I’m not sure where this came from, or why you think its a valid comparison, but what the hell…I’ll play along.
Lets assume that a radical anti-American militia group formed in Mexico. This group decided that they wanted to gain back all the territory in the South West that was at one time Mexican. To do this they started to launch sporatic raids into the US, occationally launching terror type operations against the populace, occationally raids on our military. This goes on more or less periodically for a few decades. Then they ‘started lobbing shells into the US’.
Oh yeah…and the Mexican government comes out with a statement to the effect that this militant group, while not directly under their control, is part of their ‘defense’ against further US aggression or invasion. And that their aims are valid, though of course not shared by the Mexican government wink wink, nudge nudge. Oh, and this terror group has wide spread support from the Mexican people.
Ok…so, what would we do? I suppose initially we would try the diplomatic route. We’d tell the Mexican government that they need to control militant groups within their borders, etc. If the Mexican government threw up its hands and said ‘we are helpless to do anything about them, we are just poor and weak’, blah blah blah, we’d probably offer to take care of the problem for them…or perhaps take it to the United Nations and seek international aid to help the poor Mexican’s get rid of their popularly supported militant group. Failing that, we’d probably start imposing economic sanctions and increase the pressure on Mexico to do something about these attacks. If none of this stuff worked ( :dubious: ), then we would most likely start taking matters into our own hands militarily. Perhaps we’d start with cross border Special Forces type raids, maybe air strikes. Its hard to say and would depend on the level of attacks we were sustaining…especially the citizens in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California (especially California).
You are dreaming if you think that only GW would pursue a military option, that a more moderate (or left wing) President would do nothing or hem and haw…not if it was our citizens under threat. Because, you see, any president who would do nothing (or any one in the Congress/Senate, or any local Governor, etc) who did nothing, or urged restraint in the face of such attacks would not stay President, Congressman, Senator, Governor, etc, for very long. There would be a hue and cry (especially in those states effected) to DO something. Especially as this thing dragged on for decades.
Of course, the analogy totally doesn’t work because frankly the US is THE worlds hyperpower…and Israel, while powerful in its own right, is definitely nothing more than a regional power. The US has clout and means that the Israeli’s can only dream of. Just the threat of economic sanctions from the US would be enough to bring either Mexico or Canada in line for something like this. An option not exactly open to Israel. In addition, the US is one of the UNSC members…giving us a huge amount of power from that perspective. Finally, though the IDF is a powerful regional force, the US military is light years ahead capability wise.
That answer your hijack well enough? 
-XT