ISRAEL has spent the weekend asking herself "where did the latest suicide bomber come from?" and "where did she learn her techniques?"

Once Israel found the answers, she took revenge, flattening what she believed to be Hanadi Jaradat's house in Jenin and then destroying what she believed to be a terrorist-training camp in Syria.

The attack on Syria, an independent sovereign state, is a significant escalation in these worrying times in the Middle East. Fortunately, the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, appears to be too weak at the moment to make an issue out of the infringement of his territory. Terrorist groups undoubtedly will.

Given recent world events, it is difficult to argue that Israel is not within her rights to unilaterally attack another country she accuses of spreading terror. After all, this is exactly what the US, with the help of Britain, has done in Iraq.

Yesterday, Israel's vice-premier, Ehud Olmert, sounded horrifyingly chilling when he said his country would continue, regardless of international opinion.

''The world will have to accept our decisions,'' he said - which is effectively what US President George Bush said when he failed to get United Nations' support for his action against Iraq.

So we in Britain cannot adopt the moral high ground and urge caution upon Israel as she attempts to stem what are illegal and unjustifiable attacks upon her people.

We can, though, urge that she asks herself the right questions.

First: "Why did the suicide bomber do it?" The answer to that is simple: Jaradat, a trainee lawyer, killed 19 Israelis in revenge for the Israeli army killing her brother and cousin in a raid.

From that follows the question: "Is Israel's current policy of meeting violence with violence working?" The answer to that is simple, too. No.

The policy is creating more suicide bombers, who are killing even more innocent Israeli people, which triggers yet more army raids that only create another generation of suicide bombers...

Someone, somewhere has to be big enough to break this vicious circle, but at the moment all Israel is doing by attacking Syria is making that circle wider.