If it wasn't so foolhardy and dangerous. The idea of a 72 hour "unilateral" ceasefire on the part of Israel is so ridiculous as to contemptible at this point.

So, E.J. Dionne, should the Israelis just sit back for 72 hours and gleefully watch the rockets and missiles fall on their cities to prove what to you and others? After the repeated failures of the "international community" you now have confidence in it to solve this problem during a ceasefire, while Hezbollah would obviously be moving the rockets and missiles around and reconfirming its Israeli targets?

I think not. Your ideas would have been very well received in the 1930's by Neville Chamberlain, but the ever more wise Winston Churchill would have appropriately and undoubtably treated them with all due contempt.