Earnestly Wrung Hands
Glenn Greenwald: Killing people is wrong, and it is reprehensible that anyone would blindly support Israel’s efforts to get Hamas to stop doing it. Israelis out of Israel now! At least I think that’s what he’s saying.
American media opinionator Greg Mitchell at HuffPo, silent on missiles coming out of Gaza, decries American media opinion silence on missiles going back into Gaza. Mitchell praises the fact that Israel has a robust free press, which examines and criticizes its government’s actions. Unlike Gaza, where critics are thrown off rooftops. Mitchell fails to note any opinion supporting government.
This one might be the best. Steve Clemons at the Washington Note on this early test of the Obama administration:
One of the most important and sensible comments made during the last stretch of the campaign came from the straight-talking Joe Biden. The then Democratic vice-presidential nominee said that Barack Obama would be “tested” by crisis early in his presidency.
Biden was right …
Part of what is going on today with Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s unleashing of massive Israeli airpower against Hamas offices in Gaza is a test of Obama’s America.
Barack Obama is not president yet.
Barack Obama cannot afford to allow his presidency and its foreign policy course to be hijacked by either side in this increasingly blurry dispute.
Barack Obama is still not president yet. Hang on, Clemons may have figured that out:
The US — and the incoming Obama administration — must move an agenda forward in Israel-Palestine negotiations that works at levels higher than the perpetrators of this violence. It’s time to get this conflict out of the weeds, and time to stop allowing any actors in this drama to hijack the foreign policy machinery of governments trying to push forward a Palestinian state.
OK, “incoming.” Clemons grasps at reality.
My colleague Daniel Levy who co-directs the Middle East Task Force of the New America Foundation will be weighing in later with his own thoughts from Israel later today or tomorrow.
But for now, the Obama administration must set its sites higher than this tragic episode and sculpt a national security strategy that this minority view, or that minority view, armed with guns and rockets and planes and bombs can’t hijack and derail at will.
OK, Obama’s back in office again, at least until later today or tomorrow, when Daniel Levy takes over. Anyway, Clemons’ confusion on who is president is matched by his confusion about what constitutes a “test.” I don’t know about you, but I sure hope Palestinians lobbing missiles and Israelis retaliating doesn’t amount to a serious challenge of Obama’s ability to lead the free world, or we’re in trouble.
Topics: Israel, Palestinians, moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 4:12 pm on Sunday, December 28, 2008
9 Responses to “Earnestly Wrung Hands”
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December 28th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
First of all, it´s “sights”. Unless setting his sites higher is part of the “shovel ready” projects in Obama´s trillion dollar “stimulus”.
Second, Israel is trying to defend itself. Clemons, always the parochial Washington liberal, can only see this as a hijacking of Obama´s “presidency and its foreign policy course”. Hey Steve: the earth does not revolve around Obama no matter how big his head gets.
Third, he cannot imagine a bigger test than this? I sure can.
Finally, wooly thinking, wooly language. There are no weeds, they are not “actors” in a drama, no machinery is hijacked, a view is not armed with guns and rockets. Here is what happened:
Hamas shoots rockets at civilians, the Israeli government belatedly does its duty and strikes back. If that means our National Security Stragey is “derailed” then it was crap from the start. Hamas doesn´t see itself as a minority amongst the peoples of the Obamaverse. It does what it does. It´s a bloody terrorist organisation. If your strategy cannot survive its first contact with reality, don´t blame Israel.
December 28th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Sadly the problem appears to be that Israel has, over the years, failed to kill a sufficient number of Palestinians.
The evidence of this? The obvious lack of deterrence of the relatively merciful policies followed by the Israeli governments over the last 60 years. Until Israel responds in a manner that is sufficiently ruthless to lead the Palestinians to fear Israel more than they hate Israel — thereby leading them to reject terrorism as the only means of preserving their lives and those of their children and grandchildren — then the Palestinians will continue to make the rational choice to continue to engage in aggression against Israel because they do not view the cost (a relative handful of dead compared to what they desire to inflict upon Israel) to be sufficiently low to continue to practice terrorism.
December 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
“Biden was right…”
Never thought I’d see those words in print.
December 28th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
“unleashing of massive Israeli airpower against Hamas offices”
Offices? Offices?!? In the face of such bald-faced dishonesty what can one say, but that the Iraqi Information Minister is obviously still alive and well.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I believe the India/Pakistan dispute is far more dangerous to US interests than the Israelis beating the crap out of Hamas. They should have done it a long time ago, and done it thoroughly. Hamas are nothing but criminal thugs.
December 28th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
“Glenn Greenwald: Killing people is wrong”
The usual Dembot hypocrisy. One day they’re nuking Hiroshima, the next day they’re whining about airstrikes against their pet Pal terrorists.
Yawn.
December 28th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
“Not a word of condemnation of the Israeli blockade — which has caused extreme suffering and deprivation in Gaza…”–Greenwald
“In response to Cuba’s alignment with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy extended measures by Executive Order, first widening the scope of the trade restrictions on February 7 (announced on February 3 and again on March 23, 1962). According to former aide, Kennedy asked him to purchase a thousand Cuban cigars for Kennedy’s future use immediately before the extended embargo was to come into effect. Salinger succeeded, returning in the morning with 1,200 Petit H. Upmann cigars, Kennedy’s favorite cigar size and brand. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy imposed travel restrictions on February 8, 1963, and the Cuban Assets Control Regulations were issued on July 8, 1963, under the Trading with the Enemy Act in response to Cubans hosting Soviet nuclear weapons, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Under these restrictions, Cuban assets in the U.S. were frozen and the existing restrictions were consolidated.”–wiki
And, thus the Cuban embargo was born.
Funny how liberals love embargos one day, and revile them the next day.
December 29th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Gleen Greenwald is a Reginald Bunthorpe: “I’m an æsthetic sham! … Born of a morbid love of admiration!”
Cheers
December 29th, 2008 at 9:59 am
@ Rhymes With Right Says:
December 28th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I agree. Instead of trying to thread the needle of minimum collateral damage to civilians (which doesn’t impress anyone, least of all the Palestinians), Israel should revert to an eye for an eye. Better yet, 10 eyes for 1 eye. If a homicide bomber kills a bus-full of Israelis, the IDF should blow up 10 bus-fulls of Palestinians. If they don’t have 10 buses, blow up 10 houses. Then the liberal fascists can haggle over whether or not 10 for 1 is too much. Israel can split the difference and make it 5 for 1.