http://www.jewcy.com/post/hamas_political_failure

Commentators in the American and European press too often succumb to a solipsistic way of thinking of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as if only one side had any autonomy or agency. The debate between supporters and critics of Israel is typically couched in the same grammar: Either the Jewish state is acting defensibly, in its own self-interest, or it is not. Thus Tom Segev writes in Ha'aretz that while the latest assault on Hamas military and political infrastructure is morally justified, it represents a strategic blunder. A major fallacy ensues from this one-sided premise, which is that Israel is the sole stimulus for Hamas response, and therefore it alone bears the responsibility for the undeniable misery in Gaza. Those quick to point out how Olmert's miscalculations have hurt the people he governs will typically suggest that military incursions "radicalize" Arab sentiment, leading to more suicide bombers and more dead Israelis.

Assuming this is true, why is it that the corollary is never asked: namely, how does Hamas radicalize Israeli sentiment? A much remarked-upon fact of the last 72 hours is that Israel's ultra-left-wing party Meretz has endorsed Operation Cast Lead, a development that should concern partisans of both sides. If there is merit to the "root causes" argument, then surely it applies to the decisions undertaken by a Jewish polity as much as it does to those undertaken by a Muslim one. Or does a belligerent Israeli consensus form in a vacuum? Honest sympathizers of the Palestinian cause should inquire as to what culpability Ismail Haniyeh and Khalid Mashaal bear for the all-but-certain election of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is sure to continue - to coin another witless cliché of this ageless debate - the "cycle of violence." If, as Hannah Arendt once phrased it, Theodore Herzl and Bernard Lazare were "turned into Jews by anti-Semitism," why would their empowered disciples be any less susceptible to external threats?

4 more pages follow

http://blog.z-word.com/2008/12/gaza-and-the-labor-unions/

Hmmm....a strange posture for socialist heroes.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gzTzyMkBVuWOrOkjlgTIze3Qn8tA

The kind of open dialog Glenn Greenwald could be proud of.

http://aid2gaza.blogspot.com/

You need a criminal conviction. Burris will get the job and the Senate will seat him and you morons will look like you usually do.

While entertaining to his 9 friends, it's not quality stuff.

When bloggers push away from the MacBook and repeat aloud what they just spent all day hammering.

and their war against carbon based life forms. allahu brokeback.

I don't make the rules I just follow them.

• The NY Times confirms the quality of Israeli intelligence:

Muhammad al-Zarb said that the Israelis somehow seemed to know which tunnels were commercial and which were run by Hamas, and that they seemed to be selective in their bombing. “If someone has a tunnel for Chipsy, it seems O.K.,” he said. “When a Hamas guy has a tunnel for weapons, they bomb it.”

• Jeffrey Goldberg on Fatah:

I've been talking to friends of mine, former Palestinian Authority intelligence officials (ejected from power by the Hamas coup), and they tell me that not only are they rooting for the Israelis to decimate Hamas, but that Fatah has actually been assisting the Israelis with targeting information.

• AP after an Israeli air strike destroyed a mosque:

"The strike set off numerous secondary explosions, caused by the munitions stockpiled in the mosque," the spokesman said. Israel would continue to attack militant targets, "even if they (Hamas) cynically choose to operate from locations of religious or cultural significance."

• An ominous Wall St. Journal foreshadow of what's in store for IDF ground forces:

"We don't wear our uniforms, and we carry smaller guns so the Israelis can't identify us," said a 32-year-old police lieutenant, who said his first name was Muhammad but refused to give his last name.

• Robert Lieber on Arabs leaving Hamas hanging:

. . . any realistic hope of progress toward a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a successful two-state solution requires that Hamas suffer a severe setback in the present fighting in ways that seriously damage its capabilities and weaken its political credibility among Palestinians. Leading officials of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority know this and, notwithstanding their formulaic criticisms of Israel, have explicitly blamed Hamas for the current violence.