Quickly, now...

Quick. First, the fact that Israel is "running out of targets," leads MSNBC to conclude that "Diplomacy Gains Steam." Once there's nothing left to argue over, then we can argue. Can we talk about Proportional Response? Can we talk about the average pothole a Katyusha leaves in the street? Let's leave the President out of this one, though, because he seems to believe that kids cowering in basements are committing acts of terror...

AP has hundreds of Palestinians allowed to leave Gaza, as though that were somehow magnanimous. Isn't the point to rid Palestine of Palestinians? Isn't that what checkpoints, doubled roads, the long wall, the spread of Jewish settlements, what all that is for?

Civilians leaving is the worst thing possible for Hamas. The threat of civilian casualites (Again, a distinction whose goalposts move. Is a Hamas parliamentarian asleep in his home a combatant? When a fourteen-year-old throwing rocks is killed by IDF small arms fire, it's a combat fatality. When he is bombed to death alongside his mother and sisters, it's civilian. The only sure non-combatants, according to the UN, are women. How much you wanna bet that distinction changes once there is no Gaza for those women to return to?), like I said, the threat of civilian casualties, we presume, is the only thing holding Israel back. They leave, and all bets are off. I mean, if we assume that this is something other than the apocalypse.

Which is the funny part about Nasrallah's allegation of a grand Arab plot against the Palestinians, whereby the leaders of the softie Arabs (Egypt, Jordan, Turkey i guess) give Israel carte blanche until Monday. At which point, Nasrallah says, the tanks turn back into pumpkins. Hassan Nasrallah may be the Islamic world's premiere satirist. How much more could he shame the Arab governments, so obviously powerless to come to Gaza's aid? Well, by mocking their pretension to power. "Oh yeah, I heard it from Mubarak, he's gonna give the Israelis 5 days, and then he's gonna bring the hammer down. You know, really fuck 'em up. Ha."

So Nasrallah knows this is the end, that Israel is going to wipe the map clean, that the first step was pulling its settlers out, that the ultimate intent is to resettle Gaza with Israelis. Pretty coastline, great weather. You can grow excellent strawberries there. Somebody check my Leviticus, what's the Hebrew for cleanse?