Gee, something that has NOTHING to do with Israel...

Refreshing...for a change.

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the US media became preoccupied with a key question: "Why do they hate us so much?" A fair-minded people, the Americans believed there must be a good, rational explanation why 19 educated, economically comfortable young men would ram planes into buildings, killing themselves along with thousands of innocents.

Among the many reasons proffered, one that appeared frequently - and drew concern in Jerusalem - was that it was all due to US support for Israel. If the US would only toe a more pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian line, this argument ran, then the Arab and Muslim masses wouldn't hate it so.

The events in Paris over the last 12 days have confirmed the vacuity of this argument.

Since the mid-1960s, France has consistently been among the most pro-Arab countries in western Europe.

Indeed, one can make a compelling argument that one reason French President Jacques Chirac was so opposed to the US war in Iraq was that he believed this would give France special status among the world's Muslims.

France, unlike the US, cannot be accused of a pro-Israeli slant. Nevertheless, its Muslim youth are rioting in the banlieues of Paris. Though it is too early to dissect this ongoing French revolution, one thing that can already be said is that these rioters hate France - otherwise they wouldn't be destroying its property and setting fire to its towns and suburbs.

And this hatred of France has nothing to do with Israel.

Why is this important to state? Because for too long much of the West, with France at the vanguard, has tried to paper over its real conflict with radical Islam with the argument that if only a solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict could be found, then all would be well with the world and Islamic enmity would disappear.