Lee Smith: Michael Oren, Israel's U.S. ambassador, says Washington will always need his country as an ally - '...if Israel's adversaries believe that they can put Israel on the defensive by shaming it in the court of public opinion through the use of human shields, Oren says, they may have miscalculated. For if the Jewish state is condemned when it plays by the normal rules of warfare that apply to the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, then maybe Israel will stop trying to figure out how to satisfy the capricious dictates of the international community and act to defend itself and defeat its enemies. "Our critics don't get it," Oren said. "In Jenin, we went house-to-house and sent 23 soldiers to their death. But if we're going to be called war criminals no matter what we do, then maybe that changes our thinking."'