As a former terrorist (in Palestine, 1946-47), let me tell you that Gordon Brown is right to extricate the UK from Iraq, but he is dead wrong when he argues that suicide bombers can be deterred in the same way as criminals. "Terrorism is not a cause; it is a crime," Mr Brown recently said. Someone needs to explain to the new British primeminister that changing labels does not modify what is in the bottle.

More important, suicide bombers, as a rule, cannot be hauled into a court,or brought to justice, or deterred bythe threat of life in prison. Whatgives pause to criminals has littleeffect on terrorists. We had a cause - independence from Britain and the quest for national self-expression - andnothing, not even hanging, slowed us down.