Month: June 2010

Beinart doesn't blame Israeli commandos for what happened yesterday. He instead points his finger at the Israeli embargo of Gaza:

Israel does not deserve all the blame for Gaza’s impoverishment. Gaza’s other neighbor, Egypt, imposes an embargo of its own, though less effectively. And Hamas has been known to confiscate goods meant for Gaza’s poor. But none of that excuses Israel’s role in keeping Gaza destitute.

Far from a well-crafted policy, the Gaza embargo has become something you might find in a University of Chicago seminar about the perversions inherent in interfering with free trade. As Haaretz detailed in a remarkable investigative report last summer, the embargo is not merely arbitrary (Gazans can import cinnamon, but not chocolate), it is corrupt. When Israeli farmers have surplus supply, they seek loopholes for the goods they wish to sell. Israeli officials allow Gazans to import Israeli products, but not the materials necessary to make those products themselves, since that would threaten Israel’s hold on the Gazan market. As the Israeli human-rights group Gisha has noted, Gazans can buy Israeli-made tomato paste, but cannot buy the empty cans necessary to preserve and market their own, which would compete with Israeli suppliers.

If all this were actually turning the people of Gaza against Hamas, perhaps—perhaps—it might have a cold-blooded justification. But if there is anything that the U.S. has learned from its half-century long embargo of Cuba, it is that policies of collective punishment don’t turn people against their regimes. To the contrary, they usually offer those regimes an excuse for their inability to govern.

"Israel will not allow the violation of its sovereignty at sea, in the air, or on land,” – foreign minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, defending an attack on a ship from a NATO member nation in international waters.

Now that the "top kill" has failed, Robert Reich implores Obama to take control of the operation:

The Obama administration keeps saying BP is in charge because BP has the equipment and expertise necessary to do what’s necessary. But under temporary receivership, BP would continue to have the equipment and expertise. The only difference: the firm would unambiguously be working in the public’s interest. As it is now, BP continues to be responsible primarily to its shareholders, not to the American public.

Oy. Sounds like anti-corporate grandstanding to me and won't help stop the gush. It seems pretty obvious to me that BP has every incentive in the world to stop this leak. It's just that it's incredibly hard to do. Andrew Revkin looks at the next strategy:

[BP] is moving to cut away the tangle of pipe from the well and install a small containment cap, called the “lower marine riser package." Engineers say the hope is that the device, far smaller than the ineffective white metal structure installed over one gushing leak earlier in the month, can catch the escaping oil without clogging with the methane slush that thwarted that earlier attempt.

Reich notes that the "highly risky" method could increase the flow of oil as much as 20 percent.  (More visual translations of BP's fake Twitter feed can be found here.)

Do not try this at home:

Jim Henley offers some hard truths:

The raid is the latest case of Israel choosing militarism over liberalism, which Beinart identifies as the core issue…

Israel not only no longer faces any enemies who pose an existential threat, it doesn’t even have enemies who can thwart any strongly held Israeli policy aim. No state is going to go to war to “destroy Israel.” I doubt any state particularly wants to. Certainly no state that might want to can do so. But beyond that, no state is going to go to war on behalf of the Palestinians and the Palestinians lack the power to launch an effective war on their own behalf.

Every time Israel takes major, disproportionate action, the “counterproductivity corps” tells us that very soon now Israel’s high-handedness will cost it essential allies, alienate the United States and set the country on the road to ruin. Every time, the furor passes. In particular, the United States has attempted no material rebuke of Israel since the administration of Bush the Elder, and these days barely bothers with rhetorical rebukes…

This is not Israel “shooting itself in the foot.” This is Israel winning. Be for that or against it, but at least recognize it.

(Photo: Benjamin Netanyahu by Gali Tibbon/Getty.)

How deranged are many neocons? This deranged. Jennifer Rubin believes that Israel's attack on a flotilla carrying goods for impoverished Gazans by a bunch of activists, armed only with bric a brac from their ship, was self-defense. Yes, a country with 150 nuclear warheads, the most lethal military in its region, the ability to occupy neighboring countries at will, and the protection of the global super-power was actually threatened by … a small crew of boats. Moreover, this attack took place in international waters, and the people on board were fully entitled to defend themselves. What you see on the neocon right is the notion that if an armed military were to burgle your home and you grabbed a pitchfork to defend yourself, the army has every right to shoot you dead. You have to invert every single principle of law and morality to give Israel the benefit of the doubt in this inversion of normal morality.

It's only when you glimpse into this mindset that you realize how deeply paranoid and disturbed it is. When trained commandos open fire on activists, it is because those commandos are allegedly in danger! When a tiny strip of dense urban development is strafed with missiles infinitely more powerful than anything Hamas can lob, it is apparently out of self-defense. When casualties are always lop-sided to an almost absurd degree – in Gaza and on the Mavi Marmara – Israel is always the victim, and the blood is always on the hands of the victims, even when some of those victims are children buried in rubble. When a ship in international waters, carrying the flag of a NATO member, is attacked, the real victims are the attackers, who faced a "lynch mob", according to Noah Pollak.

This analysis is a function of a mindset warped by paranoia, enabled by utter arrogance, fueled by a sense of impunity. And the primary collateral damage is done to the West as a whole, to the US's interests in the Middle East, and, of course, to Israel itself. Meanwhile, Iran is able to avoid what should be a moment of intense pressure – because Netanyahu's bumbling bunch of thugs chose to give their mortal enemy a distraction.

Bibi is not just a thug; he's incompetent. This attack was not just a crime; it was a mistake – but a helpful mistake if it can prod Jerusalem to realize that it needs to make a deal soon, and in this deal, Obama is Israel's best friend. Maybe that is Obama's calculation in rolling over to Jerusalem in this latest flap. But if he believes that enabling this kind of action will force Netanyahu into some sort of reasonable deal, he's more optimistic than I am.

This is real:

… a massive, spontaneous sinkhole ("hundimiento") that appeared today in Zone 2 of Guatemala City, after overwhelming saturation of rains from tropical storm Agatha. Not Photoshop, sadly: these happen from time to time during major storms in part because of unstable geology (and bad urban engineering—read more about it in the comments). There are rumors of similar sinkholes now forming nearby.

Closer look here. The Guatemalan government has a gallery on Flickr.

Has anyone else noticed a total absence of comment from TNR on the flotilla attack?

"Assume u WON'T get straight scoop on Israeli flotilla incident via mainstream media;PLEASE read Krauthammer,Horowitz,et al 2learn other side," – Sarah Palin.