at a Tel Aviv disco in June. These outrages have a far greater impact on public opinion at home and abroad than the daily death toll on Israel's roads -- but then, the bombs are intended to have a huge impact.
"Nothing is gained by cowardly acts such as this," said U.S. President George W. Bush after the Jerusalem bombing, using a formula that must be pasted on the teleprompter by now. It's what he had to say -- what everybody in authority is obliged to say when these things happen -- but, of course, it isn't true.
Blowing oneself up may be misguided, vicious, any number of negative things, but "cowardly" isn't one of them. And the 23-year-old man who detonated the bomb in Sbarro's did expect it to gain something. He may be right.