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I have always been a great admirer of freelance journalist Michael J. Totten, even after he signed onto the usually laughable Pajamas Media network. A writer has to live, and since Totten continues to produce great work (now bound and available) I don't consider his slipping into Pajamas a mark of his selling out or jumping any sharks. No, I've read him long enough to know that at his weakest, he has always written passages like this:

Israel wants nothing more than peace and normal relations with its neighbors, including its Syrian neighbors, but that feeling has never been reciprocated by the majority of Syrians and is certainly not reciprocated by the Syrian government. [My italics]

And even head-scratchers like this:

The Israelis therefore have every reason to believe that a large crown of people dismantling the border fence and crossing into their territory is a threat. And as it turned out, they were at least a little bit right. Many threw rocks, and 10 Israeli soldiers were injured.

One can discern a decent writer's strain easily when he or she resorts to flabby, feeble language in an attempt to neatly sign and seal an otherwise bogus argument. The Israelis were "a little bit right" that a large crowd of people had the capacity to throw rocks. So after ten soldiers were injured (I'm expecting mildly, until it's proven otherwise) the army eschewed tear gas, opened fire, and ten protestors caught their last breath of fresh air.

To this day I've yet to wrap my head around the notion, prevalent among intelligent but uncritical supporters of Israel, that the world's second most developed, equipped and uninhibited army has anything to fear from a crowd of gangly stone-throwers. (Don't try and peg me as an Erdogan groupie: I'm well aware of the lethal hypocrisy the fumes of populism obscure.) Totten goes on to place the calamity at the border within the context of the Syrian uprising:

No doubt the Syrian government is thrilled that the Israelis opened fire. Bashar al-Assad desperately wants his furious citizens to think of the “Zionist Entity,” rather than his Arab Socialist Baath Party, as their number one enemy.

Point taken. And thrown back, if I may. Yes, Assad is the worst enemy of Syrians, but why did the Israelis have to open fire and neutralize ten people at the border rather than break up the ruckus with tear gas, like any standard pacification of an enflamed but unarmed crowd? Might the IDF pursue a strategy that doesn't have the effect of "thrilling" Arab dictatorships? Are Syrians wrong to see Israel as their enemy as well?

Regardless, Totten is right that the protests on the borders with Syria and Lebanon were, at least in part, organized political theater. As usual, I end up agreeing with his overarching point with a sour taste in my mouth after swallowing some seriously junk premises.