The End of the Beginning
It looks like there’s a tentative cease-fire in place between Israel and Hamas “coming after 22 days of war that killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.”
Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire, but no plan to withdraw troops from Gaza. Hamas counter-announced a one-week cease-fire to give Israel time to withdraw troops from Gaza. At the time of the expiration of the previous medium-term cease-fire, the sensible proposal was for the United States along with allies in Europe and the Arab world (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) to press for a deal in which Israel was given enhanced assurances regarding rocket fire and border smuggle in exchange for Israel relaxing the blockade on Gaza. That didn’t happen, and neither Israel nor Hamas pursued that route on their own, and as a result all these people are dead. But it’s still the sensible way forward.
42 Responses to “The End of the Beginning”
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January 18th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Now let the war crime investigations begin…. The International Criminal Court should be busy the next few years dealing with the American Neocons and the Israeli Zionists.
I think to save on expenses they should consider buying some Zylon rope. http://www.yalecordage.com/html/news/000530.html. Its should work well for the frequent use that the gallows will see.
January 18th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Gee, what a coincidence the cease-fire was announced just before Obama comes in.
January 18th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Coming after 22 days of war that killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
100 Palestinians per Israeli. At Wounded Knee 200 Sioux and 25 US cavalry were killed. At the Sand Creek Massacre 200+ Cheyenne and 15 cavalry were killed, something more than 13 to 1. The Israelis are pretty efficient.
January 18th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
“enhanced assurances regarding rocket fire”
Yglesias is getting better at the meaningless diplo-speak. A job as Assistant to the Assistant to the Deputy Undersecretary for Pablum and Strategery awaits!
January 18th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
the sensible proposal was for the United States along with allies in Europe and the Arab world (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) to press for a deal in which Israel was given enhanced assurances regarding rocket fire and border smuggle in exchange for Israel relaxing the blockade on Gaza.
I find it interesting that nothing is said here about Israel’s repeated incursions into Gaza to assassinate Hamas officials (ie. the breakdown of the ceasefire). I suppose that wouldn’t be part of any ceasefire, should it? Nor should any such Israeli attacks be considered a breach of the ceasefire…
January 18th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Well, I won my bet that this excellent adventure would end just before the inauguration and would fail to achieve any of its publicly professed goals. Given all the mischief that George and Dick could have cooked up as a swan song, just green lighting the Israelis and providing some ordinance and intel was almost a relief.
January 18th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I guess it would have been to embarassing to do it at midnight tonight, or whenever the swearing in occurs tomorrow Israeli time.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Well, I won my bet that this excellent adventure would end just before the inauguration and would fail to achieve any of its publicly professed goals. Given all the mischief that George and Dick could have cooked up as a swan song, just green lighting the Israelis and providing some ordinance and intel was almost a relief.
Yeah. I mean for God’s sake, for a while there I thought they were going to cook up a war with Iran to leave on Obama’s plate. But I expect that would have caused an actual mutiny within the military. So a proxy war will have to do. Funny how Israel is about the only proxy that Bush has left. None of the historical ones want anything to do with him anymore.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
… fail to achieve any of its publicly professed goals.
I got called an anti-semite for saying it would turn out this way by some of the same people who called me an anti-semite for saying the same thing about the 2006 attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
And I will be called an anti-semite by those same people again in two years, when Israel engages in yet another futile round of bloodletting.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Ir’s in the interest of both sides to stop the fighting as it is not in either of their interests to have President Elect Osama start off pissed off at them.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Oh, look, there’s one now.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I’ll defer to Steve Bell here.
January 18th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Was anyone really imagining this thing would ‘end’ any other way? It was pretty clear to me that the Israelis would go in, pound for a while, and then at some arbitrary point pack up and declare another cease fire. Was anyone expecting something else? What? A permanent invasion? Territorial inclusion? A war dragging on for months?
January 18th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Matt, you write: “as a result all these people are dead.” Actually, only 13 people are dead. 1,200 lemmings are also, but they were pests anyway. I wish more had been gotten rid of.
January 18th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I got called an anti-semite for saying it would turn out this way by some of the same people who called me an anti-semite for saying the same thing about the 2006 attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Did you?
I can remember one time in my whole life someone used the word “anti-semite” I can’t recall what it was about.
What I’ve got a ton of is: “it’s funny how you care about dead Arabs and not dead Jews, wonder why that is?”, “interesting how much you care about attrocity X, instead of attrocity Y”.
What’s interesting about that is that the kind of things I’m likely to say are pretty much the entire planets opinon outside of Jews, evangelical Christians, and Rush Limbaugh fans. Which means they think the entire world with those exceptions are coming to their conclusions based on Jew hatred.
January 18th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I also wonder if the formulation I describe above doesn’t have a hint of projection in it. I’ve never asked back “why do you care about attrocity X instead of attrocity Y?”
January 18th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Even more strange, a subset of such people will also believe that the evangelicals and dittoheads are anti-semites, which means the world they imagine they live in doesn’t have any non anti-semites!
January 18th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Whomever could have predicted that the senseless, counterproductive, US-enabled violence would end immediately before the inauguration?
Operation Cast Lead = End of administration fire-sale, everything must go.
January 18th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Forward? I don’t there is such a thing as forward in this situation.
January 18th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I thought Arabs were Semites also.
January 18th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
You actually found someone to take the other side of that bet?
January 18th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
The only credible “path to peace” I can envision would require a committed 3rd party, and if not the US then a collection of parties, to stand as a barrier between irrational actors.
Meanwhile in the real world…
January 19th, 2009 at 12:25 am
I hang around in some pretty seedy beer dives in Texas. If I stayed late enough and bought enough rounds I could probably get someone to bet me McCain would win the election.
January 19th, 2009 at 1:16 am
Let’s analyze this content-less post.
“Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire, but no plan to withdraw troops from Gaza. Hamas counter-announced a one-week cease-fire to give Israel time to withdraw troops from Gaza.”
In other words, the fighting will resume in a week. Israel is just holding off to replenish the logistics – ditto Hamas.
“At the time of the expiration of the previous medium-term cease-fire”
Matt forgets that Hamas offered to extend that cease fire. Israel refused.
“the sensible proposal was for the United States along with allies in Europe and the Arab world (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) to press for a deal in which Israel was given enhanced assurances regarding rocket fire and border smuggle”
Which are impossible to enforce – to some degree even by Hamas itself – and therefore meaningless.
“in exchange for Israel relaxing the blockade on Gaza.”
Israel “relaxed” the blockade during the last cease fire. Well, only by thirty percent or less – which in other words means it didn’t END the blockade at all. And it violated the ceasefire several times irregardless of whatever rockets were still being fired. In fact, in September, October and November when only a couple rockets were fired despite Hamas’ efforts, Israel launched attacks on Hamas and closed the border completely and launched more settlements.
In other words, Hamas got ZIP out of the last ceasefire.
“But it’s still the sensible way forward.”
Why? It’s just another round in the same old, same old situation. Nobody makes any real concessions, the balance of power continues to favor Israel, and nobody – least of all Obama – will ever pressure Israel to actually take some meaningful steps to stop the occupation, remove settlements, let alone actually agree to anything like what is necessary.
January 19th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Great editorical in Gurdian:
A pointless war that led to a moral defeat for Israel:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/18/gaza-israel-palestinian
Israel is not sustainable. It was a historical mistake and it’s about time to rectify the issue. The solution is one state called Palestine, right of return, the whole nine yards.
Let’s fix 60 years of colloasal mistake: the creation of Israel.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
If you want to know what the Israelis are up to read John J. Mearsheimer’s article in the American Conservative. He nails it!
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/jan/26/00006/
January 19th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Fact: Hamas offered to continue the ceasefire last month. Israel refused, insisting on continuing to impose its siege on the people of Gaza, 56% of whom are children, over 80% of whom are dependent on foreign aid for survival. http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2009/01/11/did-israel-reject-hamas-ceasefire-offer-last-december/
Until there is a cease-starvation by Israel, there will be no cease-fire from Hamas for any substantial length of time.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Funny how everyone here is quick to judge, when they have no idea what will come out of this war. So far Hamas has stopped firing rockets. And notice Hizballah didn’t intervene in the war either (Lebanon 2006 remind them of something?).
Luckily, all the armchair analysts around here are just little boys playing with their keyboards. And no one cares.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Israel got most of what it wanted. It didn’t completely stop the rocket fire, but it slowed it significantly. Hamas is talking tough, of course, but the key is the split between the Gaza leadership, which wanted the cease-fire, and the Damascus leadership, which wanted the violence to continue. Egypt is also more serious about paying attention to the arms smuggling.
The linked piece by Mearsheimer is a joke, full of anachronisms and quotes taken years out of context. Kadima and Labor have been against the idea of Greater Israel for years. The problem has been the weakness of Fatah, which was unable to create a stable Gaza in the wake of Israeli withdrawal and lost the elections and then the civil war to Hamas.
I predict that both sides will ultimately win. Israel will have to start talking directly to Hamas’s Gaza leadership, opening the crossings, etc. and Hamas will recognize that it cannot drive the Jews out of Israel through military means. The outcome will be similar to Lebanon in 2006. Hamas will have greater legitimacy, but will behave better. Obama pressure on Israel will also help Fatah in the West Bank.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:38 am
“So far Hamas has stopped firing rockets”
No, they have not. They fired some shortly after Olmert announced the ceasefire.
And a report today from Israel’s intelligence head shows that Israel did not completely destroy all the tunnels, either. He predicts the situation will go back to what it was unless the US and Egypt can somehow seal off the borders.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:35 am
The linked piece by Mearsheimer is a joke, full of anachronisms and quotes taken years out of context. Kadima and Labor have been against the idea of Greater Israel for years.
Wow, that’s embarrassing. Surely Israel’s partisans can produce better quality apologetics than this.
January 20th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Yes, that would have been sensible, however, there’s no evidence that anyone was in a position to make such guarantees before this. For example, Egypt (understandably) hasn’t been very keen on the idea of foreign troops monitoring the Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas didn’t seem all that keen to negotiate a new truce. It isn’t remotely clear what the PA thought. There’s Gilad Schalit’s situation.
PS Reading some of the above one can only be reminded of the Monty Python “argument” sketch. Wow, that’s embarrassing. Or at least it should be.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Farid says:
“Israel is not sustainable. It was a historical mistake and it’s about time to rectify the issue. The solution is one state called Palestine, right of return, the whole nine yards.
Let’s fix 60 years of colloasal mistake: the creation of Israel.”
Our Farid here is finally being honest. He wants the Jews removed from the land of Palestine. He’s not saying exactly how that should happen. He knows his Arab friends are too weak and too ineffectual to do the job themselves. He wants the international community to do it for him and his people. He wants us to respect the Palestinian cause, it’s people and it’s culture. Will he either encourage his leaders to respect the rights of jews, women and minorities inside the newly created Palestine? No. In otherwords, his respect for human life doesn’t include jews, secularists, women or westerners. We are supposed to care deeply about the suffering caused by Israelis to the helpless citizens of Gaza but we are not supposed to care about the suffering caused by Palestinians to Fatah members, women, and other minorities inside Gaza. My guess is, the international community would not be welcomed inside this newly created Palestine once the troublesome jews were removed. We are here only to serve the needs of Farid and his friends. Once our usefulness has run it’s course, we are supposed to get out and stay out of their business.
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