An injured policemen walks away during clashes with demonstrators from reaching the Egyptian embassy in Algiers on January 09, 2009. Several thousand protestors rallied in Algiers after Friday prayers, burning Israeli flags and denouncing Tel Aviv and its key ally Washington. ‘The army and the people are with you Gaza,’ they shouted, adding: ‘Take us to Gaza.’ By Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty.
Yglesias makes a few good points:
Most Americans with strong feelings about Israel don’t actually have strong feelings about the details of Israeli policy. Had the Israeli government chosen to talk rather than start bombing back in December, Americans would have supported them. Had the Israeli government bombed for a few days and then agreed to a cease-fire, Americans would have supported that. But instead the bombing was followed up by a land invasion, so they supported that instead. And politicians follow a similar lead. As France and Egypt were working on a cease-fire proposal Wednesday, Rep. Steny Hoyer was "scrambling to push out" a nonbinding resolution in support of Israeli policy, hoping to avoid being "out hawked" by House Republicans.
While this sort of politically motivated deference is understandable, it’s also incredibly counterproductive.
The parties to the conflict aren’t really in need of any brilliant new substantive ideas from the United States — the basic shape of what an agreement would look like is well understood. Nor are our services as mediators really needed — the Norwegians have proven capable of playing that role when asked, and no doubt others could do the same. What’s needed is something that changes the Israeli domestic calculation — a sense that the nature of the Israel-U.S. relationship will depend, in part, on the nature of Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Any administration willing to publicly chastise an Israeli government will inevitably wind up ruffling some feathers and taking political heat for it, but it will almost certainly be for the Israelis’ own good.
Alex Knapp questions the assumption that Hamas is an Iranian proxy:
…as far as I can determine from researching online, no such collaboration appears to exist. The best I could come up with is that Iran does provide some funding for Hamas, but that funding level is at a paltry $3 million per year. Saudi Arabia and Syria are much bigger funders of Hamas, and some Hamas leaders operate out of Syria. Even at that, though, it’s pretty clear that Hamas is pretty much a home-grown Palestinian organization. They may accept funding and support from other countries, but there’s not much evidence that they act as a “proxy” for any of them.
Alex dukes it out in the comments with readers who aren’t buying it.
"This end of History would be most exhilarating but for the fact, that according to Kojeve, it is the participation in bloody political struggles as well as in real work or generally expressed, the negating action, which raises man above the brutes. The state through which man is said to become reasonably satisfied is, then, the state in which the basis of man’s humanity withers away or in which man loses his humanity. It is the state of Nietzsche’s ‘last man,’" – Leo Strauss, On Tyranny.
Why doesn’t this get a blog award? I’m particularly struck by this entry. (You can still vote, by the way.)
Why is anyone printing the views of the most disastrous political strategist of recent times? A take-down of the latest Palin-level delusions.
Ronald Bailey summarizes a new study:
The Environmental Working Group has just issued a report that finds that 75 percent of all renewable fuels tax subsidies in 2007 went to environmentally damaging corn-ethanol production. In addition, the corn ethanol industry, teetering on the edge of collapse despite billions already wasted in subsidies on it, now wants additional billions for a bailout.
James Joyner agrees with the Pentagon that the Purple Heart should not be awarded for PTSD:
While I take PTSD more seriously than Stacy McCain, who asks “What next? Medals for dysentery?” I share his credulity that this was even under serious consideration. To award the Purple Heart for psychological scars would be a slap in the face to the long line of combat wounded who have earned the medal the hard way, instantly cheapening it.
I find both judgments devoid of a real understanding of trauma and its profound mental effects. The mind can be wounded too in the line of duty. In the twenty-first century we should have some way of acknowledging that, even if the Purple Heart may not be the right way to go.
How to make a fruit salad using a deck of cards:
The Dish 