To observers of the Middle East and Palestine, the inept 'warfare' is matched by poor words. Year after year, a constant barrage of rhetoric is as misguided as the bullets, mortars, and rockets.
A recent exchange of civilian casualties illustrates insanity. To begin, or respond, or continue things (you choose depending on your religion) Hamas showcased ability to blindly fire a mortar, striking a paint factory and killing a 52 year worker. In turn, Israeli helicopters targeted Hamas militants, but the missile missed and killed an 8 year old girl.
Rather than apologize, spokesmen aped the other side and appeased their own thugs. Hamas said the operation was response to "nonstop agression against our people." Not to be outdone, an Israeli spokesman said Hamas "would be held accountable". Despite the lack of logic suggesting that paint is a tool of "aggression", or that the 8 year old was "accountable" for the mortar attack, neither side blinked at the contradictions.
In an election with the Middle East dominating foreign policy debate, how can Obama confront the 'apologist' and 'appeasement' tags in a region that has no concept of owning up and each side appeases only their own thugs? Could withdrawing aid make them both sorry?
Sure, you can teach or write about it, but to have a civil discussion about the P-I situation with people who've more or less made up their mind is out of the question unless you want a shouting match.
The other day a Kos diarist voiced suspicions that AIPAC might have had something to do with a fire that destroyed the home Blue Dem congressional candidate Darcy Burner. The fire appears to have in fact been electrical in origin.
What struck me was the bitterness of many of the comments on the diary, which I believe reflect deep tensions within the Kos community, and in the larger progressive world, about how we ought to feel about Israel, and Israeli influence in the US.
Says Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
... he warned that opening up a third front, after Iraq and Afghanistan, would be "extremely stressful, very challenging, with consequences that would be difficult to predict".
It seems there is some push back going on at the top. Past patterns would suggest that we can expect Adm Mullen's reignation in the not too distant future.
The saber rattling continues. Bush's latest visit to the Middle East has agitated energy prices and world fears of yet another war with Israel bombing Iran.
It appears the next president is going to be saddled with the problem of dealing with the fallout of Israel's airstrikes against Iran.
I have been reading the recent entries about Obama about how the liberals are supposed to get his back and how it is of utmost (and only) importance to win back the White House etc. etc. And I think I might agree with one of them (the winning part) 100%. One think, though, stands out to me is the gradual thinning of line of difference between HRC and BHO.
When did you stop beating your wife? When will you prove yourself innocent? When will you stop lying? When will you produce the murder weapon? All of these statements presuppose guilt and had this prolonged campaign against Iran not mimicked the prolonged campaign against Iraq it would be easy enough excuse the surreal nature of it all. The Alice through the looking glass, world turned upside down flavor to it of the leader who hasn’t invaded anyone cast as the next Hitler by the nation occupying two foreign countries by force of arms.
Today a resident of East Jerusalem plowed a bulldozer into the crowed streets of Jerusalem. This incident caused 3 deaths and over 30 injuries to bystanders.
I stumbled upon this U tube video on the implications of the US blind support for Israel and how it goes against US foreign national interests. It's a 50 min piece but worth the watch. I think a lot of us here already know this, but at least what was striking to me is the connection between AIPAC and the neocons in the Bush admin and bushes decision to invade Iraq all with serious implications. This is an example of how blind and costly in the form US blood. I'm not arguing that AIPAC was the only reason Bush invaded Iraq that would not be true, but the Israel lobby had been very influential push into this debacle. More recently you can hear the voices again of the Israel lobby pushing for military action in Iran. The question is when will the US citizenry wake up.
Five months after the incidents in Beit Ummar subsequent to the death of the Sabarna cousins (diaried here and here), once again a teenager has been killed by the IDF and the IDF's presence at the funeral has led to the injury of more Palestinians. Bekah Wolf of the Palestine Solidarity Project, located in Beit Ummar, gives background for the incident:
The Committee to Protect Journalists has a fine-sounding name, but, like the even more scurrilous CIA-linked Reporters Without Borders (who trade on the respected name of Doctors Without Borders to ply their anti-communist agenda), their priorities have rather strong biases. On June 26, Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, a frequent guest reporter on KPFA's Flashpoints and Pacifica's Democracy Now!, was returning from receiving a prestigious journalism prize in Britain, when he was attacked, abused, and tortured by Israeli border agents as he attempted to re-enter Gaza. The attack received limited press coverage (Reuters), but has been largely ignored in the West.
Because these are the Democratic sponsors of the resolution, that's why:
Sponsor: Sen. Evan Bayh [D-IN]
Sen. Maria Cantwell [D-WA]
Sen. Robert Casey [D-PA]
Sen. Kent Conrad [D-ND]
Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Sen. Barbara Mikulski [D-MD]
Sen. Patty Murray [D-WA]
Sen. Ron Wyden [D-OR]
A recent opinion poll conducted by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government found that 77 percent of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world.
The survey of 1,721 Israelis, both Arab and Jewish, also showed that 73 percent of the Jews and 94 percent of the Arabs want Israel to "be a society in which Arab and Jewish citizens have mutual respect and equal opportunities."
The Kennedy School said in a statement that the poll produced a number of results it termed surprising, pointing to a higher level of co-existence than might have been anticipated
Professor Todd Pittinsky, research director of the Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership and lead researcher for the poll, said that the results pointed to a contrary phenomenon. Much media coverage focuses on the divisions between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel, and not enough on the sincere and concerted efforts to coexist peacefully, Pittinsky said in a statement.
In addition, a whopping 68 percent of Jewish citizens support teaching conversational Arabic in Jewish schools to engender co-existance.
The press is only beginning to pay attention to Sy Hersh's articles in the New Yorker detailing the secret moves against Iran being carried out by the Bush Administration, and, more specifically, by the Cheney office's influence over that Administration.
Yale Professor David Bromwich wrote in the Huffington Post:
In late 2007, after winning an election whose central issue was a more prudent and rational policy in the Middle East, congressional Democrats, obedient to the wishes of a Presidential Finding, signed away $400 million for secret operations against Iran. A more craven act of submission would be hard to imagine; and they did this in the glow of victory, in direct contradiction of their mandate. What were they signing for? Sabotage, assassination, covert support for political clients and "destabilization" generally are predictable parts of such a design; but the Democrats, in the months between their capitulation and Hersh's article, made no mention of dissatisfactions at having been cut off from oversight. The truth seems to be that in this area, as in so many others, only the Office of the Vice President oversees the Office of the President.
The launch stations are positioned for a strike on Israel.
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari cautioned, during an interview Saturday, on Iranian television that:
The quickly-approaching light at the end of our tunnel this election cycle is a turbocharged, nuclear-powered locomotive, the likes of which we've never seen. It will arrive at our station well before we cast our votes in November.
The headlines of the past 48 hours spell it all out (see below the fold). Unfortunately, many of those headlines were with regard to stories published outside the U.S.
Unbeknownst to the majority of U.S. society, due to a total lack of responsible reporting of the facts by the MSM, it is now self-evident to this diarist that the sky really is falling.
