Obama’s First Test

It certainly does seem like there are various bad actors wanting to get their licks in before the adults take over – or, perhaps, while we collectively have so much on our plates we can’t notice one more thing.
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KT – your cited story says that “Israel’s strike on Gaza had been expected for days, but it was still a surprise when it finally came.” I’m not clear why it was a surprise if it was expected. Can you enlighten me?
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Someone last night (don’t remember who) said the mutual attacks were a result of discontent by both sides with the cease fire just brokered.
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MSNBC now says on the web site that 270 have been killed.
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Kathy, what I’m getting from my reading this morning is that everyone expected a retaliatory attack, but nothing like this. Will edit the post.

KT – yes, that was my sense too. Thanks for the change. This is such a heartbreaking story.
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I did hear someone (Israeli envoy stationed in Boston, on NECN) talking about Hamas using civilians as a shield. He said that Israeli wanted to kill members of Hamas and unintentionally hits civilians, and that Hamas wants to kill civilians. Um, this is pretty lame. If true it presents a dilemma for Israel in how to respond, but it is undeniably 1 Israeli dead, 270 Palestinians dead.

kathy
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From what I read on several different sites the reason it wasn’t expected is because the Israelis deliberately misled the people in Gaza to believe that they were waiting to meet today to decide on on any military action. Besides that there is evidence that these strikes have been planned ofr months, long before the ceasefire ended and supposedly the Israelis were on the one hand negotiating in “good faith” for a new ceasefire agreement and on the other hand planning these actions. Now mind you I don’t known all the ins and outs of everything. But I DO know that during the ceasefire Hamas curtailed the militants firing off rockets to less than one a day while Israel did none of the things they said they would do as far as opening up their borders. I linked to a Huffington Post article last night on the other thread. Its a really really good primer on all of this.
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For once other countries are calling Israel out for their overkill. (The EU has even denounced the actions) Everybody except the US of course. We are saying Israel has a right to defend itself. Well I thought of this analogy. If a person throws a hundred rocks at me and none of them ever hit me then in response I pull out an AK 47 and mow him down in a spray of bullets how many juries do you think would by my “self defense” defense?

sgw- remember the invasion of Lebanaon a year or so ago? The IC came out against that “overkill”, too. and Condi just encouraged the Israeli military while Lebanon was reduced to rubble in large swathes.

Israel has learned well from its benefactor.

KT
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I just read your note on the Shaka thread. I want you to know that I wasn’t singling you out. If you go to Joe Klein’s thread on Afghanistan you will see me commenting about the Gaza attack very early in the morning. I also want you to know that I had already read the offerings up from time on the subject that weren’t on the Swampland blogs.
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Here is my thing and I know that none of you work for me or are here to do my bidding but whether you are a foreign policy wonk or not a story about 200 something people getting killed and 700 other people being injured including children in both categories to me would have merited a post if it had happened in Europe or China or Russia but because it happened in the Gaza strip it seemed like not only Swampland but many other very popular blogs just decided not to touch it. Go to TPM, go to Juan Coles place, go to Spencer Ackermans spot (all usually good on foreign policy)and you will find maybe a brief snippet about it if that. Why is that?
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Whether you think Israel is right or the Palestinians are right or you don’t think anybody is right I think that many times blogs are and can be useful as a sounding board. I think it would have been good for instance to have a post up yesterday where many of the very informed people who normally post here could have had an outlet to express what their views are on the situation. And what the US response should be to it.
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BTW I don’t know if many people realize this but many christians believe that a WW that starts with Israel would be a sign of the end times. And sooner or later if Israel keeps this up some Arab country is going to feel compelled to come to Palestines rescue and at that point all hell could break loose. Maybe at somepoint that should be an angle to explore. But I digress.
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Like kathy said above, its not hard in my opinion to write a post that says 1 dead on one side 227 dead on the other. So if its the fact that the story is about Israel and THATS the reason why everybody is hesitant to write about it then to me the whole “I don’t know about that” excuse falls flat. I would have a hard time believing that Joe Klein doesn’t know about the conflict over there and yet he put up a post yesterday instead about afghanistan and then hauled ass.

This is where I recuse myself from the conversation because the whole ‘logic’ of warfare is something that remains beyond my understanding. We are each morally responsible for our own actions. To hold individuals responsible for the acts of those around them flies in the face of the way I understand the world. People who launch expolsives in the direction of other humans are murderers. People who die in such attacks are innocent victims. Who’s ‘side’ anyone represents is irrelevant to the discussion.

here is the link to an israeli newspaper and their accounts of what is going on. It is admittedly biased but even they don’t agree with all of the military actions.
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http://www.haaretz.com/
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Also isn’t it funny how the U.S. chose to wait to denounce the rocket attacks coming from the Gaza strip until AFTER Israel had killed over 200 palestinians?
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Definitely not funny ha ha.

So the international community is watching how the President-elect and his incoming Secretary of State will react to the Israeli attack on Gaza…
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Are they supposed to race to DC and elbow W out of the White House and Condi out of the State Department and take over? Would that be considered a coup or simply justifiable? I am more than eager to have the entire Bush team out, but…
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Death toll now approaching 290. Shocking.

ivb
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Unfortunately it seems that Obama himself even if he was in office might be reciting the same rhetoric as the Bushies. His stance on Israel was one of maybe 3 things that actually gave me pause about his presidency. There shouldn’t be a country on the face of this planet that we pledge blind loyalty to no matter what their actions. Period.

ivb: of course not, but presumably this is a crisis that will last until jan. 20 and beyond.

sgw, I agree with you. I was also concerned about his stance on this. However, all this drumbeat about what he must do does annoy me since he is in fact not president yet.

I disagree, ivb. I think it is important for him to send a signal of where he stands on this, and what U.S. posture will be. After all, in only three weeks, he will be our one-President-at-a-time.

“There shouldn’t be a country on the face of this planet that we pledge blind loyalty to no matter what their actions.”
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I guess since we have so much in common we can’t help ourselves.
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The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.
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http://www.juancole.com/

Axelrod was on “Meet the Press” this morning. Here’s M.J. Rosenberg’s read at TPM:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/28/obama_refuses_to_endorse_gaza/

I missed it, and will post the relevant part of the transcript when I get it. He was also on “Face the Nation.”

KT
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What if he disagrees with Bush. He could set off WW3 before he ever takes office. Sorry I am not buying that one

“I think it is important for him to send a signal of where he stands on this, and what U.S. posture will be. After all, in only three weeks, he will be our one-President-at-a-time.”
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KT-GWB is as lame a duck as he can get right now. There is no other leadership. All of the parties know full well that however, is it possible Obama could still over reach and be accused of taking charge too soon?

KT
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That post from Rosenberg sounds like the worst kind of wishful thinking. Seriously

I think it is important for him to send a signal of where he stands on this, and what U.S. posture will be. After all, in only three weeks, he will be our one-President-at-a-time.
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Agreed. It’s important for all the parties involved to have a solid understanding of what US policy will be in 4 weeks. Maybe if this had happened in mid-November it would be different.
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I can’t truly understand why the Israeli government would think this is a good idea. It’s so obviously counterproductive.

gunny: i agree it is a fine line, but i also agree with the second sentence of your post. i think at this point, no one in the world community really cares what president bush thinks.

Uhmmm The UN Security council had a meetinng last night where Libya was trying to get them to strongly condemn Israel and threaten them. It was pooh pooed by the US ambassador and others and all you got out of it was a strongly worded letter. If Obama signals he doesn’t agree with Bush he could potentially give Arab nations and others reason to more forcefully come out against Israel which could include military action or terrorist acts. Is a dangerous line for Obama right now when all he controls is his mouth.

SG: Or he could push everybody back to the table. I understand it is a fine line and has to be done delicately. But I do think the world is looking at him right now.

Don’t forget that Israel hasn’t stopped attacking and they say they won’t any time soon. If they invade like it looks like they might whats to stop Iran or Lebanon or Libya or any other Arab country from sending troops to turn back the Israelis if they interpret Obama as saying that Israel is wrong?

SG: You seem to be assuming he thinks that Israel is wrong. I don’t know that.

KT
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Bring them back to the table with Bush? To quote Keyshawn Johnson on NFL Countdown “Cmon Man”
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In three weeks the world could be gone as we know it with the wrong move. Aint a damm thing Obama can say that will stop Israel from attacking during these next 3 weeks while Bush is still in office and he endorses them. But it could spur Arab nations into acting. Not a good thing when you have Bush’s trigger happy ass still as CIC. You know he would love to be the president that brought about the rapture.

Might Obama’s silence also embolden Arab nations if it is taken as a sign that he DOESN’T agree with Bush?

KT
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I didn’t assume anything. What I said was the potential would be in if Obama came out against Bush’s stance. See let me show you.
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What if he disagrees with Bush. He could set off WW3 before he ever takes offic thats @16
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Now as far as if Israel is wrong in their military action. Yes I believe they are wrong and if anybody says they don’t know if they are wrong or think they aren’t I just ask them to make a case for the disproportionate use of force that Israel is using. If you can then so be it. If you can’t then they are wrong. Its really just that simple.
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Of course for a more technical analysis you could also use the Geneva conventions Israel is breaking but that would just be over kill.

KT
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No because silence is usually a sign of agreement. Besides that you have Obama on record saying he stands with Israel for ever and always against the palestinians AND you have the letter Obama sent to ZalKal telling him to tell the UN Security counsel to STFU on Israel unless they were ready to denounce Hamas. Records and words do mean something ya know.

KT
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Did you think it was wrong when Russia attacked Georgia and claimed self defense?

Argh, sg, don’t do this to me. Foreign policy is really not my expertise. All I know is that this seems to make things a lot harder for Obama to carry out his ambitious Middle East peace initiative. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see a statement from him in the near future that brings some clarity to this.

KT
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I am asking you as a human being what you thought when Russia attacked Georgia. I think we are all so stuck on whether we are “qualified” to make a judgement on whats going on in Gaza but some things don’t need a college degree. Right is usually right and wrong is usually wrong.
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Palestinians 1
Israel 270
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Isn’t this the exact behavior an occupational imperial force would engage in? You take one of ours, we take a hundred of yours. The oppressed become the oppressor. Not a surprise. At some point you stop getting a pass on the Holocaust and must be judged by your actions. Israel’s actions demonstrated the kind of craven disregard for human life that comes from the belief that the Palestinians are ‘sub human’.
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I always laugh when the conventional wisdom is uttered that social security is the third rail of American politics…it’s the Israel stupid.

The neighborhood bully strikes again by Gordon Levy

Blood will now flow like water. Besieged and impoverished Gaza, the city of refugees, will pay the main price. But blood will also be unnecessarily spilled on our side. In its foolishness, Hamas brought this on itself and on its people, but this does not excuse Israel’s overreaction.
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The history of the Middle East is repeating itself with despairing precision. Just the frequency is increasing. If we enjoyed nine years of quiet between the Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War, now we launch wars every two years. As such, Israel proves that there is no connection between its public relations talking points that speak of peace, and its belligerent conduct.
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Israel also proves that it has not internalized the lessons of the previous war. Once again, this war was preceded by a frighteningly uniform public dialogue in which only one voice was heard – that which called for striking, destroying, starving and killing, that which incited and prodded for the commission of war crimes.
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Once again the commentators sat in television studios yesterday and hailed the combat jets that bombed police stations, where officers responsible for maintaining order on the streets work. Once again, they urged against letting up and in favor of continuing the assault. Once again, the journalists described the pictures of the damaged house in Netivot as “a difficult scene.” Once again, we had the nerve to complain about how the world was transmitting images from Gaza. And once again we need to wait a few more days until an alternative voice finally rises from the darkness, the voice of wisdom and morality.
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In another week or two, those same pundits who called for blows and more blows will compete among themselves in leveling criticism at this war. And once again this will be gravely late.
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The pictures that flooded television screens around the world yesterday showed a parade of corpses and wounded being loaded into and unloaded from the trunks of private cars that transported them to the only hospital in Gaza worthy of being called a hospital. Perhaps we once again need to remember that we are dealing with a wretched, battered strip of land, most of whose population consists of the children of refugees who have endured inhumane tribulations.
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For two and a half years, they have been caged and ostracized by the whole world. The line of thinking that states that through war we will gain new allies in the Strip; that abusing the population and killing its sons will sear this into their consciousness; and that a military operation would suffice in toppling an entrenched regime and thus replace it with another one friendlier to us is no more than lunacy.
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050459.html

Greenwald breaks the down the official American politician’s response
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/28/peretz/index.html

SG, (and aren’t we going OT here?), the more I’ve tried to read about it, the more confused I’ve become about what really happened:
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http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9805E5DF1130F934A35752C1A96E9C8B63

Mr. Swamp, our household foreign policy expert, is hard at work on his story in the other room, but every time I go in to ask him what he thinks, he barks at me to go away, because he is on deadline. I’ll post a link to his story when he files it.

KT
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You are missing my point. I wasn’t talking about saying who started it. Hell I said Georgia started it from the get go and so did most people who judged it objectively. But even knowing that they started it I also felt Russia was wrong because of he size and scope of their response. Even if Georgia fired on Russia first could you really say that their response was warranted?
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Thats why I brought it up and why I think its actually on topic. We end up judging right and wrong in terms of who are “friends” are and not on the actual facts in front of our eyes.

Did Biden imagine that the “international test” for Obama before he even took office would come from Israel, our “ally”?

A major blow-up of the Arab-Israeli conflict is not what the Obama team was looking for before even the stimulus gets ironed out. Do they drop domestics toi focus on foreign policy? And will Hillary tryo to cut herself loose from the rest of the administration on the very first day?

http://www.political-buzz.com/

In the middle east, “right” and “wrong” are not useful lenses. I’d focus on “best,” and I bet Obama does, too.

pourme
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Yeah but the question is best for whom.

To expect an Obama admin to do anything different on the Israel-Palestine issue is to live in a dream world. The US has no flexibility when dealing with Jerusalem; the domestic pressures here are too strong to allow Obama to strike a markedly different posture. Remember, too, that most of us place a different value on the lives of Arabs and others of darker hue. We have refined our hypocrisy.

A visit to Palestine last year was an eye opener. To visit friends three miles away we travelled 27.4 miles and went through 5 checkpoints. I was questioned closely about what the hell I was doing “with these people”. Try taking your wife to a hospital for confinement at 2 in the morning via the roadblocks. It is impossible to picture the misery of everyday life in Gaza. We are so shocked when they react.

@sgw – Not for whom, but for what. The best outcome, as I see it, is a disciplined framework that, to the greatest extent, looks past labels and historical grievances in favor of the legitimate going-forward concerns of both parties. The worst outcome is a passion-filled free-for-all of labels and judgment.

pmc: everyone concerned is prisoner to powerful interests: The US to AIPAC, the Israelis to the Settlers and the Palestinians to the “Let’s Wipe out Israel Brigade”. There is a lot of goodwill among Israelis who want a just and equitable settlement; but they are drowned out. In fcat, you will find far more energetic debate within Israel about this issue than you will find here. Your statement in unexceptionable. But you assume everyone will behave rationally.

Peace in the middle east will come when the parties and world community consistently define the issues as neutral, mutually agreed upon goals like “security,” “autonomy,” and similar. This creates a less charged atmosphere where all parties can set off a few sparks without causing an explosion. This lens also properly defines victory as a workable agreement and creates pressure to achieve it. If every line item is wired as a binary win/lose toggle switch, it will always be dark. We all lose every second the media covers the middle east in terms of who is right and who is wrong. Wrong should be defined by the world as failing to reach a workable agreement and both parties should be held aggressively to THAT standard. I have no illusions about “fairness” in the region. I long ago concluded that this is a moving target, and what’s needed are leaders nimble enough to go and get it.

Peace in the middle east will come when the parties and world community consistently define the issues as neutral, mutually agreed upon goals like “security,” “autonomy,” and similar.
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Never going to happen. As Americans, we think it’s perfectly reasonable for everyone to sit down and talk their problems out, and we can’t understand why they don’t.
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But between the oil, the religion, and the history, none of these people are willing to talk about it for any longer than they have to.
And this is without considering how deeply our politicians are committed to Israel’s cause, for whatever reason.

Never going to happen.

Oh, okay.

pourme
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You have both sides of the argument saying that the land is theirs many of them saying the land is their divine right. How exactly do you “neutrally” negotiate that away?
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I could also point out that one side has all the nice shiny new weapons which we keep giving them. Kind of takes away even the appearance of impartiality doesn’t it?

pourme – I guess you could have asked Santa to drop off some rational debate in Israel on his way to distribute magical toys to the children of the world, but you kinda missed that window. Maybe next year.

Not only do the people who live in the Gaza strip have to live with being collectively punished because of Hamas, they also can’t leave because Egypt won’t allow them across their border. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050618.html
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Gaza residents on Sunday breached the border fence with Egypt in several places and hundreds have crossed the frontier prompting Egyptian border guards to open fire, said officials and witnesses on both sides of the border.
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The breach came one day after Israel launched the largest Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip since it captured the territory in 1967, leaving some 286 people dead and scores wounded.
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An Egyptian security official said there were at least five breaches along the 9 mile (14 kilometer) border and hundreds of Palestinian residents were pouring in.
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At least 300 Egyptian border guards rushed to the area to reseal the border, the official added on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
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A resident of the Gaza Strip side of the border, Fida Kishta, said that Egyptian border guards opened fire to drive back the Palestinians. Residents also commandeered a bulldozer to open new breaches.

@sgw – I don’t find it rational to hold strong opinions that go beyond the framework for negotiation. It may seem naive, but I think there is a world of difference between asking the question, “Was this a terrorist attack by Israel?” and “What conditions need to be in place for Israel to feel secure?” The same goes for the missile attacks and Palestinian security. Lower the temperature. Stay on the underlying questions. Have the world community read from this same hymnal. Let time and pressure take its course. It carved the Grand Canyon; it can do the trick in the middle east. Defuse and re-frame every conflict. Lather, rinse, repeat. Of course it is difficult. But, stop demonizing the parties.

Cliff – It’s hard. I get it.

Egypt found a way past history and geography to peace. I know. “But …”

pourme
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That all sounds good on this message board but I doubt if the people who are getting the hell bombed out of their homes and loved ones feel like having a rational conversation at this point.

@sgw – Of course they don’t. And I’d be made if you raped Kitty Dukakis, too.

Egypt also has their own fighter planes and tanks. Lets not forget that part.

I think, unfortunately, Israel won’t learn a lesson from this until they cause so much collateral carnage that it turns the stomach of the Israelis themselves (along with the rest of the world).
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Olmerts’ comments about “San Diego” and “Tiajuana” are a joke in the extreme, if I might say so.
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After all, we don’t hold Tiajuana as a giant open-air prison.
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Even their allowing in of humanitarian aid is a joke. They attack fuel trucks while sending them limited amounts of fuel, and in southern Gaza, they attack stockpiles of goods because they believe “they might include weapons”.
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Well they might, however, this is the age of cheap rocketry. The paradigm has changed, but the Israelis don’t know it yet…

This moment in time feels to me like the birth of an idea, midwifed by some, that Israel is (and has been all along) “wrong/bad” and Palestinians are “right/good.” This is a great way to terrify Israel into an entrenched, right-wing government. I predict Obama will do the right thing by playing past the drama altogether and refusing to characterize the parties, focusing instead on the underlying principles applied to all. “For security in the region, we need …”, “For autonomy in the region, we need …”

pourme
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Israel IS wrong in this situation. PERIOD. Any other equivalencies or qualifiers are only self serving. I am hopeful that Obama won’t automatically side with the Israelis but I am somewhat sure that he will.

The residents of the Gaza Strip side of the border are blocked from crossing into Israel. Blocking aid, food and supplies is what the Sudanese gov’t has been doing to the Southern Sudanese for decades.
This is against international law.
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Although I don’t condone Hamas for firing missiles into Israel, the Israeli gov’t should not be blocking the borders and bombing the Gaza Strip.
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That would be like gang members from town A (in the USA) going to town B shooting people up, then town B retaliates on the gangs by bombing town A and killing innocents. Doesn’t make sense. I believe strong, strong diplomacy is the “best” answer.

Remember Dean’s “even-handed broker” comment–hard to believe Obama would dare utter such a thing. I’m finding it hard to believe that his incredible caution heretofore is suddenly going to change into bold, visionary leadership that bucks policies decades in the making. For, in the end, there’s ’12 to consider.

Maybe BHO can have McCain sit the Israelis and the Palestinians down and tell them to cut the sh!t

CNN is now playing the Magic Negro tape and pretending to be disgusted by it.

gysgt
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Did you know Ken “Uncle Tom” Blackwell said there was nothing wrong with it? Sellout is too nice off a word for that jack ass

SG-Wasn’t that Michael “please let me in the big house” Steele?

SG-You are right it was the Uncle Tom and not the house negro.

Worth remembering.

Patterns
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From over at Digby’s.
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CSPAN3 History is showing a fascinating look back at the Iran Contra affair today if you are interested, including press conferences by the likes of Weinberger and Lawrence Walsh.
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If you want to know where the Bush administration got the idea that they could get away with anything, this is a good place to start. Bush Senior pretty much pardoned himself by pardoning those who could have implicated him, thereby shutting down the investigation. If there are no political ramifications, the presidential pardon is the checkmate. And since Democrats have shown they will never pursue such things while Republicans have proved without doubt that they will leave no stone unturned, even to the extent of impeaching a president over a trivial personal matter (and turning the independent counsel’s office into a partisan freak show) the result is the lawless Bush administration. I shudder to think what the next Republican administration will do.
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http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

This moment in time feels to me like the birth of an idea, midwifed by some, that Israel is (and has been all along) “wrong/bad” and Palestinians are “right/good.”
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pourme, obviously that idea is too simplistic. However Israel, like many countries including America, was founded with an “original sin.” Palestinians were pushed out brutally and illegally. There never should have been a single state of Israel in the region; It should have been two states from the start with reparations for Palestinians who moved and left their property.
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There will never be peace in the Middle East until that reality is acknowledged by all states in the region and America. It’s the same with slavery: it is universally condemned and recognized as a fundamental flaw in America that was present from its founding. Sure there is still racism and attempts to deny the lasting impact of slavery and segregation. But not even Sarah Palin is going to deny that slavery was horrible. That said, we can still see merit in America’s founding history. Just as Israel can be proud of its founding after the devastation of WWII and the holocaust. Israel needs to combine that pride with a sincere acknowledgment of the injustices done to Palestinians in order for everyone to achieve a lasting piece.

I want preview!!! The last sentence should read: Israel needs to combine that pride with a sincere acknowledgment of the injustices done to Palestinians in order for everyone to achieve a lasting peace.

uhm rose83
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You do know a couple rethugs said us blackies should thank the white man for bringing us to America as slaves don’t you? BTW other than that I agree with your post.

Definitely worth remembering
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Sadat not only wants peace but profoundly needs it. Egypt, disastrously impoverished and overpopulated, claustrophobically crowded into the life-sustaining Nile Valley, can no longer afford to spend 28% of its national budget on military hardware to aim at Israel. Egypt is also deeply weary of fighting. In the four bloody wars against Israel (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973), Egypt, of all the Arab states, has absorbed the heaviest losses. In ’67 Egypt lost 3,000 killed, v. 600 for the Syrians and 696 for the Jordanians. Today the Nile Valley nationalism always present in the Egyptian character is asserting itself against the larger, Pan-Arab idea. Over and over Egyptian army officers repeat: “No more Egyptian blood will be shed for the Palestinians.”

I don’t see an Obama administration taking a radically different line, but they could take a more constructive approach than Bush & Co’s benign neglect. I thought the Clinton approach in the waning years was promising. (Not saying it was guaranteed to produce result.)
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I agree with SG there’s not much Obama can do. If he signaled that he’ll take a tougher line, that just gives the Israelis a 3-week deadline to inflict as much carnage as possible.
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This is the drawback of fixed 4-year terms. If we had a parliamentary system, Bush would have been recalled on a no-confidence vote years ago.

There is a blog at firedoglake that is keeping up pretty good with conditions on the ground. According to them some UN staffers have been killed in Gaza. KT have you heard anything about this?
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http://firedoglake.com/2008/12/28/on-the-ground-in-gaza/

The extremists on both sides control both the message and the means. This looks like an old movie: “It’s my way or the Die Way”.

UN staffers killed? argh. What a mess.
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I have a stupid question – Israel says to the Palestinians, “hey you civilians, get out of the way! time to leave, we’re gonna bomb those evil Hamas-evil doers.”
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Just where the h*ll are they (the civilians) supposed to go? Gaza is tiny – a lot of people live there. They can’t go into Israel, they can’t go to the West Bank and Egypt has apparently closed the border. And never mind that most of these people are desperately poor…. what a freaking disaster.

kathy Says:
” .. and unintentionally hits civilians, ..”
Collateral damage.
Does it make you feel better when you put it that way? Wars kill civilians mostly – over 80% in WW1 and over 90% in the current Iraq war and possibly higher in sparsely populated Afghanistan by the time BHO ‘sanitizes’ the last Afghani. [Has he told us how we will recognize ‘victory’ in Afghanistan even as he sends more troops there?
So why latch onto that “unintentional” line?

” .. it presents a dilemma for Israel in how to respond ..”
There are combatants in that conflict. Have you ever written the line “it presents a dilemma for Palestinians in how to respond”? If not, then why?

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sgwhiteinfla Says:
” ..For once other countries are calling Israel out for their overkill. “
But what will be the stand of the ‘neutral negotiator’ USA?
1) I noted that Obama’s line-up of his foreign policy team got very enthusiastic response from Jewish-American groups and Israel’s cheerleaders in USA’s legislature, policy boards and MSM. That reaction should have been an indicator of things to come with respect to the prospect of a Middle East peace during Obama’s term(s) in office.

2) BO symphathies toward Israel are suspected: In Chicago, he is said to have had a Jewish-American mentor who played key roles during his political ascendancy. Then here comes Rahm Emmanuel – who wouldn’t pass the 63-point questionnaire for a job in Obama’s administration on account that in his household there were those intimately associated with terrorist acts that killed innocent beings. But he gets a top position in the administration.

3) During BO’s recent visit to the Middle East he made what may be construed as all the right moves by Israel: He seemed to (make delibarate, somewhat desperate, effort to) bond with Israel on an emotional/spiritual level. His contacts with Palestinians and Palestine were abbreviated.

4) Considering how critically Israel depends on USA for its cozy way of life as they know it (at least by the standards in that neighborhood) , it is unlikely – even with the overwhelming goodwill it enjoys among USA’s lawmakers – that Israel would do what would embarrass an incoming President whose responses are unknown. Thus taking #1) into consideration, my impression is that Israel would not react so massively if it didn’t get an OK – or at least no threat of a reprimand – from soon-to-be Pres BHO directly or through a proxy.
–
” .. Joe Klein .. put up a post yesterday instead about Afghanistan and then hauled ass.”
We don’t know whether Joe Klein would have put up a blog about it if the story had been “1 dead in Gaza and 270 dead in Israel”.

Does anyone get a nagging feeling that the USA bears some responsibility? As long as we continue funding the state of Israel with $billions a year, they will always have the open spigot of funds to wage war and they wouldn’t feel the urgency to reach an accommodation .. Moreover, does the end of Israel-Palestine hostilities mean the end or at least the drying up of the $billions from the US tax-payer to Israel – with no say from the tax-payers in Appalachia – which essentially enables Israelis to live better than the over 30 million starving Americans, while hatching the next carnage?

pourmecoffee Says:
“What conditions need to be in place for Israel to feel secure?”

Another view,. please.

Why do those who are NOT citizens of Israel have to be bothered unduly by that question?
We may look back in history and ask: Do we have to worry if they don’t feel secure?
Does the rest of the world have to bother unduly and prop them up if they don’t want to make an accommodation with their neighbors?

Things seem to unfold a certain way. Think of the Incas. The Aztecs. The many North and South American Indians. The many extinct societies of Africa and Asia.

Think about the many endangered tribes and species around the world today that will become essentially extinct by the end of the century.
And the world turns.
Why bother with the security and survival of any one (inherently disruptive and belligerent) group and not the other? [And please do not mention religion. Religions fade too.]

And we are now in the process of razing the remnants of the old civilizations of Mesopotamia .. And we seem to have launched a full frontal and what appears to be a sustained assault on Islam …

So, ..

From Mr. Swamp:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-us-mideast29-2008dec29,0,7248119.story

Israel are world no. 1 terrorist…. ;P

Paul Dirks said: This is where I recuse myself from the conversation because the whole ‘logic’ of warfare is something that remains beyond my understanding. We are each morally responsible for our own actions. To hold individuals responsible for the acts of those around them flies in the face of the way I understand the world. People who launch expolsives in the direction of other humans are murderers. People who die in such attacks are innocent victims. Who’s ‘side’ anyone represents is irrelevant to the discussion.
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I needed to see this get a repeat posting. Until the rest of us understand and practice Paul’s point, we are condemned to a world of war. We each make a choice every day whether to judge others or not. Those decisions, collectively, are what brings us to war or peace.

KT, thanks for posting Mr. Swamp’s article. As well as the reflections about the situation in Gaza, I appreciated his description of Obama’s position and what he is saying / doing now.

Shibley Telhami said on Morning Edition that Obama should be doing exactly what he is doing – not commenting — however, he hoped he was putting together a plan to do something different after he was sworn in. I’m sure he is putting something together.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98778118

Underreported story of the day.

http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2008/12/most-trusted-name-in-news.html

KT
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I am not trying to be funny here but I read Mr Swamp’s article and I swear if I didn’t know better I would have come away thinking that there was an equal amount of bloodshed on both sides. The way he kept saying “violence in the Gaza strip” instead of “deadly airstrikes by the Israeli military” just seemed very sterilized to me. Was he told not to take sides in the article by his higher ups or did he intentionally not touch it so he could keep the focus on Obama? Again I am not saying that he should have condemned the Israelis but I think the record is pretty clear about who is getting killed right now and who is doing the lions share of the killing.

Heard somewhere (ABC?) this morning that UN observers said 51 Palestinians killed, not 270 (or 300). I’ve no idea which is true, but it would not be a surprise for the Palestinians to inflate the numbers killed in order to inflame anti-Israeli sentiment.
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In fact, since we all seem to acknowledge that Hamas started this, it makes very good strategic sense for them to immediately claim great casualties. It astonishes me that Israel doesn’t seem able to find a way to respond without playing into the hand of Hamas, but this might be like saying Bush should have known better than to say “bring it on.”
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My only point here is that we are all getting our information from news sources, or from the Israelis, or from the Palestinians, and it may take some time to sort out what is actually going on.

@kathy,
When a gunman opens fire in a shopping mall here in America, do we evaluate his degree of guilt by noting that his ninth and thenth victims didn’t actually die from their wounds, but are rather in critical condition in the ICU?
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Once we are evaluating morality by body counts, we have already jettisoned any hope at morality.

SG: His was a foreign policy analysis story. He covers the State Department from Washington. He is not on the ground in the MIddle East, but rather, analyzing the situation as it affects U.S. foreign policy.

kathy
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I would LOVE to see the source that only 51 Palestinians are dead because there are reports from the Red Cross that have also confirmed the over 200 deaths that have already been reported.
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Also in what way do you mean we acknowledge that Hamas started this?

KT
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Gotcha. I know this is probably not the right forum but did he give you any insight into his thinking after he finished the piece? I know you said you were asking him about it but he was pushed for time to finish it on deadline but I am just wondering if he had any personal ancedotes about what this might mean for the US going forward.

Kathy, I think this is the report you heard. See end.

NPR.org, December 29, 2008 · Israeli warplanes pounded Hamas targets in Gaza for a third day Monday, hitting buildings and key installations linked to the Islamic group as Israel continued a major offensive that has killed more than 300 Palestinians.
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Israel launched its deadliest attack on Gaza in decades Saturday in hopes of striking a knockout blow against Hamas, which controls the region. The offensive came in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns after Hamas ended a six-month unilateral cease-fire.
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The three-day death toll included seven children younger than 15 who were killed in two separate strikes late Sunday and Monday, medics said. Hospitals report that they are having difficulty coping with casualties.
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Most of those killed since Saturday are thought to have been members of Hamas security forces. The United Nations agency in charge of Palestinian refugees said at least 51 of the dead were civilians.
.

BTW
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If anybody cares MSNBC is still flogging the “Blago scandal”

BTW, did I mention I really hate being thrown back to page one after posting a comment on a subsequent page. It would be a happier New Year without pagination and WITH preview.

SG: This was sort of surprising in his story, don’t you think?:

Malley said he didn’t think the Bush administration would face strong pressure to intervene with the Israelis, given the initial reactions from Arab capitals. He noted that Abbas and the Egyptian government had pointed to the responsibility of Hamas in the violence and that the Arab League appeared in no hurry to take up the issue.

For a hint at the outcome of this, I would suggest everone read Mila 18 by Leon Uris.
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It’s a story of how a population, imprisoned and without hope, fought a far superior military power.
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Israelis should know this…

KT
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No it wasn’t surprising because Egypt leadership wants no part of another war over Palestine. They have been complicit in the situation in Gaza by not closing their borders basically creating a prison for the people in Gaza. Now what I found surprising is that he didn’t include all of the protests that have jumped off in many Arab countries including Lebanon since the Israeli airstrikes were initiated. He also didn’t point out the fact that Libya went to the UN Security council to ask them to condemn the actions. He also didn’t mention the fact that Syria is now threatening to cut all ties with Israel. But hey his story IS for American consumption right?

that should have read by CLOSING their borders.

On the issue of civ casualties, there are 315 total dead. At the time of the initial surprise, 140 of 175 were not civilian, but I think as this progresses, the number of civilian deaths will rise rapidly in relation to the number of combatants.
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Eventually, the Israelis, like any angry prison warden, will be just pounding dirt…

53_3
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Its also important to note that by saying they aren’t civilians we aren’t talking about another countries military. Many of the “not civilians” who are dead were police officers in Gaza. Whether they were Hamas police officers or not they were the people who kept law and order in place. Hamas members are also now democratically elected officials but they would be counted as “not civilians” also. Just something to keep in mind.

KT:
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I will also agree it’s not surprising, but this is stuff usually trotted out to make Americans feel vindicated for supporting Israel no matter how bloody the response.
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Their real motivation is money – American money. Egypt is number two after Israel in US aid receipts and Abbas is just considered a blowhard by the Israelis.
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The Arab League is populated with moneyed-elite run governments that see greater benefit in hugging us than in hugging dirt poor prisoners.
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Like I said, KT none of this is a surprise…

Paul – I absolutely agree with you about not using body counts to gauge the level of moral turpitude – but we (and media reports) have been scandalized by the numbers. And – there is a difference. Otherwise, we’d be equally scandalized by the one Israeli death, and we’re not (even though most of us grieve the one death). We have an (innate? acquired?) sense of proportionality.
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This is why, as I pointed out on another thread, there was an injunction in Hebrew Scripture about “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” which did not mean that you should exact vengeance, but that you were prohibited from requiring more than an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth.
.

kathy
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This is from the Israeli paper Hareetz
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050912.html
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The three-day death toll rose to at least 320 by Monday morning, including eight children under the age of 17 who were killed in two separate strikes overnight, medics said. Israel launched its campaign, the deadliest against Palestinians in decades, on Saturday in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns.

ivb – that may well have been the original source, and implies there were more than 51 dead- but I didn’t hear it from NPR, so whatever news source I heard it from may have misinterpreted the original report. Which is part of my point. I’m not defending either Hamas or Israel here, I’m just not sure we know what’s going on yet. Reporting from the middle east tends to be heavily freighted with a point of view – n’est-ce pas?

sg:
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Yes, you have a big point there. Hamas was fairly and freely elected to run Palestine.
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It was Abbas who actually conducted the first coup in unseating them from West Bank rule.
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It’s amazing how we define, not only “freinds” like you’ve pointed out, but “democracy” as well.
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This next is an intentional sharp elbow in KT’s side for helping perpetuate the idea that this is somehow all Hamas’s fault. I note the glaring omission of any visits to Gaza City or any of the other places in that rubble pile next door to Sderot.
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Shit! At least someone in Sderot can leave if they really have to.
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Not so for Gazans. They are prisoners…

sgwhite – much appreciate the link, and rightly or wrongly, I do assume there’s a little more objectivity here than from many sources.

sg:
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Yes, you have a big point there. Hamas was fairly and freely elected to run Palestine.
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It was Abbas who actually conducted the first coup in unseating them from West Bank rule.
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It’s amazing how we define, not only “freinds” like you’ve pointed out, but “democracy” as well.
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This next is an intentional sharp elbow in KT’s side for helping perpetuate the idea that this is somehow all Hamas’s fault. I note the glaring omission of any visits to Gaza City or any of the other places in that rubble pile next door to Sderot.
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Sh!t! At least someone in Sderot can leave if they really have to.
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Not so for Gazans. They are prisoners…

kathy
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More objectivity here when our official policy is if Israel does it then its right? Surely you jest kathy. Surely.
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Can you think of a time when our major media outlets criticized Israel for any of their military actions while they were performing said military actions? I can’t.

kathy:
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Say that Hamas refuses to stop firing rockets? That is what will happen, you know.
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Should Israel continue to relentlessly kill an imprisoned population?
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Do you honestly think Gazans are the concern here by Israel? If they were, why did they continue to keep them collectivly at just above starvation levels? Why won’t they allow them to travel or leave? Is the fact that Hamas’s charter still calls for the destruction of Isreal realy a threat to them?
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I just don’t see any even handedness here at all?
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After all, who are the “Settlers” and why is Israel even on Palistinian land anyway?

Oops. Palestinian.
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At what point is enough enough? 10,000 dead? 100,000 dead?
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This is going to have the same outcome as the war with Hizb Allah, you know.
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But Isrealis just won’t learn. The days in which they don’t have to reap the crops they sow are over. Cheap rocket technology has changed the paradigm and they are trying to substitute bloody minded overkill for the apartheid wall, which has suddenly become outdated and is no longer capable of keeping Israel secure.
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They just will not learn. And neither do we…

sgwhite – boy, I don’t keep a catalog of responses, but my vague recollection is that yes, occasionally the MSM criticizes Israel and then gets jumped on for that. I’d also say that the coverage of this has challenged the Israeli view of what’s going on. Gregory did challenge the Israeli foreign minister yesterday – undoubtedly not as much as you’d like, but enough so that I thought “man, she doesn’t have a clue what the rest of the world is thinking about this.”
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sg – and by “more objectivity here” I meant “here on your link,” not “here in the US,” or “here in this thread.”

High sherrifs!
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Fix those dammed numblys! They are goofed. the comment I posted is number 108 and a refresh should return me to that spot!
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Dim i as long
for each this in that
..dowhateveritisyoudo whatever
..i = i + 1
end for
function dowhateveritisyoudo( something As anything ) As SomethingElse
…
…
..Set dowhateveritisyoudo = theOther
End Function

kathy
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Ill be honest, I haven’t watched mtp since Gregory started hosting but I will watch it now online.

kathy:
“man, she doesn’t have a clue what the rest of the world is thinking about this.”
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I honestly think it is that she does not care. It was the same way in the Hizb Allah war.
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They do not care about world opinion…

kathy
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Before I comment, I want to make sure that I watched the same Gregory interview that you did. Is this the interview where you are saying he “challenged” the Israeli Prime Minister?
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28407173#28407173

What would Hamas want in exchange for a kept commitment not to fire any missiles into Israel? Many of those answers seem achievable. Some seem negotiable. The rest can be tabled. The trick is to take the focus of the past, labels, and judgments. Being right isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. It is not possible to tie a bow on a consensus moral reckoning for the region. It is possible to build a bulwark and start again.

pourme:
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Here’s a BBC analysts’ article on that very subject:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7803176.stm
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I saw your comments a while back about demonizing the antagonists, but, sincerely, Gaza is not a threat to Israel if Israel can learn to live with others of differing viewpoint.
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After all, they are the warden of that prison, it is in no way accurate to call Gaza anything else.

poume
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What they wanted was what was supposed to be a part of the ceasefire in the first place and that is for Israel to open the border so they can get the goods and services they need to thrive like heating oil and food and medical supplies. What Israel isn’t acknowledging is that Hamas took the ceasefire seriously and the curtailed the rocket fire to less than one a day. Now you might say well there was still rocket fire. Yes but hell there is crime here everyday. Its not the easiest thing in the world to find and stop each and every person who is shooting off rockets. But many reports detailed how swiftly and brutally Hamas dealt with the people on their side who broke the ceasefire. However Israel used those 15-20 rockets a month which was down from over 50 A DAY to justify starving out the Palestinian people. Thats not a matter of opinion, thats a matter of record. So after you have months of Hamas cracking down on the rocket fire but you have no relief from the Israelis in terms of opening the borders the sh!t hit the fan. Mind you as 53_3 Israelis have the option of moving from Srderot but Palestinians don’t have the option of moving from Gaza. So you are right its really simple, Israelis open back up the borders and Hamas will enforce the ceasefire again. Now the question is who is going to put pressure on Israel to do so. Even though its against the Geneva Conventions to collectively punish a group of people nobody in the international community has put any pressure on Israel to open their borders and some how I doubt if they will now.

Honestly, pourme, I think that Israel should just stop trying to administer Gaza in any form. Go ahead and close all crossings into Israel.
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Let Gaza have free sea, air, and land access through other routes and take whatever position they want to take. The only caveat being don’t attack Isreal.
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It’s so dammed easy, but for all of the wording of Hamas’s charter, they did hold a truce with far less payoff.
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But no! Israel plays on that fear to continue the cycle, and the Gazans, regardless of their affiliations, must, unlike those in Sderot, die in place, because they sure can’t leave…

@sgw – Agreed 100% on the flow of supplies. And, I think that’s the clear achievable goal in this. Crisis creates opportunity. There is also a clear path to failure: choosing to deliver a massive omnibus comeuppance on Israel at this moment over a crucial but more limited victory. I see opportunity here, one that is threatened as always by rabid ideologues all around.

@53_3 – I find your positions extreme and don’t wish to engage.

Interesting.
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My postion is extreme? How?

sg – yes, this is the interview I meant. No, he didn’t challenge in the way you would have liked the MSM to challenge.

53-3 – yes, I’d agree that Israel doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks. That is not the same thing as not fully realizing what it is.

I’m leaving for work now. Ta.

Actually, nevermind…

pourme
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Again, an opportunity for WHOM? Do you REALLY think Obama is going to command Israel to open their borders? Hey I fully support the guy but I have no illusions about him on this front. He is going to support Israel 100 percent in whatever they do because he knows he has to get re elected 4 years from now and he will feel he has bigger fish to fry with our own problems. Pragmatism and all that dontcha know.
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Don’t you find it interesting that Israel is now saying its involved in an all out war when their adversary doesn’t have any way to even prosecute a war in any way shape or fashion? I know I do.
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Typical news broadcast the last few days. “Israel has begun bombing the Gaza strip killing hundreds and wounding scores other, b b b but Hamas has called for a third infitada with suicide bombers!”
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Our media jumped all in Russia’s ass when they attacked Georgia but at least Georgia actually had a military with tanks and other such armaments. Hamas is literally throwing rocks in retaliation for getting hit with missles from F-16s

The world can’t declare who is righteous here. The world can’t wish a peace. The world can identify the most critical issue(s) and speak in one constant, unwavering voice: open the flow of supplies and stand down the missile fire. Achievable. Important. Time passes, and the world a year later looks different, and you take what’s next.

kathy
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I was waiting for him to challenge her AT ALL. No mention of the closed border, no mention of the severely reduced rocket strikes during he ceasefire, no mention of the starvation of the people in Gaza nor the fact that they don’t even get electricity for most of the day, no mention of the upcoming elections in Israel and the political motive for this move. Hell what DID he challenge her on in your eyes?

@sgw – No, Obama isn’t going to command Israel to open their borders, or do anything else. I have no comment on generalizations about the relative evil of the parties or media coverage. I do think a significant agreement is achievable with respect to the flow of supplies and missile security, one that is based on mutual self-interest. I think it will take a worldwide diplomatic effort, ideally led by Obama, that focuses on discrete next steps and aggressively avoids blanket conclusions and judgments. I think everyone can contribute to that future by seeing it through that lens. Otherwise, the middle east will continue to be a conspiracy of conflict.

I am posting extremely late in the process and probably have little to offer. Anyway here goes: I think that you have as big a division in Israel about these attacks just as we have on this blog.
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Hamas has been successful in the region because they have been the ones supplying health care and human services to the population, not the government associated with Abbas and before that Arafat.
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This will certainly provide Likud with political ammunition to try and take control of the government at the next elections. Of course you have ultra orthodox minority parties, which can offer key swing votes in the Knesseth. Imagine having to rely on support from James Dodson or Pat Robertson’s votes in Congress to move legislation or foreign policy forward.
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Israelis are no more monolithic that Americans are. While Israel is considered a Jewish state it all was designed to be a secular one, too.
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We mistakenly rely on the same sources to filter the political views of average Israelis. It’s not good for real discourse. I’m not going comment on the rocket attacks, because I have nothing of value to add.

pourme
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I find it pretty damm amusing that your whole stance is that there are no conflicts that are too big to be overcome with negotiation, then turn around and tell 53_3 that you simply won’t engage with him because you find his views too extreme. Now you and I agree a lot of times on these threads but I am going to be real with you. Thats as hypocritical a statement as I have seen from any reasonable person on this blog. There hasn’t been anything extreme about 53_3′s statements other than that they don’t line up with your views on the situation. So maybe while you are handing out all of this great advice about conflict resolution you might try looking in the mirror for a moment.
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And I say this not as “demonizing” you but as being honest with you on how you just came across. Maybe you don’t care, or maybe you didn’t really mean it but it is what it is.

@sgw – I care, and I meant it. I don’t have a problem with choosing which conversations I feel are productive. I don’t see it as all that dramatic, but if you do – go crazy.

productive for whom?

kathy
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Whenever you get to check this again, Glenn Greenwald kinda sorta totally disagreed with you that Gregory “challenged” the Israeli Prime Minister. And I kinda sorta totally agree with him.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/29/gregory/index.html

@sgw – For me. 53_3 has some extreme views on this issue. I didn’t, and am not calling them wrong or dumb. I’m not calling him any such things. In fact, I was scrupulously careful to avoid that. I just find that on this issue, and others, that there isn’t much ground to be gained in online discussions between incrementalists and true believers. It’s possible to take a pitch sometimes.

pourme
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Isn’t that the same argument being made about whether Israel should negotiate with Hamas? Im just asking.

Fair question. In Gaza, Israel has no alternative — morally or practically. This is not a conversation they can avoid. In general, finding practical negotiating partners in the Arab world is and should be a key to diplomatic efforts. That’s why I don’t find the “it’s all about the money” grenades too explosive. We want to develop governments and economies who share a baseline self-interest. This is a lever that should be pulled on Israel – that they are endangering their security by holding back Gaza from growing into such a place.

In the eyes of the villagers, as long as Obama lets Israel do whatever they want – and doesn’t criticize them in anyway, he will have passed his “test” with flying colors. If he did say anything critical of Israel’s actions, it would obviously mean he’s an anti Semite.

Our relationship with Israel reminds me of that “Twilight Zone” episode, with the little kid who wished people away to the cornfield. Everyone was too afraid of the kid to say anything: “It’s really good you’re bombing Gaza. You done good!”

Hmmm.
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I see where pourme went, he’s going with “he’s an antisemite”, I’m guessing.
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However, I have never hated a Jew, and I am not a Hamas fan, but I am against the imprisonment of some 4 million people and the relentless and practiced ignorance over the settler issue.
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Here is a story to relate:
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In Seattle, in the early ’70s, there was a lawyer whose last name was Pulver. He had a very unsavory tactic of placing tiny liens on peoples property after purchasing the original debtors interest. He used these liens to post a notice on the door of the house he targeted with a notice, which was intentionally affixed so it would fall off soon after posting.
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The unsuspecting homeowner, one of whom owed something like $200 dollars on gift candy, never, of course, read the notice that his house was to go up for auction to satisfy the lien.
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Pulver, of course, was at the auction to purchase the house for a pittance.
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It was all legal.
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Eventually, after several stories were run in the Times and the Post-Intellegencer here, Pulver was forced to leave town. Numerous homeowners lost their homes, and laws were revisited and reformed soon after to prevent something like that from happening again.
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Now, the Isreali “settler” is really no different than Pulver. The only difference was two:
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The Israeli “settler” is hiding behind religion, and, the Israeli “settler” is hiding behind a strong political force in Isreal, that is not less a secret there than Southern Strategy is here.
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Given this, the fact I sympathize with the Palestinians on many issues is rooted here, not in some secret hatred for Jews. Suicide bombing aside (which is an act of terrorism), which is a reaction to what Israel has done, I would fight for my home too, and if I was a Gazan, even if I didn’t care for Hamas, I would still care for Israelis even less.
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If these views are extreme, then so be it…

I see where pourme went, he’s going with “he’s an antisemite”, I’m guessing.

This is precisely why I wanted to avoid getting into a discussion with you. Here is what I actually said. Please don’t put antisemite into my mouth.

53_3
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Your views as expressed on this thread are not extreme any more than a person who is pro choice is extreme or a person who is pro life is extreme. I guess because you came out in support of the people of Gaza you were deemed extreme but I didn’t see it that way at all. The fact that you actually linked to articles supporting your views also shows that at least your thinking on th subject was influenced by verifiable sources. Is funny how quick we are to demonize or dismiss people who don’t agree with us but then point the finger at others for doing the exact same thing. Human nature I guess

I understand sg. Thanks for that.
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Pourme:
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You did call me a “true believer”, so, well, one good turn deserves another.
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I’ve watched this conflict with great interest over the last 40 years, and what I say is not without fact, and is also not without a sound foundation in the sense of right or wrong.
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Now, if you were to acknowledge that my point of view isn’t grounded in some sort of “true belief” (in what? I might add…), then I would also be willing to withdraw the attempt to put that epithet in your mouth.
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Even my commentary on the age of cheap rocketry isn’t extreme. It’s a fact. Look at what happened in the war with Hizb Allah**.
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**This is actually the name of the organization we refer to as “Hezbollah”. Nothing wrong with naming something properly, I always say…

@53-3 – Your views aren’t grounded in true belief. Now, I’m out.

SG:
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I think my thinking is much closer to what some Europeans might feel. I keep BBC as one of my webpages because the biggest problem with American news especially when it relates to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, there is way too much spin.
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Maybe the fact that I’ve always been a fan of the underdog might qualify as a “true belief” aka Pourme, but honestly, I just do not like the Israeli government, nor it’s politics.
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Sh!t, maybe about 4 or 5 years ago, I had to go to a British blogsite named “Argument” which had a pretty wide popularity to avoid the RW trolls here.
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Sure there were Arabs who were racist, but the Isrealis that posted to that BB were just as bad. Racism in Israel is not a minor factor…

Well, pourme, I’ll take your word then that you weren’t calling me an antisemite.
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I might point out that I have been very calm about this, not insulting, nor demonizing anyone.
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In a nutshell, I think that the days when Israel can sit behind walls and sheer military might and not reap what they sow are over.
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Gone are the days when they could clinically and wantonly grind virtually unarmed people into the ground. For Israel, that practiced is now accompanied by pain. This is sure to bring about changes in the way Israel frames future relations.
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After all, you can’t make freinds by beating them…

53_3, Pourme is funny, but somewhat effete.
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Well, here’s a scenario for ya: What if the United States finds itself in some level of collapse(highly probable IMO) or unable to continue to aid and defend the state of Israel. Would Israel nuke everyone around them in ‘defense’? They’re behavior here suggests that they would. Anyone remember the scene in Marathon Man where the old jewish guy confronts the old german guy with his car and eventually kills the guy and himself, and destroys everything around them? There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
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Whatever new social and economic systems we come up with in whatever new world emerges from the Crisis of the 21st Century, I would hope that Monotheism plays no part in it.

The question is, though, just how many Palestinians will they have to kill before they find that they will have to resort to some track other than “do what we say or we’ll destroy you” approach.
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Maybe, just maybe, an attempt at reaching out in real freindship despite the extremists (real ones!) in order to moot their cause just might have some validity.
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But no! It’s just too complicated! No way! No how!
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In my eye…

cincy:
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I find the Israeli government stupifyingly paranoid. They, and American supporters alike, always claim that “it’s just too complicated, etc”, and that “you’ll never understand”, blahblahblah, and that “you can’t judge this, you aren’t here” and all their other excuses.
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I’m tired of excuses. I want a just solution. Get rid of the “settlers”. Am I antisemite if I call the “settlers” home-stealers and thieves?
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Isn’t that what Pulver was (see post above)? Why should I dislike intensly someone like Pulver and let “settlers” and their supporters pass with a clean bill of health.
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One thing that died a horrible death in all of this was:
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Empathy…

Yup! I’m extreme, all right…

Well, pourme, I’ll take your word then that you weren’t calling me an antisemite.
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I might point out that I have been very calm about this, not insulting, nor demonizing anyone.
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–
LOL.

cincy:
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I’ll elaborate a little on your scenario.
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I really do think there is a very high risk that Isreal, particularly if Netanyahu gets elected, would do something unilaterally stupid with Iran, with a distinct possibility of an escalation into an exchange of WMD (Iran’s chem/bio vs Israel’s nuclear).
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They always claim that this is inevitable, but in reality, Joe Klein has posted several articles about two countries, both with nukes, and that hate each other just as implacably.
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And they havn’t nuked each other out of existance.
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I point out that the leading edge of the enormous spike in gas prices was triggered by threats from Isreal and that exercise in the Mediterranian last year. Netanyahu is totally unpredictable – and stupid – I might add.
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He’s so driven by his racist beliefs that he wouldn’t hesitate to turn the economic world upside down in a misguided attempt to attack Iran.
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Like I said, the days when Isreal suffered no pain over it’s regional approach to the Arabs is over…

53_3 Says:

” .. It’s amazing how we define, not only “friends” like you’ve pointed out, but “democracy” as well. .”

And over the past few years I have curiously watched the definition of “terrorist” change in my online dictionary. Maybe we, the good people – who unleash terror on the innocents AND define the words we use in diplomacy – don’t want to be included in the bad group – who unleash terror on the innocents AND who we have effectively demonized …

But, so it said, words mean exactly what we want them to mean – over time. And hence the imperial thrust to concurrently spread our coercive supremacy AND the use of our language we control (AND our myth/religion) ..

Well, rose83, I meant individual bloggers on this site.
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I’m not avoiding the issue of Isreal’s government, though, so, I guess, in that respect, your LOL is justified…
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But just how much of my commentary did you ignore?

cfukura:
I think the Israelis have not yet realized that with the age of cheap rocketry at hand, they cannot do with impunity what they used to.
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I noted rose83′s LOL, and with respect to the Isrealis, I guess I’m deserving of it.
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I might point out though, that a “settler” isn’t “just another person with a different point of view” any more than Pulver (see above) was in Seattle in the ’70s.
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I guess I just don’t get it…

53_3, perhaps your right, but what if the US is no longer around, or capable of reining in the more radical inclinations of Israel’s right wing? Irregardless of our Israel First policies, I do think we are a moderating influence to a degree. Once that moderating influence is gone….well, I have little faith that they’ll moderate themselves.

True cincy, but if “the US is no longer around”, that means:
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Us!
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And we’ll be too busy either scraping the ground for food, or vaporizing in some way or other…

53_3, you have to admit it’s funny that pourme basically said it was unproductive for him to pursue a conversation with you because of your extreme views, and then in response you speculated/insinuated that he thinks you’re an anti-semite. Although no one here has ever called you that. And falsely accusing someone of thinking you’re an anti-semite is extreme and unproductive. It’s like you’re trying to prove him right!
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BTW, I’m probably closer to your views on the Middle East than pourme’s.

The US press would never stoop so far as to publish anything about the suffering in Gaza. Even KT has studiously avoided any references to suffering in anyplace other than Isreal:
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7803598.stm
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But, hell, this is “old Europe”, right?

rose83:
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Perhaps you didn’t read all of my commentary.
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He described me first as “extreme” and a “true believer”.
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He then withdrew his commentary and I withdrew mine.
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And, if you’ve ever noticed, the tagging of someone like me with that epithet is a common event. It’s happened more than once on Swampland!

Check out the new twist on all this from Juan Cole
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http://www.juancole.com/#Sistani
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Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq has called upon Arab and Muslim nations to support the Palestinians in Gaza with more than lip service. Iran’s PressTv translated the statement this way:
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‘

“Condemning what is going on in Gaza and supporting our brothers only with words is meaningless, considering the big tragedy they are facing . . . Arab and Islamic nations need to take a decisive stance, now more than ever, to end these ongoing aggressions and to break the unjust siege imposed on the brave people of Gaza . . .”

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I wonder if a very influential cleric in Iraq speaking out on this will make a difference

sg:
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Not in keeping with what the Neoconservatives envisioned in 2003 and before, that’s for sure.
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Now, if McCain hadn’t been forced to abandon that “100 Years”, we could have fixed this problem…

Given the singleminded bloodiness of the Isrealis in charge, I would not be surprised to see several thousand dead before the end of this week.
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After all, the Isrealis have painted themselves into a corner by declaring “all out war” on Hamas.
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Who, incidentally, will be underground. It’s the civilians that won’t be so fortunate…

53_3, pourme won’t engage w/ you because of your extreme views but he just call Jay Carney’s mom a slut on another thread. Go figure.

cincy:
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Let those who cast the first stone…
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This seems like another “Lebanon” episode.
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On principle, GWB is backing Israel all the way. Kill till they scream uncle! Maybe it’s a numbers game.
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The target: 1100 civilians dead. Let’s see if they can’t beat that total.
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Nevermind that these people have been kept at subsitance levels by Isreal’s blockades…

“Though Obama has been seen as more inclined than the Bush Administration toward diplomacy, he has also made it clear to Arab governments that he stands as a strong ally of Israel.”
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Um, I’m pretty sure Obama was making it clear to you in the establishment media as well as the neocon lobby that “he stands as a strong ally of Israel.” Making it clear to Arab governments has practically no political benefit at all.
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BTW, didn’t Joe Biden say that Obama would be tested by a foreign entity early on? Do you suppose he knew it would be Israel?

[...] campaign. At Time’s “Swampland”, Karen Tumulty calls the attack “Obama’s First Test.” Steve Clemons at The Washington Note agrees: One of the most important and sensible [...]

I like how Obama is handling these matters. He’s recognizing Bush’s authority in the matter, keeping informed and calmly waiting for his day to take the helm.

We could all learn from this attitude.

Typical single-minded bloodiness on the part of the Israeli government, again.
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They are not satisfied that in the end, many Gazans not involved will die. They want more…
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/30/gaza.aid.boat/index.html