Nazareth Attack Underscores Threat

In April 2002, as the IDF besieged terrorists who had holed up in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, Italy's La Stampa newspaper ran a front page cartoon depicting a baby Jesus crouching in his manger, threatened by an Israeli tank, with the caption, "Oh, no! They don't want to kill me again?!"

It will be interesting to see what the Turin-based newspaper puts on its front page on Thursday, following the firing of a fatal Katyusha rocket Wednesday on Nazareth that killed two children.

When a farmer in Indiana hears that rockets killed an Israeli in Safed, or that Katyushas have hit Tiberias, both of which are among Judaism's four holy cities, it doesn't click. The religious context is missing, and there is little appreciation of the historical sites in those cities. But when he hears that rockets are crashing down on Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, it casts the situation in a different light, making it more real.