Israel's Right to Exist

Since Palestinian/Israeli negotiations have been hung up for a couple years over the issue of Hamas refusing to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, international lawyer (and Palestinian advisor) John Whitbeck has written a column what the right to exist means to Palestinians. He points out that Israel has never clearly spelled out its own borders, and Israeli texts show all of Palestine as encompassed within Israel. Moreover, it would be an acknowledgment of the moral justification of the initial expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and for all that has followed since then:

To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive. Nor did native Americans have to live under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed whatever pride they had left and conceded the point.

Forcing Palestinians to make this concession, Whitbeck argues, is a tactic in bad faith and a roadblock to progress to peace negotiations.

The Last Word on Lebanon

Gregory Djerejian at The Belgravia Dispatch has offered some of the best Lebanon commentary since the conflict started (I quoted one of his posts at the top of the month). Last week he wrote the definitive summary of the conflict. A teaser:

First, let me stress that no comprehensive, lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict can be achieved by force of arms. So while Israel certainly has a right to self-defense, it should not labor under the misconception that it can eradicate or totally defang or otherwise defeat her foes militarily in some maximal fashion. This is simply not possible, short of a series of nuclear holocausts, perhaps, and so it was surprising to see so many rabid commentators, both here and in Israel, chanting on about Israel not having the will to win, to win totally, that is. This is claptrap, chimerical, absurd—although it appears to provide varied commentators here in New York City and down in Washington with a frisson of macho-thrill—that is, before they abscond back to their think-tank cubicles feeling manlier about having called for a good, old-fashioned bombs-away Armageddon in the Holy Land.

Let’s be clear. Beating Hezbollah ultimately must rely more on what might be described as counter-insurgency tactics, not some Dresden redux. To beat back Hezbollah one must moderate the 40% of Lebanese who are Shi’a, by over time having them pledge their primary allegiance to a strong central government, one that is sharing the economic fruits of Lebanon’s revival with all ethnic groups, so as to ultimately render the social welfare arm of Hezbollah largely irrelevant. Given this, it is manifestly clear that Israel’s reaction to Hezbollah’s provocation should have always been limited to targets south of the Litani River (save the very exceptional target to the north of truly imperative strategic value). This is so that the greatest pain would have been inflicted solely on the perpetrators of the rocket attacks and kidnapping themselves, rather than Lebanon writ large.

This piece is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the conflict and what must be done to effectively address the problem of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Is it too much to ask that we have someone like Djerejian running our State Department or the National Security Council? We need grown-ups in DC instead of kids on Big Wheels (Suskind quoting a "senior White House official").

Foreign Policy Amateurs

It stuns me that there are people who think Condi Rice is a competent diplomat. Particularly when I see things like this line in a Jerusalem Post story on the conflict in Palestine:

Abbas's aides said he decided to travel to the Gaza Strip after receiving warnings from Israel and the US that he must resolve the case of Shalit as soon as possible or face more sanctions and military operations. According to one aide, Abbas even turned down a request from Washington to dismiss the Hamas government and to reinstall his Fatah party.

The only expertise of our current State Department appears to be in the field of making bad situations worse. Do they honestly expect a political moderate to take on Hamas at a time when Israel is killing Palestinians in droves and has locked up Palestine's democratically elected government? Is this what they view as an opportune time to have their closest ally in Palestine stick his neck out? The JPost story goes on to describe how the Israeli campaign in Palestine, combined with their apparent defeat in Lebanon, has boosted Hamas' standing and forced Abbas to politically realign himself nearer to Hamas. After months of Hamas desperately trying to get Fatah to join a unity government with them in order to create political legitimacy for their government, now Fatah appears to be pushing for a unity government and Hamas is playing coy, not sure that they want to share the limelight. Well done folks, well done.

Constructing a Salable Security Narrative

Israeli activist and negotiator Daniel Levy has an article in Ha'aretz wondering whether and how Israel can extract itself from a "pro-Israel" US foreign policy that appears fixed on using Israel to fight its proxy wars. The neocon foreign policy, he argues, has inflamed opinion against Israel even as it has eliminated any ability for the US to buffer Israel from hostility. As Levy notes:

An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem.

It should, but will it?

In the end Levy struggles with the same thing I struggle with, and that a post-Lieberman Democratic party is struggling with: how do you create an alternative narrative where peace and security are achieved with negotiations and painstaking diplomacy rather than bombs and missiles? As Levy notes, the neocon vision glosses over the complexities of local politics, the weighty and difficult to deal with matters of context. The neocon narrative is simple, pristine, and, above all, masculine. Like a good Bruckheimer protaganist, the neocon philosophy brooks no bullshit. It kicks ass and takes names. This, as Ron Suskind expertly points out in his talks and writing, is how the Bush political machine sells. The constituency of people tired of the overwhelming complexity of the modern world is vast, and furiously angry. Ultimately, however, policies born of oversimplification are doomed to disaster. Time enough has passed on the neocon experiment for that to begin to show, although the public has not yet begun to grasp the immensity of this disaster. The resulting dissatisfaction may be enough to turn the tide to a small degree, as the Connecticut primary showed. By a very slim margin.

As many Republican partisans have argued (and I think they're right), rejectionism is not enough to build a political movement. There must be an alternative narrative. But how do you sell complexity in a political system built around 10-second soundbites? How do you get a time-starved public with quick-hit media and short attention spans to engage in the labyrinthine terrain of Lebanese politics? I think a lot about this lately, and as yet I am unconvinced that it is possible. Hopefully there is someone out there in the wide world of politics who can prove me wrong.

Corruption Watch: University Funding

Just a few quick hits today:

CSM has a strong article on the politicization of federal educational and research funding. It's just one more arena for compromised politicians to extend their tentacles into. Remember when Newt Gingrich built a Republican majority around the idea of clean government?

On to Lebanon. It seems that a small coalition of moderate-conservative realists is coalescing around the Andrew Sullivan blog. These include the Cunning Realist, Dan Drezner, and the Belgravia Dispatch. That last, the Belgravia Dispatch, is the source of the single best piece I've seen on Lebanon so far. Key point:

...this was more by way of an ill-advised temper tantrum than a serious military operation, as Arik Sharon would himself admit, if only he were aware of the disaster underway. Sharon would have recalled previous Lebanese quagmires and would have well understood (aided by the wisdom of years and the lack of any need to prove himself) that resort to airpower, in the main, cannot succeed in this context, with the specter of hundreds and hundreds of civilian deaths earning Israel international opprobrium in every world capital (save Washington), and that there is no real, sustained post-'82 appetite in Israel for a massive land incursion regardless, not least given the ultimate futility of same. No, Sharon would likely have chastised Ehud Olmert for his impestuous over-reaction, one so helpfully fanned on by myopic strategic blunderers and amateurs in Washington, both in policy and journalistic circles.

Also, here's a link to Ron Suskind's latest Miller Center appearance. He was there in late June speaking about the One Percent Doctrine. As always he was animated, entertaining, and insightful. He at moments comes off a little bit arrogant, a little pushy, and has the feel of a televangelist. But in general there probably isn't a more captivating speaker on politics and the Bush administration. I've gone back to the video of his last Miller Center speech several times, and I'm sure I'll come back to this one too.

And finally, this is a bit odd for TBWJ, but I thought I'd post a link to this TV ad. Yes it's for Dow Chemical, yes Dow is probably still evil. But it's some of the prettiest photography I've seen in any sort of video, much less a commercial. It plays sometimes before the PBS Newshour, and I can't recall the last time I was so riveted by a TV ad.

It's World War 3!!!!11!!!1

So there is much that could be said about the Middle East. But I think the most interesting part for me is an opportunity missed. Back when this started (even before Hezbollah became involved) this fellow in Syria, Khaled Meshaal, a member of Hamas, instigated a kidnapping in Gaza. The Hamas leadership in Palestine was obviously taken by surprise, and their initial impulse appears to have been to open a dialogue with Israel to contain the situation. They were initially willing to finally move on official recognition for Israel. The Palestinian PM, also a Hamas member, even wrote a column in the Washington Post asking not for the destruction of Israel, but for the 1967 borders, the right of return, and East Jerusalem, which is to say the usual peace framework. This was one of those rare dynamic moments where a balance has been upset and change can occur. Israel blew Hamas off and opted for overwhelming military force instead. Hamas soon withdrew their agreement to recognize Israel. I understand that Israel is reluctant to deal with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, but at some point they will have to recognize that military force has yet to accomplish anything of significance against them. Israel spent 18 years in Lebanon, and left Hezbollah stronger than when they arrived. Military action may be a necessary element of the Israeli response to these incidents, but it will never be the element that produces meaningful progress. For that political and diplomatic action is necessary, and opportunities like the one Hamas presented are as good as it will possibly get.

Aggressively Pursuing the Two State Solution

I find it fascinating to read news reports about the Sharon/Olmert unilateral withdrawal plans. You just keep seeing quotes like this one from Olmert: "In the next few years, we will change Israel's character to ensure it will be a state with a solid Jewish majority living in defensible borders.." But no effort is made to contextualize what these statements mean. I suspect many readers (and maybe some of the reporters) are missing the subtext. Conservative Iraelis are growing increasingly fearful of the possibility of a one-state solution and the demographic timebomb it presents (as predicted here a couple years ago). Going forward Israel can be any two, but not all three of the following:

1) Democratic
2) a Jewish State
3) inclusive of the occupied territories

Olmert is making every effort to secure (1) and (2) (i.e. the "Jewish majority" and "defensible borders") and is trying to dump (3) just as fast as he possibly can (although he intends to cherry-pick some of the better Israeli settlements and appropriate them for Israel).

Taxation Without Representation?

This isn't cool. Withholding aid funds from Palestine I can see. But stealing their tax money? That I don't get. The fact that Israel collects Palestine's taxes and has control over what to do with the money argues strongly in favor of direct Palestinian representation in the Israeli government (i.e. the one-state solution). This, of course, is precisely what Sharon (and now Olmert) hoped to avoid through unilateral disengagement. (From the article: "[Olmert] declared that Israel must maintain a Jewish majority by relinquishing control over large parts of the West Bank and establishing clear boundaries...")

Honest Dialogue

I guess it's predictable, but I'm somewhat irked by all of the coverage of the Palestinian elections suggesting that this result somehow signals defeat for the US's policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East. I'm critical of the naivete of that policy for other reasons (primarily the fact that staging elections does not, by itself, make for a stable democratic government). But I don't see that criticism at play here. To the extent that we can successfully create democracy in the Middle East, I'm all for it. It's the implementation that I object to, not the objective. This was an exceptionally clean election, and one that signaled the importance of honest governance to the Palestinian people. Fatah symbolized the sort of corrupt and autocratic government that undermines democracy. Palestinians cleaned house on them, and now reports say that they are cleaning out their leadership. Palestine going forward will have two legitimate political parties, both of whom understand the importance of responsive, uncorrupt government to their voters, rather than deeply corrupt single-party rule. This is huge step forward for democracy in Palestine.

Moreover, I'm troubled by the assertion that because parties are elected in Middle Eastern nations that disfavor American policy (not just in Palestine; Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia as well), this means democracy is bad. I've long thought that the dynamic that the US and Israel have tried to foster in Palestine is absurd. They have rejected talks with Hamas, with Arafat and Fatah, basically with anyone who could legitimately claim to represent the Palestinian people. Instead they would rather hand-pick a representative for Palestine (Abbas) and speak only with him. Indeed, they would frequently grow upset with Abbas for failing to bring the other Palestinians to heel. But how could he? He had no power over them, no democratic legitimacy. Fatah didn't respect him, Hamas didn't respect him, and I doubt the Palestinian people did either. How could he purport to speak on their behalf? How is it supposed to work that an agent in a negotiation is hand-picked by the adversaries of his principals? Under what theory of agency is this legitimate? It's absurd. Even if Israel had reached an agreement with Abbas, it could hardly have been expected to meaningfully bind the Palestinians.

The US and Israel may not like the actual positions of Palestinians, but they cannot hope to produce progress if they refuse to even address them. The important thing in these various elections is not that the party who favors American policy should win, but that the party who accurately represents the views of the voters should win. It's the voters we need to worry about and be engaged with, not politicians. Engaging in dialogue with politicians is important only to the extent that they are effective representatives of their constituents. If the general populace of the Middle East dislikes American policy, that is not a fact that can be swept under the rug based on models of governance. We have had many US-friendly dictators around the Middle East, and it has not solved our problems. In fact it has made them worse by allowing us to ignore legitimate complaints of the general populace. There needs to be honest dialogue, and that can only happen when there are political leaders who can truly represent the interests of their people. To the extent that elections like the one in Palestine produce that, we are all better off.

Fatah Down in Flames

Holy crap. I always thought Hamas carried a lot of popular support from Palestinians, but I didn't anticipate this. The political fallout will be fascinating. As I've said in the past, I think this is probably for the best. Once Israel gets past its initial shock and revulsion, there will finally be an opportunity for negotiations with the potential for real results.

Update: The Newshour showed some lengthy clips of a Bush press conference where he discussed the election outcome. I hesitate to use the word "nuance" in the same sentence as President Bush, but I thought he did a good job. He put on pressure regarding the whole 'destruction of Israel' thing, but did not vilify Hamas more than necessary and strongly acknowledged the positive role of functional democracy with real competing parties in Palestine. He acknowledged that Hamas maybe could provide better domestic services and was not as corrupt as Fatah and did not give the impression that Palestinians were evil or stupid to elect them. I think that's about the right position to take. Western nations should continue to apply pressure against some of the more repulsive parts of the Hamas platform. But that should be balanced with an acknowledgment that they are the legitimate government that they have made positive contributions to Palestinian society and can continue to do so. Pressure is good. I think I could even get on board with a policy that there be no aid or negotiations until Hamas drops their charter demand for the destruction of Israel. I would probably draw the line, however, at demands that Hamas permanently renounce violence prior to negotiations. For one, I don't think it would happen. For another, I don't think it is fair unless Israel made the same pledge (which would obviously be problematic as regards their policing power in the occupied territories). Also it's not as if Fatah's renunciation of violence ever meant anything. It's no secret that they had a militant wing that continued to carry out attacks. I would hate to see the peace process derailed by a superficial pissing match of that sort. In any case, so far so good. Now we'll have to wait and see how the leadership structure shakes out for Hamas and how this affects the upcoming Israeli elections...

Democracy Doesn't Mean You Can Vote for Hamas

Speaking of problems with democracy.. CSM reports that Hamas is appearing increasingly dominant in Palestinian elections. First off, I told you so. That aside, the E.U. and the U.S. are quite unhappy about this turn of events and are threatening repercussions should Hamas gain a majority of the Palestinian legislative council. Not so excited about democracy anymore? It's not at all clear yet that Hamas could win a national majority, but if they do, the E.U. will demand that they renounce violence or forfeit aid money (as if that ever stopped Arafat's Fatah party from doing anything). The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a resolution threatening to cut off all support for the Palestinian Authority if Hamas has any participation in the government.

This is pure stupidity. I've argued before, and I'm sure I'll argue again, that there will not be a peaceful settlement of this conflict without Hamas' participation. They already have an effective veto over the process through violence, which they exercised over the Oslo agreement. It sure seems like it would be better for everyone if they could exercise their veto through voting in the Palestinian legislature rather than through detonating bombs in cafes in Jerusalem. Here there is an opportunity to mainstream Hamas, to bring political leaders within the organization to its front and into legitimate negotiating positions, and to support and strengthen Palestinian democracy, all in one blow. And it looks like we want to squander the opportunity...

With Arafat Gone, Hamas Ready To Go Political

As the Palestinians prepare for new elections, Hamas plans to run candidates for municipal and legislative positions. This is the best news for the prospects of peace in Israel in a long time...

The Insurgent and the Aid Worker

Slate is running a well-written piece by Owen West and Phillip Carter defending the actions of the now famous marine in Fallujah who executed an apparently defenseless insurgent. Their arguments are sound, and I agree with them that the case for charging and convicting this marine is far from clear. They move on from there to draw comparisons to brutal killing of Margaret Hassan. Again they reach some valid and important conclusions. Margaret Hassan was a noncombatant aid worker. The man shot by the marine appears to have been an insurgent combatant. The insurgents kill indiscriminately, the U.S. takes care to try and limit civilian deaths. The American soldiers are generally honorable. The insurgents are not.

These are good points. And yet I can't help but feel that something is lost in this discussion. The arguments advanced by Carter and West feel very familiar from the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians go out and intentionally kill score of civilians. The Israeli military is only trying to engage militants, and if a few civilians are collaterally killed, well they tried their best to avoid it. But at the end of the day, everybody is just as dead as everybody else. And at the end of the day there are more than twice as many dead Palestinians (approximately half of them noncombatants) as there are Israelis, and orders of magnitude more dead Iraqis than Westerners. When some Israeli kid shoots somebody in self defense who turns out to be a noncombatant, surely his action is more morally defensible than the action of a Palestinian suicide bomber. But who sent a scared 18 year-old into a Palestinian neighborhood armed with the most powerful weaponry money can buy? Can Westerners disavow the impact of widespread slaughter of civilians with the defense that our military personnel try to conduct themselves honorably? Is there no moral culpability for manufacturing a situation where it is highly probable that innocent civilians will be gunned down? And isn't it a bit trite to hold comparisons of the honorable conduct of the world's mightiest military against the conduct of desperate rag-tag insurgents? Honor is a luxury afforded by superior firepower. Did we expect them to line up in formation like a Napoleonic army so that we can massacre them with a single daisy cutter? Of course they use stealth and blend in the population. Of course they like to attack soft targets. How could we have expected otherwise?

None of this is to attempt to draw a conclusion that the Iraqi insurgents are morally equivalent to the U.S. occupiers, or even to the Palestinian militants for that matter. Clearly no good would come of the Iraqi insurgents prevailing against the occupation. The U.S., however ham-handed the effort has been, is really trying to create a functional democracy and improve the lot of Iraqis. Ultimately (not passing judgment on the decision to invade in the first place), the U.S. has the right of this conflict. But that's not my point. The point is that it is foolish to view this conflict and actors in the conflict by falling back on these notions of honorable conduct to justify and defend U.S. actions and to prove our moral superiority. These terms miss the point of what is happening on the ground and wall-paper over decisions which predictably lead to the deaths of many innocent civilians. And it causes us to see events in a distinctly different light than they are seen by Iraqis and other arabs. They are painfully aware of what we are not: that we made the choice to put thousands of scared soldiers with itchy trigger fingers into the places where they live, where they work, where their children go to school. Until we can see things from this perspective we will be forever perplexed by how our actions are being interpreted by the Iraqi public.

This perspective sheer hurts us by leaving the U.S. unable to effectively communicate a meaningful response to Iraqis when an event occurs like the killing in Fallujah. The arguments advanced by West and Carter probably resonate strongly with Americans, but, I think, much less so with Iraqis. What they want to hear is that we understand what a burden it is for them to have all these troops wandering around blowing things up, the checkpoints, the nighttime raids, the airstrikes, the mass detentions. They want to know that we feel their pain and are doing everything in our power to put an end to the chaos, give them a functional country, and get the hell out. The point is not that the marine was probably justified in shooting the insurgent, the point is that it's regrettable that the marine had to be there in the first place.

Put on your tin hats, fellas.

Laura Rozen at War and Piece has this breaking coverage of the alleged Pentagon consultant/Israeli spy story. There is a lot of grumbling online that this is related to the niger uranium forged documents, which also might be connected with the Plame investigation. And all signs point to the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon. This is certainly one to watch over the next week (I wonder if it will detract from the convention).

The IAEA Gets Serious With Israel

In a great editorial today, CSM supports Mohamed ElBaradei's shot across Israel's bow over their nuclear arsenal. ElBaradei, director of the IAEA, during a visit to Jerusalem this week warned Israel that their nuclear weapons are damaging the credibility of his agency in trying to deal with Iran. CSM makes the case that it is unlikely that Iran will abandon their pursuit of a nuclear deterrent without Israel agreeing to eliminate their arsenal as well. They further argue that if Iran were to succeed in gaining an arsenal it would discredit the IAEA and the Non-Proliferation Treaty and would likely lead to further nuclear destabilization.

I like this Juan Cole Fellow

For the second time this week, I would like to refer y'all to Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment. For a history professor, he sure has a good handle on current events. His most recent posts address the current derailing of the al-Sadr deal (in part due to the assassination of one of the Iranian diplomats), the duality of the Bush foreign policy, and the US abandoning all hope of being an honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is also worth reading Cole's comparison of Fallujah to Palestine that was published by Salon.com (even though Salon makes you sit through a commercial to access the whole article. But I suppose I prefer that to Wall Street Journal's subscriber-only access). He argues that in a very strange way, Israel's conduct in Palestine has brought Shiite and Sunni forces in Iraq together like no one else has been able to accomplish. He contends that the recent uprisings in Fallujah and those of Sadr's forces were both in response to Israel's assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and that Arab television is portraying the seige on Fallujah in much the same light as Israel's seige on the West Bank and Gaza.

Although I am not sure how far I would extend the comparison, I certainly think that neither Israel nor America can claim the moral highground in its recent military operations. The missile strike on the mosque in Fallujah last week has not gone over well in the Middle East (and I suspect that today's mosque-shelling [Melbourne Herald Sun] won't win over anyone either). And then of course there's America's Psych-Ops, like blaring insults over loudspeakers such as "you shoot like a goat-herder" [AP].

It is a big mistake to approach the security of Fallujah as Israel deals with Palestine, and we are both feeling the repurcutions of treating an occupied group as though they were less-than-human. Most importantly, however, I hope that comparison does not extend to mean that we should anticipate a long, drawn out battle that may determine the very survival of our nation.

No Longer An Honest Broker

There's plenty of coverage today of Bush's endorsement for Sharon's unilateral plans. While I personally have some serious questions as to whether the US has ever been an honest broker in the Israel/Palestine conflict, the consensus among commentators is that if we were an honest broker, we aren't any more. It's really somewhat amazing that the Bush administration would do this now, deliberately provoking arab and muslim outrage immediately after their overreach in attempting to simultaneously tackle Muqtada Al-Sadr and Fallujah. It has never been more clear that ideology trumps reality with this administration. How much gasoline do they want to pour on this fire?

Meanwhile Washington Post columnist David Ignatius begs the public to see past the attractive simplicity of Bush's policies to the nuanced reality on the ground. Good luck with that, Dave. You're gonna need it.

Speaking of "on the ground", Pakistan's Daily Times makes a good observation on the use of that phrase by George Bush (this was also excerpted by CSM). Bush claimed that he was agreeing to the permanent annexation of Israeli settlements, because of the "realities on the ground". The Times points out that if that is the basis for such decisions, if the Palestinians don't want to have to accept the permanent presence of these settlements, their only choice is to change the reality on the ground, ie, attack and destroy the settlements. Writes the editorial: "If there are indeed ‘realities on the ground’, which Israel has created through use of force, and if they are to be worked into an uneven agreement, then the Palestinians can argue that the only way to an honourable peace is for them to try and change the ground realities. And that can only happen on the ground. Corollary: more violence."

Bringing Peace to the Middle-East

In a meeting with Israeli PM Ariel Sharon today, George Bush heartily endorsed Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, put on hold (according to Sharon) any possibility of a Palestinian state "for many years", ok'ed the permanent annexation of settlements by Israel and rejected outright the Palestinian right of return. All in a good day's work, I guess. Bush said these actions would lead to a "peaceful, democratic, viable Palestinian state." Obviously.

And the Palestinians? Ahmed Qurei remarked of the concessions, it "kills the rights of the Palestinian people" and "we cannot accept this under any circumstances". Yasser Arafat stated that the moves were "clearly the complete end of the peace process" and predicted new violence.

Here's the bonus prize as regards a peaceful resolution of the conflict: Ariel Sharon, who has proven a walking disaster where the peace process is concerned, has been in the political dumps lately, having largely failed to pacify the Palestinians, having presided over one of the worst economic downturns in Israeli history, and having recently been embroiled in a corruption scandal. However, this plan, which most critics believed needed Bush's support in order to go forward, may save his political bacon. Not only does this move completely derail the peace process, but it keeps Sharon in power to make sure it doesn't get back on track again.

Sharon: No More Mister Nice Guy

After apparently deciding that he has been entirely too kindly and generous with the Palestinians in previous years, Ariel Sharon said in an interview that under his unilateral plan "there is no Palestinian state", adding that he is well within his rights to kill Yassir Arafat whenever he damned well pleased. He calls his plan "tough on the Palestinians. A mortal blow." Uhh, yeah...

Clean Up Your Own Mess

The International Red Cross has announced that it will discontinue its food aid to the occupied Palestinian territories. The program was an emergency one begun in mid-2002 after violence escalated between the Palestinians and Israelis. I think this is a good decision on their part. I hope other agencies will follow, at the same time putting pressure on Israel to maintain stability and health in Palestine, as should be its obligation. My only concern is that Israel, content with its wall, will refuse to step in, and other agencies or countries (like the US) will fail to notice it or care. Should that be the case, the Palestinians will suffer unduly.