operation fish in a barrel

the newspapers are full of word of israel's "operations" against Gaza. a massacre has never been so handsomely rewarded with bureaucratic euphemism. 300 dead arabs is just fine for the US government: what really matters is those pesky rockets buzzing out of gaza, killing a person every few weeks. israel has no answer to arabs but violence. if they are trying to restore their air of invincibility and military potency, they are off base: no one has ever questioned their manly willingness to kill. by killing arabs, what they are after is the fissures and uncertainties in their own psyche: they want to restore their own belief in their invincibility.

alas, hundreds more will die in this narcissistic little experiment before it, too, inevitably fails.

peace will come only through palestinian independence and a withdrawal from land stolen in the 1967 war.

for the US and israel to foment palestinian civil war, as they have done these past few years, is only to work against this necessary and doable outcome.

we shall see if Obama has the guts to stand up for these principles and renounce this divide and conquer policy -- a policy which has failed, failed, and failed some more over the decades. but americans have an endless appetite for failure, it appears.