One of the quotes from a 1974 movie called the The Marathon Man was “is it safe?” Is it safe to be Jew in New York City, 30 years after the War? According to movie, not if the Nazi Szell is on the loose. But to some extent the more general question is “is it safe” to be a Jew in South America, because having been assured that the world is only against Israel, against Zionism, against the occupation of Palestinian territory — and not against being a Jew in itself — then surely there’s no harm in attending a synagogue in Argenina, now is there?

The interesting thing about Hezbollah’s growth in South America is that it predates 9/11. It comes before Operation Iraqi Freedom. It happened even before GWB — that source of all evil — was elected. So the theory that Iran was somehow recently stung into vengeful action is a little hard to explain.

Maybe the more reasonable explanation is that terrorist organizations, like any other, have an incentive to keep growing. And in their case, to keep killing. It’s what they do after all. And rather than finding excuses to blame ourselves for their murderous activity it might be more useful to conclude that narco-terrorists are motivated by money and nastiness and Islamic terrorists largely driven by the same. Then all that remains is to decide what to do about it.