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What it comes down to is which side you want to start with. If you begin along the chain with the Palestinians bombing the Israelis, then the Palestinians are in the wrong and every Israeli act of violence is justified. Start with the Israelis bombing the Palestinians, and the Israelis are the villains.
It's a vicious cycle, and a rather complex situation. It also seems like many people today who take up the argument over which side is right don't focus over why there's currently a dispute, only that side A is attacking side B, causing side B to retaliate.
I don't believe that violence on the part of either is really "right," but I can understand the Israeli point of view a little better than I can the Palestinians' (and I will note that I'm probably biased because I've been to Israel many times in my life). The government has a responsibility to protect its citizens and the state that it controls; when you have a group of people at your borders calling for the death of every single person within your borders and for the complete destruction of your state, one must really ask what sort of reasoning can be done. As we all know, it isn't exactly conventional, either. It isn't a government declaration; if the Israeli government has any lines of communication to the leaders of these groups, I'd imagine that they're very thin. Negotiation, therefore, becomes difficult in that alone, and it's only made worse by the bloodlust instilled into the opposing people. In some ways, it seems almost cult-like; I mean, you have fanatics that are willing to kill themselves to take down 20 people. To the common person, this shows that something is wrong; it's barbaric, it's violent, and above all, it's dangerous. To the Palestinians' credit, I suppose one could say that they do it out of desperation. What better way to attract attention to your cause than by stirring things up? They don't have the power to disrupt economies, and they don't have the ability to broadcast their stance. This gives them press, and it forces the issue to be discussed (land disputes are the origin of all of this, if I remember correctly, though now it's that combined with a number of inhumane crimes and such).
In light of such a mentality, what can Israel do? They were negotiating with Arafat to work with him to get rid of the fanatics (terrorists seems to be the word of choice these days), but Arafat, obviously put between "a rock and a hard place," couldn't do much, and even performed some acts that could be considered detrimental to the cause (releasing prisoners from jail in response to an Israeli raid that was in response to a bombing that was in response to...). Israel is likely resorting to scare tactics because they can't really do anything else but to try to remove the dangerous ideologists and scare the rest into not thinking that way.
Obviously the best solution would be one of understanding: Israel is there to stay, and so is Palestine. The Palestinians should realize that demanding that Israel just get up and move because they're on "their" land is completely unreasonable, and that their acts are detrimental to their own future. As I've said before, I'm biased, and I do sympathize with Israel. I don't like that they go and seek retribution every time a fanatic blows himself up, but whether they do or don't, more fanatics will come. Though I may be misunderstanding this point myself, I believe that many people don't see this clearly. The Palestinian terror forces may currently be riding on the anger of Israeli military raids and killings, but even if Israel were to completely halt their attacks, the Palestinian groups would still keep coming at Israel. They want Israel completely removed; there's no reasoning with that. In such a situation, not striking back is submissive; it's a sign of weakness, it allows them to gather securely and put up stronger attacks, and people can join in without fear of retaliation.
It's a very problematic situation, and it won't be resolved until more understanding comes into the minds of the Palestinians. I've never heard of an Israeli seriously desiring the destruction of every single Palestinian, but I have heard of many Palestinians desiring the destruction of Israel and its inhabitants, and that sort of mentality is what drives the fundamentalist terror forces.
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