Needlenose

The key justification for the crackdown on the Palestinians in the Gaza and the West Bank spouted by the pro-Israeli camp is that the Palestinians are terrorists, because their suicide bombings and other attacks ‘target civilians.’  Frankly, I fail to see the ‘fine point’ these apologists put on it when, for example, in the recent ‘put down’ of the Hamas rocket launchers, the Israeli army killed an estimated 960 civilians out of a total of 1434 total dead – 67%!

Israel, of course, immediately and automatically disputed the number of civilian dead.  The ultra-nationalist message of the country’s leaders, however, was undercut by direct testimony from members of the IDF, who are coming forward with tales of policy-driven slaughter of civilians, including unarmed women & children.

It’s hard to take the moral high ground after the US did all this and worse during the dark years of the Shrubya Iraqi fiasco.   However, now that we are under new management, I really hope (but sadly doubt)  Clinton will put some pressure on Israel to investigate their war crimes.

More evidence that our foreign policy is behind held hostage by extreme pro-Israeli nationalists – Chas Freeman is forced to withdraw from his appointment to head the National Intelligence Council due to AIPAC pressure on influential senators.  Greenwald has some good updates to the story.  I haven’t been able to figure out why they singled this guy out, I haven’t seen any stridently anti-Israel statements in a modest amount of googling.  He did chair some outfit called Middle East Policy Council, but that doesn’t look like some pro-Palestinian front or anyting.

War Nerd uses the Gaza war to make the point that the age of ‘total war’ (where civies are acceptable targets) is currently in abeyance.  The point he doesn’t make is that Israel seems to have mastered the art of the ‘focus group’ atrocity – pushing the limits of war crimes to kill civilians, trash infrastructure, do so and collectively punish a population – but stopping just before the point where they’ll lose political support among US politicans or provoke a serious civilian action in Europe such as a boycott.

Not convinced?  What could be more cynical then their agreement to a cease-fire on the day before the Obama inaguration?  I guess they want to figure out what they can get away with with the new guy.  Shrubya was the Larry King of cis-Jordan power-brokers, but they probably have figured out that Obama may actually pay some attention to what is going on.

My anecdotal bellwhether of course are a few die-hard liberal Jewish friends, who, while they decried the Iraq war, tow the line on Israeli politics of occupation.  None of them were shaken by the recent atrocity exhibition, so it seems Israel got away with it again.

It really makes you wonder though just what Israel can get away with, if torching civilians with white phosphorus, destroying their homes and fields, denying them power and foodstuffs and any but the most minimal contact with the outside world.  What would it take to get the Euroweenies to take action?  To revolt my bellwhether pro-Israel liberal pals?  To get the supposedly sympathetic Arab neighbors stop jawing and take any real action?

*Update* After lying for a few weeks, Israel admits to frying Gazans.  As they say,  ”Like Father Like Son.”  Israel is really our ‘Mini-Me,’ isn’t it?

With all numerous Gazans recently killed by Israel’s assault, the Gazans have apparently run out of places to bury people.  Always eager to help, the Israelis have started to cremate the Gazans, often in advance.

This headline from the Israel’s attack on Gaza really just says it all: Gaza Children Found With Mothers’ Corpses.  I’m really not sure what more Israel can do in the way of war crimes before anybody on Capitol Hill says “Enough!”

“The statement said a team of four Palestine Red Crescent ambulances accompanied by Red Cross representatives made its way to Zeitoun Wednesday where it “found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses.””

I just wish our Pols would be more honest and finish the typical apologia statements around Israel’s actions and say “I support Israel’s right to defend itself regardless of the means and of the cost in innocent human life.”

A couple of days ago, I was joking about the Shrubya transition plan – wondering if he would leave a trashed WH and pop all the “Os” out of the computer keyboards.  But on seeing Condi’s failure to make even an iota of progress on a ‘legacy’ peace deal in the cis-Jordan, I further reflected on the transition from Clinton to Shrubya, then contrasted it with the current transition.  Clinton left Shrubya with:

* a balanced budget
* $2 billion budget surplus
* under $6 trillion national debt
* fewer Federal employees than his predecessor
* an economic boom
* high levels of unemployment
* the virtual elimination of Big Ag agricultural subsidies
* a 98% agreed-upon peace deal for the cis-Jordan involving S. Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, the occupied territories and Jerusalem with Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians
* an anti-nuke deal with Little Kim in N. Korea

What presents have King George the Witless left for Obama?

* $400+ billion dollar budget deficit (not counting the cost of the Iraq war)
* $12 trillion national debt (doubled in 8 years)
* a surge in the number of federal employees and paid political appointees
* the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression
* 6.5%+ unemployment highest level in 14 years (since his daddy, King George the Clueless)
* unprecedented levels of corporate welfare Big Ag and Big Oil tax breaks and subsidies
* complete breakdown of cis-Jordan peace talks and 2nd intifada, massive unrest and hardship in the occupied territories and regional ‘cold war’
* Nuclear-armed Little Kim
* election of hard-liners in Iran, virtual elimination of moderate faction
* And to top all that off – a failed costly war in Iraq and a failing war in Afghanistan

And to remember King George the Witless and TurdBlossom’s biggest complaint was a few computer keyboards missing “Ws.” I never thought I’d miss Clinton.

Nearly every debate I have with folks in the pro-Israeli camp seems to end with my opponent saying “Well we just can’t negotiate with those people, they are extremists and terrorists.”  Israeli apologists seem to have some sort of collective amnesia about pre-nationhood Zionist terrorism in the cis-Jordan, and a seeming blind eye to Jewish extremism in the occupied territories today.  Case in point, extremist settlers are now attacking Palestinian villages in ‘reprisal raids’ in response to Israeli security forces dismantling illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank – tactics they call the ‘price tag’ of the government’s actions.

It would be encouraging, I guess, to think that the Israeli government has taken at least a few token steps to dismantling the illegal settlements, but the fact that the ultra-orthodix (and nationalistic) Shas party will likely be a key member of the new ruling coaliton doesn’t bode well any such activity in the future.

In the meantime, Palestinian villagers will pay the ‘price’ for any settlements that come down.  Oh and before you C.A.M.E.R.A. folks come and flame me, Olmert concurs:

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned yesterday that an “evil wind of extremism” is blowing among certain parts of the Israeli public – without naming any group – and that this is threatening democracy.

Speaking to his Cabinet, he complained that extremists were undermining “the ability of those in charge in Israel to make decisions”.

Olmert was apparently taking a swipe at hardline settlers who’ve said they’ll try to torpedo any attempt to remove dozens of sanctioned settlements as part of a future peace deal with the Palestinians.

Just reflect on the price America is paying in world opinion and opinion on the Arab Street for its unblinking support of Israeli West Bank policy.

*Update* Wow what happened to the CAMERA trolls?  Once upon a time I could mutter something bad about the cisJordan and they’d be flaming all over the comments.  *sigh*

…what I meant was blood-thirsty bastards!

The Israeli army fired into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators, killing 10 Palestinians, mostly children and teens. Now tell me again how this differs from a suicide-bomber killing innocent civilians on a bus? Oh yeah, the soldier in the tank didn’t die with his victims. Talk about your asymmetrical warfare!

Palestinian leaders have responded to Sharon’s threats to unilaterally impose the boundaries of a Palestinian ‘Homeland’ with the promise to call for a “single Arab-Jewish state.” Colin Powell dismissed the idea of a one-state solution (although he opposes a two-state solution for Iraq), saying:

“We’re committed to a two-state solution,” Powell said in Washington. “I believe that’s the only solution that will work: a state for the Palestinian people called Palestine and a Jewish state, state of Israel, which exists.”

What a cunundrum! The Sharon alternative, potentially featuring a torturously gerrymandered and discontinuous Palestinian state similar to the Bantustans of Apartheid, or a single country where extremists on both sides could continue to use acts of terror to advance their ‘no compromise’ positions.

Personally, I don’t see how the Bantustan solution would really stop the violence. A reactionary-dominated Israeli government would most likely choose to keep many of the older settlements in place, along with their water sources. Denied water, numerous Palestinian villages and towns would not be economically viable. With no access to ports (except in Gaza, where goods would have to pass through a foreign country to get to the West Bank), the Palestinian Homelands would not be an attractive manufacturing center. Who would invest in such a place? Where would its inhabitants work? How would they feed their families? Pushing the Arabs farther into the corner at a time when extremists are on the verge of acquiring dirty bombs and potentially even nuclear weapons strikes me as a recipe for disaster.

The linked article goes on to point out the ‘demographic’ issue; the Jewish population of the country, at 5.5 million, would hold only a slight majority over the theoretical Arab population of a unified state – 4.7 million. With a higher Arab birthrate, along with limited ‘right-of-return’ legislation that future ‘coalition’ governments might pass, Israel would be quickly looking at Jews returning to the minority in the region.

Along with sticky issues such as ‘right-of-return’ or compensation for lost property, the new, presumably secular state would need to deal with the extreme poverty of its new citizens, major infrastructure development and water rights. Security and crackdown on extremist elements of both sides would be another major challenge.

A
King George the Witless delegated ‘the Israel problem’ to Colin ‘Spineless’ Powell when it became apparent that Sharon was going to give the Roadmap, and the U.S., the finger.

After whinging and dithering and doing nothing for half-a-year after gaining responsibility for something from his stupid boss, Colin finally took a stand on the building of a particularly flagrant piece of the Sharon’s Roadmap-defying Great Wall of Greater Israel – that is, he took a stand ‘sort-of.’

You see, Sharon wanted to build a particularly gerrymandered piece of wall to protect a settlement located deep within occupied territory – one that would cut through the middle of a Palestinian University, among other things. When Powell whined a bit (and threatened to reduce Israel’s annual $8 billion dollar handout by the amount of the cost of the fence), Sharon graciously decided to leave a few gaps in the wall, so the locals along the path wouldn’t be 100% cut off from their former neighbors, friends and families.

And like the proverbial 90-lb. weakling comic-book advertisement fame, Powell is just standing there and taking it as the bully kicks sand in his face and walks off with the girl. Says Mr. Powell:

“The gaps in and of themselves do not satisfy me,” Powell said in an interview Friday. “The question is what becomes of the gaps in due course. We have not yet come to a conclusion about what to do and what our action should be, [but the officials] examined the fence, where it’s going and how it’s going, the settlements and what our obligations are under the law under these matters.”

Yeah, I bet ‘The Butcher of Sabra” started quaking in his boots when he heard that!