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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Covering All My Bases; Murderers Who Should Be Clubbed To Death

From the Dispatch on New Year's Day:

"Israel has the moral right and responsibility to defend its citizens," wrote Marsha F. Hurwitz, president and chief executive officer of the Columbus Jewish Federation, in a statement to The Dispatch.

"It is reacting as any nation would that is under constant attack. Imagine if there were terrorists in Worthington firing missiles that were falling at Broad and High streets. What would we as citizens demand from our government in order to protect us?"

This is why Israel has carte blanche to conduct actions verging on genocide. Among those Americans who have any reason to care about the Middle East (admittedly few, and people can and should care about whatever they want, not judging) cunts like Marsha outnumber real human beings 5-1.

If there were terrorists in "Worthington" firing "missiles" at Broad and High, I would expect them to be rooted out. On this Marsha and I agree.

What we don't agree on, obviously, is the facts. Namely, that Worthington OH is closer to a densely populated territory (downtown Columbus) by a factor of 2 than anywhere in Gaza is to any dense Israeli population. Second, Gazans have glorified bottle rockets, not "missiles". This is why, not to belabor a point, up until the current fighting, 2 count them two Israelis had been killed by katyushas in the past year. And third, if my government were responsible for locking the people of Worthington inside their city because of how they vote, if the people of northern Franklin County were bound by treaty to shoot anyone from Worthington trying to escape, if Worthington by virtue of the lockdown had 100 percent unemployment, I would damn well expect violence.

Anybody ever been to Columbus' East Side? If Marsha Hurwitz wants to have a discussion, I know a halal joint on Cleveland Avenue. Or the Pita Pit on N. High.

Peace
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Amateur Hour

Billy Rich is done, no hay oficia, and never trust a man with a neck like a pale hamster. A California company paid the governor $110,000 and received contracts worth $1.4 million. This was presumably something BHO and Co. knew about and just ignored.

For the new appointment, I vote for Ed Markey. Anyone from New Mexico is now verboten, Schweitzer and Sebelius are heartland Democrat governors who need to stay put for party-building, Ed Rendell though I love him is another man with a hamster-like neck and thus untrustworthy (seriously, you think Chicago politics is old-school? Try Philadelphia), ditto anyone with hands in pockets of Oil or Coal.

So the questions are two: Are all America's governors desperate for cash? And, What does an Obama administration possibly stand to gain by hiring all these Clintonites?

What was it that Billy Rich brought to the table? His exaggerated Hispanicness, even if it exists and accrues a political benefit, has nothing to do with the rational execution of the administration's energy policy; at Homeland Security or HHS it might, maybe. It's not a payoff for Billy Rich's endorsement, since getting that was like pulling shark teeth. Surely those allegedly numerous but really just very vocal Hillary-or-the-Highway, Limbaugh Democrats would have been appeased by Hillary's own appointment; Rich does nothing for them.
This was a lazy choice, made in haste, and it's coming back to bite BHO on the ass. I'm going to go watch Philadelphia vs. Minnesota...

Whoa -- State News Update

Fear not, concerned citizens of both Russia and Syria, your leaders are going through an incredible period of ball-growth...together!

State news in Syria has Medvedev and al-Assad meeting to discuss the violation of treaties and agreements. Perhaps also they will play with their dolls, and have tea.

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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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?