It's been a bad week for people --like George W. Bush-- who seek to defend the Israeli invasion of Lebanon: an estimated 56 innocent people killed in one raid at Qana, most of them children, and then it refuses to hold to a mere 48 hour ceasefire allegedly hammered out by U.S. Secretary of State, demonstrating to the world that it will not be bound by its word, and that Bush is either a political weakling, a chump, or a liar. ("Why the false choice?" some might say?) The New York Times reported that Rice "wrung the first significant concession from Israel" but it was over before most people even picked up their paper off the sidewalk, here. That shouldn't have surprised anyone, despite the credulous, pro-Bush reporting. "'There is no cease-fire,' a 'senior government source' told the newspaper Haaretz, adding, 'If they are associated with Hassan Nasrallah, we will hit them.'" And they weren't kidding.
Meanwhile, in addition to being a public relations catastrophe everywhere but the White House, the war is strengthening Hezbollah politically, as was predictable. The Lebanese prime minister, who the LAT notes has been no friend of Hezbollah's in the past, "'thanked' the Islamic militant group for its 'sacrifices'" and said: "We scream out to the world community to stand united in the face of Israel's war criminals."
The thing is, however horrific, it's not going to change many people's minds. It's my experience that precious few people are actually interested in examining events related to Israel with an eye toward making an honest judgment. I found myself oddly depressed after dropping by synagogue on Saturday morning when a woman stood to ask the rabbi what she could say to her teenage daughter, who was watching the carnage on TV and could not understand how the mass killing of innocents could be justified. The Rabbi answered with nothing but bluster and bul**hit. Refusing to even engage the question, he trolled for applause from the congregation with chauvinistic argument that because the world had treated the Jews so badly for so many years, Israel should not be criticized no matter what it did. He even used the word "disproportionate" to refer to Palestinian attacks on Jews, when everyone knows that Israel has killed many, many more Palestinians than vice-versa since the conflict began. [*] It was the same old lugubrious interpretation of Jewish history that connects Pope Pius with Adolf Hitler with Hezbollah. The idea that the Israeli government might actually be mistaken in its judgments or that American Jews had the right to think for themselves, or that this (absent) young woman might actually have the right to ask a tough moral question about the behavior of the Jewish state was effectively ruled out of order. Many in the audience applauded. Another woman complained that "even Fox's" coverage was unfair to Israel. A third blamed Hezbollah for putting its weapons in civilian areas. Nobody offered an ounce of evidence and none was demanded. It made me so angry I couldn't even stay for the free food afterward. And remember, this took place in one of the most progressive areas in America. If Jews like this will never question Israeli behavior--even in a supportive manner that draws on mainstream opinion in Israel--then you can pretty much forget about it.
But people who oppose the invasion, save for a small minority, are not all that interested in evidence either as far as I can tell. MJ Rosenberg writes about the phenomenon here. The thing for me, however, is that nobody on the pro-Palestinian side of the equation understands the essential realist fact of this problem. There is never going to be any genuine statehood, or dignity, or peace or prosperity or even the opportunity to earn a decent living for the Palestinians unless they convince the Israeli public that they want to live alongside Israel in peace. There is no military option for the Palestinians save suicide. There is no possibility that the United States will ever "force" Israel to make peace. In the first place, I don't know how you'd do it. In the second place, the Israel lobby is too powerful to let it happen and unwilling to challenge Israeli political leadership (except to undermine peace, as it did under Barak). That's why anybody who does not attend to this essential fact is not doing the Palestinians any favors. And as long as the Palestinians have their present dysfunctional leadership crisis, as evidenced by their election of Hamas, no Israeli government can even imagine negotiating a peace agreement. That's just commonsensical.
So therefore I don't think the advertisement that appears in today's Times signed by a bunch of pro-peace Jews is all that useful, since it does not address the inability of any Israeli government to make peace with these Hamas fanatics and corrupt Fatah-ists, particularly when they cannot make peace with themselves. And though I would have liked to--because I found their previous intervention so useful, I could not bring myself to sign this version of the "Open Letter from American Jews." In the first place, referring to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as a "crime" is going to shut down most conversations with most supporters of Israel, however much they may also value peace and justice. In the second, whereas I agree that "Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories and massive human rights abuses against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples are opposed by many Jews in Israel, the U.S., and throughout the world," and that "attacks on civilians will not bring peace, security or justice to Palestinians, Israelis, or Jews anywhere," every honest person must admit that these statements constitute at best, only half the story. The other, crucial half is that the Palestinians have given the Israeli public no indication at all that they are ready to live side by side with Israel. And if you ignore that, you're ignoring the crux of the problem.
Borrowed from Atrios:
Meanwhile
In the forgotten war Joe Lieberman doesn't want to talk about anymore:
*BAGHDAD - Four marines were killed in action in restive Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Sunday. The marines, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7, died on Saturday.
*YUSUFIYA - Two people were killed and three wounded when gunmen attacked a minibus in Yusufiya, 15 km (9 miles) south west of Baghdad, a police source said.
BAGHDAD - Three suspected insurgents died and a fourth person was wounded in an explosion in a house that an interior ministry source said was being used as a factory for homemade bombs.
BAIJI - A policeman was shot dead by gunmen in the oil refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
NEAR TUZ KHURMATU - Kidnappers killed a policeman and a civilian after snatching seven people in an ambulance near Tuz Khurmatu, 70 km south of Kirkuk, on Saturday evening. The five others, including a second policeman, were released after being tortured, the police said.
BAGHDAD - Iraq's oil pipeline to Turkey has been fixed and exports will be resumed to the port of Ceyhan at a rate of 600,000-700,000 barrels per day, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said. A senior oil ministry official said pumping would start within a few days.
BAGHDAD - Police said they found 15 bodies in different parts of the capital, all bearing signs of torture and shot in the head.
What are we doing in Iraq? How about this story:
The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found."
Liars, thieves, fanatics, and idiots; Rely on these people to remake a thousand years of Middle-Eastern history? Sure, no problem. The liberal hawks had it all under control.
Meanwhile, they are still hiding their lies about the manipulation of intelligence to fool the country into this ruinous war. Ho, hum.
Quote of the Day: "Talking about a new strategy is useless until we get a new team--in the Pentagon, in the Administration. These guys have screwed up everything. They haven't got the credibility to implement anything." --retired Marine Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, author of The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century.
Here's my question for his interviewer: Why, Mr. Klein does Colonel Hammes hate America?
Elsewhere in Time, the world's in flames, but isn't Condi wonderful?
Who loves Mel now? Scarborough? Ingraham? Gibson? O'Reilly? Bennett? Let's hear from you guys...
How far will the Neocons sink to defend their colossal foreign policy failures? Matt Y points to John Podhoretz's case for genocide, expressed cowardly in the form of rhetorical questions, here. John Podhoretz implicitly endorses genocide, here.
Math, David Broder style: "Democrats everywhere are looking to Connecticut for clues about the party's direction. The primary will probably point them leftward, toward a stronger antiwar stand. But often in the past, the early successes of these elitist insurgents have been followed by decisive defeats when a broader public weighs in." Here. We note for the record that the "elitist" position on Iraq to which "the Dean" refers has the support of 56 percent of Americans, while 63 percent versus 30 percent -- said the Iraq war had not been worth the American lives and dollars lost. In Connecticut I'm sure the numbers are much higher. Pick up a copy of the Times Dean-O, next time, before you set your pen on autopilot.
State of the News Media 2006: Magazines Roundtable here.
Speaking of which, what excuse can there possibly be for giving the lying hate-monger, Ann Coulter a forum to spew her pernicious nonsense unchallenged as both The Baltimore Sun and MSNBC's Chris Matthews do? (P.S. The only time I was ever on "Hardball," I was ambushed with Coulter as a fellow discussant...)
"If I were to get involved in editorial decisions, the paper would not have the value it has." Um, value? Ten million bucks for a(n Ann-Coulter-loving) newspaper about media gossip that loses $2 million a year? I dunno this guy Kushner, but one of us is real bad at math....
Things I was wrong about, continued: Carlos Beltran -- I thought the Mets had wildly overpaid for a guy who happened to have a few good weeks when everybody was watching. I thought last year bore out my judgment. Score that right about Iraq, Bush, Gore, etc; wrong about Beltran.