Fatah and Hamas are unified in Gaza, which is pretty amazing given the bitterness over their differences. If it continues, there will be longterm political implications for the reconstruction of Palestinian resistance. If Hamas comes out of this victorious, which is likely since they just need to survive, there will be a lot of pressure on Abbas to take some dramatic action vis a vis unifying Gaza and the West Bank in terms more favorable to Hamas, because his support in the West Bank is considerably weakened, given that he has not been able to achieve anything from the U.N.

What is striking from here and listening to very different media than what North American audiences are hearing, is the ever yawning gap between Arab publics and their leaders. Depending on how long the Israeli reoccupation of Gaza goes on, publics throughout the Middle East will increase pressure on Arab leaders via strengthening of oppositions to them in specific countries. We are watching the Egyptian regime in particular come under strong attack by Hezbollah in Lebanon but also publics in London as well as Turkey.

We are watching the end of the two state solution and the emergence of the long struggle back to a single, democratic state. Israeli Palestinians are the key strategic weakness for Israel, given that the Israeli state has failed to coopt its Arab citizens.

Unfortunately, U.S. citizens will end up paying a very high price for the double standards of our govt., likely in the form of more attacks on U.S. interests at home and abroad.

From our declaratio of independence:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Since 2000 lb bombs and airplanes hadn't been invented, the british were forced to use soldiers. Luckily for us, we had enough terrorists on our side who were willing to fight in unconventional ways.

GG's analysis offers a crucial perspective: we have to make and defend distinctions in order to come to grips with the horrific history of this region. Simply writing off these conflicts as the "gang" wars of incorrigible (or, worse, subhuman) populations is both ethically and intellectually deficient (see: Pontius Pilate).

Glen Greenwald makes the important distinction between those pro-Israel advocates who see innocent Palestinian deaths as *welcome,* and those who regret such deaths but still support Israel's massive military incursion. The difference is important, because the amoral, vicious foundation of the first position needs to be uncovered for what it is if we have any hope of persuading those of the second group to rethink their position.

American history is a useful parallel here. During the Jim Crow era, as white Southerners enforced extra-legal punishment on black people accused of crimes, there were two large camps of white opinion. Those who were closest to the lynchings knew that many if not most of the killings were not just extra-legal but specious: the people killed were most likely not guilty. But, convinced of their own higher humanity, they believed there was a positive value to killing the "wrong" person, since it sent a message to an inherently criminal group. For a second, larger group of white people, this vigilantism was regrettable but still understandable for decent people who needed to protect themselves against incorrigible criminals that threatened families. In retrospect, it's clear that the second group condoned and those perpetuated the violence of the first group because they couldn't or wouldn't see black people as fully human--as deserving of the same human rights as white people.

The analogy is inexact; Israelis are under a more direct threat than the white US majority was. But it is still the case that Israelis--a far more powerful group than the Palestinians, who hold the reigns of government and military power––are being swayed against their better instincts because of the aggression and fear of those who see a benefit in the death of innocent Palestinians. It's a big, big red flag that we all should heed.

And don't pay any attention to those people who point out that Orwell's model for NewSpeak in 1984 was none other than the proposed rules of language bandied about while Orwell was a wartime broadcaster to India for the BBC.

True, of course, that Newspeak is just a precursor of "political correctness" which so many liberals seem to support, even though it makes independent thinking difficult or impossible.

[My personal favorite is the word abuse which now seems to have replaced dozens of words ranging all the way from torture to incest.]

Possibly the language and ideas available Hamas preclude thinking about long-term plans for a peaceful future. Maybe the words just don't exist in their language?

June 3, 2008 Huffington Post:

Bill Kristol today proudly announces that one of his Weekly Standard staff members, Michael Goldfarb, was just named the Deputy Communications Director of the McCain campaign...this is what Goldfarb wrote about what he thinks are the powers the President possesses in our country:

Mitchell's less than persuasive answer [to whether withdrawal timetables "somehow infringe on the president's powers as commander in chief?"]: "Congress is a coequal branch of government...the framers did not want to have one branch in charge of the government."

True enough, but they sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war. So no, the Constitution does not put Congress on an equal footing with the executive in matters of national security.

Full and unedited:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/03/michael-goldfarb-mccains_n_104898.html

"Is that what explains the ongoing expansion of West Bank settlements -- those are peace offerings from the kind and peaceful Israelis?"

Sort of.

Sure, you can point to the settlers themselves, and to Yisroel Beitenu, who mostly believe (similarly to many Palestinians) that God gave them the land and yada yada. However, these are small, fringe groups in Israeli society, even today. The larger population recognizes that the settlements are controversial, and may stand in the way of peace and reconciliation. So why were they authorized in the first place?

During the post-1967 period when the settlement movement began, the Arab world had concretized its determination never to make peace with Israel. So the settlements' status as an impediment to peace wasn't very convincing to Israelis.

Moreover, Palestinians quickly began terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. Because Jews are taught the absolute sacredness of all human life (yes, I know you folks who know nothing about Judaism are rolling your eyes), the idea of expanding settlements seemed elegant. Basically, you blow up my child in a discotheque with a bomb, I'll respond by building another house on what used to be your land. I think that idea was persuasive.