First, this is evil, and the Jewish terrorists responsible for it (or whoever else the guilty party may be) should be punished mercilessly. (Had there been any fatalities, I'd support the death penalty.) No "but" is applicable to the perpetrators.
That's all that should be said, and I know it's not worth it to waste cyberspace on this guy, but Eric Alterman really pushed my buttons with this post:

Ariel Sharon cannot or will not control the Jewish settler/terrorists. Perhaps he should be exiled from Israel and replaced with a leader of the Palestinians’ choosing. Also, the homes of the families of the Jewish settler terrorists should be blown up and their families should be exiled. Also, all the Jewish settlers who look like they might be terrorists should be jailed without trial and tortured. These people, after all, just don’t value human life the way we do.
Assuming Alterman is being grossly tongue-in-cheek, his real point is one of moral equivalene. And he's right to a degree; there is no moral difference between an Arab and a Jewish terrorist. But (and it feels ridiculous to have to point this out, but Alterman obviously does not get it) - the fact that individuals on both sides commit immoral acts do not mean that the two societies are morally equivalent.
When the Israelis:
1) grant extensive government support to groups like those who planted the bombs in question;
2) feature mothers who exhort their sons to kill themselves as long as they kill other innocent people as well (click here for another one)
(NOTE: The horrifying video links may no longer be working; I will attempt to update the links if this continues. Click here for a photo of Hamas family values.); and
3) feature waves of suicide bombers whose families are paid off by Iraq and Saudi Arabia (thus representing enemies (a) who are non-deterrable by conventional means and (b) whose families have a substantial incentive to encourage their career choice; see #2 above - the two unique factors behind the idea of destroying houses and/or exiling family members),
then Alterman can be taken seriously when he assumes a moral equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian societies. Until then, the correlation with and links between Palestinian society and its terrorists are far greater than those on the Israeli side, and our foreign policy deserves to reflect that disparity.
Recognition of the differences between Israeli and Palestinian society would seem to be a necessary precondition of an intellectually sophisticated approach to the conflict in the Middle East. But Alterman refuses to credit these nuances, preferring to see a black-and-white world where all are equally responsible for evil. Alterman's approach is appallingly simplistic. Is he channelling the spirit of the current president, whom he despises so? At least Bush correctly identifies black and white...