Bradley Burston, Haaretz, December 20:
“What is it about Israelis that makes them smile when Palestinians rejoice at the misfortunes of the Jews?
“What is it about the people of this country that gives them a feeling of validation when newscasters describe gunmen of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza firing in the air and handing out baklava and candies to celebrate word of Ariel Sharon’s stroke?
“What is this masochistic revelling in the darkly ironic and the painfully ambivalent, the perverse surge of pleasure in the sense that all is somehow right in the world when the childish behaviour of a few members of the other side confirms one’s deepest fears and, yes, unspoken racism.”