Daniel Byman, writing in the Los Angeles Times, has his numbers wrong, though he agrees Israel's policy of targeted assassinations has worked to reduce attacks in the current intifada.

Since the recent intifada killed more than 1,000 Israelis, the 172 killed in 2002 could not be the high year in a five year period, as Byman claims. In fact, 450 Israelis were killed in terror attacks that year. Last year, the toll from terror attacks was a tenth of that. Targeted assassinations was only one reason for the sharp fall in successful terror attacks. The other was construction of the security barrier in the West Bank.

Richard Baehr   1 20 06