Since the Israeli attack on Gaza began, the advocacy of J Street -- the new Jewish-American organization designed to break AIPAC's monopoly on speaking for American Jews -- has been superb.

Really? They are a LOBBY GROUP. Their measurement of success depends on the Congresspeople and Senators they convince to break with AIPAC. Considering these appalling resolutions will likely be 100% in favor from both parties, I'd go as far as to suggest that J Street is an utter failure. Their press release may as well be just another diary from someone on the Left. It doesn't seem to accomplish anything.

AIPAC is steamrolling our elected officials, as always, with not so much as a speed-bump in sight.

We have a winner!

link at sig

Hope to run into you (and/or Karr(sic)) at Arizmendi someday. But not Glenn - he'd rather live in Wasilla.

Kind of hate to say this, but your website suxorz. I mean your heart is in the right place and the content is ok to good, but please, could you find a grand-child's boy/girlfriend to help clean up the overlapping text issues and give the user some options on music and gosh, include a site-mape feature if you can't find it in yourself to give us an index? A blog roll would be good too. Anyway, I've tried the thing out from a whole whack of browsers and hardware and connections, and really, well, please just clean it up.

That is all.

To be honest, I've learned quite a bit from Palestinians living under occupation. Though it may be a surprise to the West, quite a great number of Palestinians have an amazing ability to keep an equilibrium and a peace with themselves under circumstances most people would not be able to really believe [or accept in their daily lives]. I don't mean to give them the appearance of angels or anything, but their steadfastness even under situations like these has been a source of strength and a model for me in every facet of my life.

I have discovered during this Gaza annihilation coverage that David Shuster is a Zionist shill - a propagandist. Tonight he brought on Clifford May, another guy who is intent on misleading American viewers with the Lukid talking points.

**** YOU HAVE GOT TO WATCH THIS!!!! ****

(click into signature for the clip)

Pat Buchanan hands them their asses! This is the best job I've seen Pat do in a long time defending the Palestinians.

May said something to the tune about how Israel wanted to give Gaza their land so they could have peace and be economically sound, but they chose terrorism instead ... la la la - Buchanan cuts him off and says "do you know where they moved those 8,000 Israelis that they made vacate Gaza? They transported them to the West Bank and created new illegal settlements using American taxpayer money. - Watch Shuster's frustrated look, as he cuts Pat off and changes the subject.

Shuster also cuts him off again at the end when Pat says that Hamas is shooting rockets into what was formerly Palestinian towns - then he starts to name the towns. Shuster quickly cuts him off and changes the subject to Obama.

WAY TO GO PAT!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28566049#28566049

@ ElephantDung

"A U.S. drone, armed with Hellfires, apparently took out an Al-Qaeda-used building in Pakistan, killing several top Al-Qaeda leaders, per WaPo."

It's amasing how many women and children have recently joined al Qaeda. Of course, recent events in the Middle East may explain a fair bit of the sudden influx.

Cheers,

-- Arne Langsetmo

~Are you saying that the Hellfire attack in Pakistan was an attack on women and children?

~Are you saying that Hamas does not routinely place its offensive assets in close proximity to the women and children of Gaza?

~Are you saying that the U.S. should not attack Al Qaeda in Pakistan, lest we encourage people in Gaza to join and/or support Hamas? If so, are you articulating a disagreement that you have with the incoming Obama administration?

I guess Glenn Greenwald has chosen not to answer my earlier question as to whether the recent Pakistan attack was a "war crime." Or whether it may have been okay to hit that target with a Hellfire, but not capture the targets and waterboard them.

How We Got to This Point: Three recent books chart the winding path from Kermit Roosevelt with his suitcases stuffed with cash to George W. Bush's gloomy Nobel Prize prospects.

By Kevin Peraino | NEWSWEEK, Published Jan 3, 2009 (see sig)

Barack Obama said virtually nothing last week about the fighting in Gaza. We only have "one president at a time," his aides argue, and he has already called for a robust American peacemaking effort. Still, as the bombs began falling it must have been tempting for the president-elect to simply avert his eyes. Cries of "all-out war" make the risks to U.S. credibility abroad and the political costs at home seem infinitely more acute. Fighting in the Holy Land has been raging for thousands of years, the familiar reasoning goes; it would be hubris to think America could end it.

Yet three excellent recent books suggest that such logic is seriously flawed. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly, diplomatic distance virtually guarantees the status quo. Because Israel is so much stronger, power dynamics in the conflict are "deeply unbalanced," write Daniel Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky in their trenchant guidebook, "Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace" (191 pages. U.S. Institute of Peace. $16.50). "Left on their own, the parties cannot address the deep, structural impediments to peace." Over the past half-century, the price of a generally desultory American policy has been compounded.

[…]

American diplomacy in the region wasn't always so feeble. Back in the fall of 1956, intelligence reached Washington that Israel was massing troops near Gaza in the Negev Desert. U.S. officials discovered that Israel had conspired with Britain and France to seize the Suez Canal, which popular Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the summer before. The Americans were furious at their allies' back-room plan. Israel's then foreign minister, Golda Meir, made an argument much the same as what Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said since then: "Imagine attacks from enemies camped on the Mexican and Canadian borders inflicting those kinds of casualties in America." But President Eisenhower wasn't buying. As Tyler recounts, Ike went on television and demanded a withdrawal, later withholding oil shipments and loans to Britain. The conspirators were forced to comply.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/177713