No More Wishful Thinking at NYT

How indeed to square "ground invasion is a course no one is advocating," with

This time, Israeli military commanders are leading from the front, not trying to direct the infantry from television screens. This time, the military has clear plans, in stages, drawn up with a year’s preparation. This time, there is no illusion about winning a war only from the air.

Couple days ago, no one was preparing for the shit, today they've been preparing for a year.

The scales fall from the eyes of the NYT Jerusalem bureau...We're all men now...
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Personal Best for the IDF

Israel is allowing aid into Gaza. For three hours a day. Journalists are still verboten. But this is the lede in a story that goes on the parrot the IDF's cover for shelling civilians. IDF says a Hamas mortar team was inside the UN-run (although I suppose everything in Gaza that is administered at all is UN-run) school in Jabaliya. McClatchy had an anonymous source (which we might as well assume is the IDF) saying that the mortar crew (two dudes) was in the school. NYT identifies its source and says one of the men was "in the area."

Also, butchers prefer Pepsi. Can that piece be real?

640 at this point, though as NYT says, "no reliable and current figures in recent days."

The magic number here is 1,191, the UN count of civilian dead in Lebanon in the 2006 war. Let's add about 500 (the world's best guess at the number of Hezbollah fighters killed then) for a total of 1,691. At 60 dead a day, Gaza's going to smoke that record.

And with 4 dead IDF by friendly fire, Israel can boldly claim another personal best, beating Hamas at its own game.

Much mazel!
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Gaza Beer-League Assessment Piece

I understand that events outpace our ability to make sense of them, but really: "Is the end of Hamas rule Israel's real aim?" By the time this story was up, Israel was in Gaza, boots on the ground. By the time I had read it, the IDF owned Gaza City. And yet, as of 11AM Sunday, no edits to this:

Implicit in Mr. Benn’s argument, however, is that the only way to stop Hamas from gaining legitimacy is for Israel to fully occupy Gaza again, more than three years after removing its soldiers and settlers. That is a prospect practically no one in Israel or abroad is advocating.

Somebody was advocating invasion because troops were massed on the border all weekend; Israeli diplomats when asked about a truce were pondering the nature of language instead of working on one; and oh right, women and children continued to die. Are we to believe that the men who said "all-out war" on a Tuesday are going to revise their comments on Saturday?

This is some slo-pitch, beer-league bullshit. With evidence to the contrary mounting, we are meant to believe Israel's motivations to be sincere? That this isn't the last part of a years'-long land-grab? That this isn't a model for how the West Bank will be won? That somehow, protection from the strategic equivalent of bottle rockets requires aerial bombardment of densely-packed civilian areas?

"Hamas rule" is what's being attacked, not Palestinians? I don't think Bin Laden resorted to that kind of craven, self-exculpatory language when he last killed American civilians, you know, "We are against the rule of Bush," "The rule of Clinton in America must end," etc.

The sooner we stop sugar-coating this thing, and start talking about where refugees will go, how to get doctors into the region, how Hamas will gain political power in the West Bank, etc., the better.

"Who will lead Gaza when Hamas is gone?" Try, "Who will lead Hamas when Gaza is gone?"
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Nice paragraph.

So, NYT on current tensions in E Jerusalem:

The infrastructure improvements, in ordinary circumstances, would be welcome news in a poor and neglected neighborhood like Silwan. But in the charged atmosphere of East Jerusalem, which Israel seized from the Jordanians in the 1967 war and later annexed, some perceive even municipal road works and new traffic arrangements as part of a larger plan.

Soft pedal? Ignorance? Lack of sleep? What happened here?

Since when have residents of poor neighborhoods anywhere ever seen "infrastructure improvements" as "welcome news"? I mean, I get the jobs argument, but it didn't happen that way in the South Bronx. Or Columbus OH, where I-71 cuts off the East Side from the rest of town, or Richmond VA where I-195 excises basically all the poor neighborhoods from the monied core of the city, or indeed anywhere in America.

"New traffic arrangements"?? Like Jews-only access roads? I mean, what to us are mere "traffic arrangements" are the means of repression in E Jerusalem and the W Bank.

Not to hyperventilate here, but this Robert Moses attitude towards the people on the ground is not doing the State of Israel any favors, either in terms of pure PR or more seriously, in terms of preserving peace. And all these "construction projects" are handled neutrally in the NYT, as if Palestinian anger over them is utterly incomprehensible.

Man. Flashing fuck fingers at the NYT today, y'all...
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