Great blog posts on Afghanistan, China, from China Hand

I’m in Egypt, I really am, even though I haven’t blogged about it much yet. Let’s just say logistical challenges and other concerns have reduced my blogging productivity and immediacy somewhat..
Plus, I’m trying to reach the best possible judgment on how to weigh and report on the many, widely varying viewpoints I’ve heard here so far. Not the work of an hour or a day.
Meanwhile, a lot has been going on elsewhere in the world, and I’ve been a little out of touch. (Apart from looking at updates from the Gaza ceasefire talks and the Israeli elections. More on those topics, obviously, later.)
But this evening, I got some good time to catch up on my reading and discovered that China Hand has published some excellent blog posts on China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan over the past couple of weeks:
In this January 30 post, titled, “China to Obama: “Nice T-Bill Auction Ya Got There…Hate to See Anything Happen to It””, he unravels several key aspects of the current US-China economic relationship.
He looks at the controversy over the dollar exchange rate for China’s RMB (yuan) currency and concludes his post thus:

    As a matter of personal opinion, I do think that the RMB is undervalued.
    I think the Chinese government, as a matter of practicality, has maintained a dollar peg for its currency in order to provide a stable economic environment for its exporters (instead of making them to manage their forex risk through the complicated free-market frou-frou of currency futures markets, derivatives, etc.), and that’s a legitimate national economic goal;
    I think the peg was set on the high side, to give Chinese exporters a bit of a leg-up;
    I think the Chinese government believes that its forex structure—the dollar peg, enabled by sale of forex to the government bank and severe limits on cross-border flows of capital—has worked pretty well, especially in light of the financial disaster sweeping the open markets of the United States and Europe;
    And… I don’t see the Chinese government heeding international political pressure right now to make more than incremental adjustments to the exchange rate and the overall capital account regime.
    Having said that, I think that the Chinese government is desperate to revive the world economy and get its export factories humming again, so it will be prepared to do its bit to help matters along—like pissing away its government reserves buying more U.S. Treasury debt and hope that the Obama administration’s stimulus package jumpstarts the world economy.
    And I believe that the Obama administration will decide in the end that Chinese cooperation on the stimulus package will be more important than a political struggle over the exchange rate, especially as the recession causes imports from China to sag.
    … Despite the theoretical and practical obstacles, however, there will be continued across the board ideological enthusiasm for continuing to bash China.
    Right-wing commentators, it seems, don’t like the Chinese rubbing our noses in our recession because they consider the PRC an imperfect and dishonest exploiter of the magnificent capitalistic system the West has bequeathed to the world.
    Left-wing commentators, in my view, consider Chinese macroeconomic activity as an extension of the regime’s immoral policies, as the CCP tramples on the environment, Tibetans and Uighurs, Darfurians, and the world’s working poor with equal gusto in its headlong pursuit of profit.
    There is a certain amount of hoping and wishing that the Chinese economy would suffer a spectacular collapse as divine punishment for its government’s malfeasance.
    These expectations have been complicated and, perhaps, exacerbated by the fact that it was the advanced free market economy of the West that went into the tank first, and not the inferior Oriental model.
    … My bet is that the Chinese banking system, thanks to the recession and government intervention, manages to dodge the well-deserved fiscal bullet again.
    I think observers who anticipate that the Chinese Communist party is going to spend itself into oblivion as the Soviet Union did (gorging on the fatal apple of shopping malls instead of armaments) will be disappointed.
    Systemic financial failure–hyperinflation or the annihilation of people’s savings through the collapse of China’s state run banking system that terminally discredits the CCP regime and destroys the legitimacy of its rule–doesn’t appear likely.
    The recession—and millions of impoverished Chinese returning to their villages from shuttered factories along the coast—will certainly exacerbate the simmering resentment against the Party’s serial corruption, oppression, and arrogant incompetence, especially at the local level.
    However, the greatest threat to the Chinese Communist government has never been popular unrest provoked by economic suffering.
    It has been the threat of fissures within the ruling elite, of the kind that nearly destroyed the CCP during the Cultural Revolution, is typified by the assisted suicide of the CPSU under Gorbachev, and provoked Deng Xiaoping’s ferocious wrath against Zhao Ziyang during the 1989 democracy movement.
    Currently, the CCP ruling cadre in Beijing is riding high, coming off a decade of economic growth with a fair amount of money in the bank, reveling in its Olympic triumph, and enjoying the apparent vindication of its managed, nationalist economic model over the open-market nostrums peddled by the West. The United States, instead of representing a triumphant and destabilizing alternative, is mired in political and economic problems of its own.
    If and when popular unrest does occur as a result of the recession, the Party will confront it with an effective combination of ingenuity, unity, and brutality—and the sacrifice of as many flagrantly incompetent and corrupt local officials as it takes–unhindered by the example or effective condemnation of the West.
    I expect that, instead of threatening the existence of the CCP, the global financial crisis has enhanced the legitimacy and prolonged the life of the current Chinese Communist regime.
    That’s not an endorsement or a value judgment, by the way. It’s just how I see it—and how I think the Obama administration might weigh economics in its China equation.

Continue reading “Great blog posts on Afghanistan, China, from China Hand”

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s king-maker

The outcome of Israel’s elections may well be the worst possible– worse, even, than a clear victory by Likud. What we have instead, with 99% of the votes now counted, is Likud and Kadima just about tied (Kadime– 28 seats out of the Knesset’s 120, Likud–27 seats) and Lieberman’s fascist Yisrael Beitenu party holding the key swing position with an expected 15 seats.
Labour, as expected, is coming in fourth with 13 seats. The Mizrachi-orthodox party Shas is expected to win 11.
Leiberman is very bad news indeed.
As Ben Lynfield wrote in this December 2006 article for The Nation,

    If Lieberman’s pronouncements are to be taken seriously–and there is no obvious reason they should not be–a Lieberman[-led] government would exclude some Arab citizens from Israel, would expel others who refuse to sign a loyalty-to-Zionism oath, would turn Gaza into Grozny and would execute Arab members of the Knesset who talk to Hamas or mark Israel Independence Day as the anniversary of the displacement of the Palestinians in 1948.

Lieberman immigrated from Moldova to Israel at age 20, in 1978, and currently lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim. Exemplifying the racist aggressivity of many voluntary participants in settler-colonialist ventures over the decades he calls for, for example, stripping many Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel of their citizenship.
This policy prescription of his, alone, should send shivers down the back of anyone familiar with the history of Hitler’s Holocaust against the Jews.
In November 2006, he called for the execution of any Arab Knesset member who met with Hamas.
… What happens now, as I understand it, is that Israeli president Shimon Peres should call on the leader of the party he judges easiest able to assemble a 61-member coalition to form a coalition government.
An objective analysis might indicate that Peres should therefore call on Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu to have the first stab at doing this, since Netanyahu might hope fairly easily to assemble a solid-right coalition. However, Kadima did get one more vote than Likud, and Peres’s sympathies are probably more with Kadima than Likud (though who knows?), so he may well call on Kadima first, instead.
Either way, Lieberman would be a key swing actor.
To me, the results of this Israeli election have two main, complementary story-lines. One is the rise of Leiberman and the continuing solidity of Likud, even after the formation of Kadima, which took in more of Likud’s luminaries than it did of Labour’s: That is, the story of the continued rise of Israel’s Hard Right.
The other story is the continued demise of Israel’s once dominant ‘left’.
The graph on this page of today’s Haaretz shows us that while Labour is down to 13 seats, the more authentically leftist party Meretz is down to 3.
A Likud-Kadima-led coalition is still a possibility. They’d need a few more small parties to make up their government. But who would lead this government, and what policies would it pursue on the all-important peace issue? My guess on these two issues would be Netanyahu as PM and stasis on the peace issue.
It’s not as if the Kadima-led government that’s been in power in recent years has made any notable strides on peace, anyway.
I guess we’ll need to wait a while to learn the reactions from Washington…

Egypt: Free Philip Rizk!

I tried to call Philip Rizk in Cairo today, but he didn’t answer.
Philip is a courageous and principled young man, of joint Egyptian and German nationality, who has done some tremendous work supporting civil-society organizations in Gaza, including by working there for two years under the auspices of Church of England emissary Canon Andrew White.
For the past few years, both when he was in Egypt and when he was in Gaza (as very recently), Philip contributed to his great blog Tabula Gaza.
Two nights ago, he was picked up by the police here in Egypt while returning to Cairo after taking part in Gaza-solidarity activities in Qalyoubia, north of the city.
I met Philip and his equally dedicated sister Jeanette when I was last in Egypt two years ago, and was strongly impressed to hear about the programs he was involved in in Gaza, under Canon White’s auspices.
That Reuters report says this:

    Rizk and a group of activists had been holding a march in the rural areas north of Cairo in solidarity with Palestinians… according to Salma Said, an activist who was with Rizk when he was detained.
    A spokesman for the Ministry of Interior said he had received no word of the detention.
    Said said police had detained their vehicle for several hours and then said they wanted to talk with Rizk. They put him in a vehicle with no licence plates and sped off. Other policemen then blocked the activists’ vehicle to prevent them from following.
    “We don’t know where he is, and there is no formal charge,” Rizk’s sister [Jeanette] said. She added that the German embassy had been notified and were attempting to locate him.

I don’t know how much aid the German government gives the Egyptian government. But I imagine it’s a lot. Egypt is the top recipient of US aid after Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Why should the governments of any democracies give aid to a government that treats nonviolent social activists like Philip or thousands of others also detained in Egypt without any hint of due process as harshly as this?
I urge all JWN readers to do what they can to help free Philip Rizk.
Also, read the recent blog-posts on Tabula Gaza in which he writes about his most recent visit(s) to Gaza, over the past couple of weeks.

Zahar in Egypt; timing of ceasefire?

Gaza-based Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud Zahhar, who was named Foreign Minister in the all-Hamas government in summer 2007, today emerged from his “secure location” in Gaza to cross into Egypt. He was at the head of a four-person team heading to Cairo to participate in the indirect (Egypt-mediated) negotiations with Israel over the terms for a Gaza-Israel ceasefire.
Zahhar and the Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh are thought to be at the head of the list for the Israeli government’s completely illegal campaign of assassinations of political leaders.
The timing for Zahhar’s emergence and current diplomatic mission surprised me a little. It’s hard to think that Hamas or anyone else believes that this close to an Israeli election, any Israeli government would be willing to commit to a firm– i.e. written and publicly witnessed– agreement with Hamas. And getting close to an agreement is what would seem to be indicated by Zahhar going to take part in the Cairo talks, in person.
On the other hand, I’m sure he has plenty of other reasons to go to Cairo. One may be just to “show his face” in public. Inside Egypt, he could certainly do that– provided he has, as I assume he has, good guarantees of his safety from the Egyptian security organs. Inside Gaza, it would presumably be a lot more risky for him to appear in public, given the widespread presence of Israeli drones and other surveillance and assassination platforms. (Also, if the Israelis attack him in Egypt, and he’s under Egyptian protection, it would cause a massive international incident between Israel and Egypt. In Gaza, tragically, the Palestinians have no recognized state authority to protect them.)
There might be a good reason for Zahhar to show his face in public, given that last week some of the Israeli hasbara organs were spreading rumors he was badly injured. (But I note that, wily and courageous as he is as a politician and strategist, as far as I can figure he doesn’t have anything like the same strong symbolic value as a charismatic leader and captivating orator that, for example, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah has, in Lebanon.)
But Zahhar also presumably has a lot of other movement business to conduct in Egypt and with people and networks in other countries that are not under such intense Israeli control as Gaza is.
Anyway, let’s hope that a serious ceasefire agreement can be concluded very soon. As Bob Pastor noted in the session I heard him speak at last week, it needs to have the following elements:

    1. It should be written down in a text that is made public.
    2. The agreed text should be signed by authoritative representatives of both parties (Israel and Hamas); and their signatures and the authenticity of the text should be attested to by one or more trusted third parties.
    3. It must mandate the cessation of all hostile acts by both sides. (The definition of what constitutes a “hostile act” by Israel may well need to be spelled out. For example, shouldn’t Israeli overflights of the Strip of all kinds be forbidden? In normal inter-state agreements, it would be enough to say that each sides must respect the territorial integrity of the other. This is not a normal inter-state agreement.)
    4. It must allow for the lifting of the siege of Gaza. (Pastor noted, btw, that the pre-2006 rate of goods crossing into Gaza was 750 trucks/day. That is the rate that should be restored. Since the siege was imposed in January 2006, the rate has always been far, far lower than that.)
    5. The agreement must have a third-party monitoring and verification mechanism. Pastor said this should be provided by the Quartet. Personally I’m not sure either that the Quartet is the best candidate for this, or, indeed, that it really has any continuing relevance at all… I saw a report that mentioned a possibility that Turkey and France might jointly help monitor a re-opened Rafah crossing (that is, the crossing for people, not goods, between Gaza and Egypt.) Maybe their role could be expanded into a broader ceasefire-monitoring role?

On monitoring and verification, it’s important to note that the Israelis always hate such agreements, which they see (quite rightly) as hobbling the extensive freedom they like to retain to act just as they want, militarily, against their neighbors.
I note, too, that in Lebanon Hizbullah won a crucial achievement in 1996 when, after the brutal election-related war that PM (now President) Shimon Peres launched against them that year, he was forced to sign a ceasefire agreement that included, for the first time ever, an international monitoring mechanism. That monitoring group was made up of representatives of the governments of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, France, and the US.
The 1996 ceasefire was considerably stronger, and better for Lebanon, than the one that had preceded it, which was concluded at the end of Israel’s 1993 war of choice against Lebanon. The 1993 agreement contained no provision for monitoring, and thus gave Israel considerable leeway to launch the 1996 war.
(Oh, did I mention that Peres lost the election in 1996, anyway? He did so mainly because the Palestinian Israelis stayed home from the voting booths in droves, in protest at the war. Thy might do the same this time around. But it would be less decisive, because Labour is nowhere near sitting close to victory.)
Anyway, after the conclusion of the 1996 agreement, Israel could no longer play around militarily in Lebanon as freely as it had before, because now the French and the Americans were watching their every move there. That situation formed an essential backdrop to the decision that Ehud Barak made when, as newly elected Labour PM three years later, he decided to simply pull Israel’s troops out of Lebanon completely, and unilaterally (i.e., without negotiations.)
Of course, back in he late 1990s, there was also a fairly strong peace– or anyway, pro-withdrawal– movement inside Israel. It was spearheaded by the “Four Mothers” group, founded by mothers of IDF soldiers serving in the dangerous theater that Lebanon was for the IDF in those years.
Now, there are many different factors in the political and strategic equation between Israel and Hamas. But it would still be really good for the people of Gaza if Hamas and Israel could conclude a durable ceasefire that ends up working.
And yes, it would be fine, too, if the PA/Fateh could be brought into the arrangement. Probably an advantage, as the Palestinians could then hope to resurrect the final peace negotiations much more quickly, as well.

At IPS: ‘Mideast: A truce too big to fail?’

My latest news analysis for IPS, “Mideast, a truce too big to fail?”, went up on their website yesterday.
Doing these weekly pieces for them is an interesting experience so far. It provides a kind of running record of the “big” developments each week, as I see them, in Middle East war-and-peace issues. I think I need to find a way to aggregate them, and am trying to figure out the best way to do that. For now, maybe just paste each one as it comes out into either a special blog or a special category on this blog?
I truly don’t have time to do this right now. If anyone wants to volunteer to help, could you contact me? Thanks!

Panetta vs. the Intelligence Community?

(Hat tip to Eric H) CIA Director nominee Leon Panetta, the self-described “creature of congress,” appears to have brushed aside the collective findings of the intelligence community regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. At his Senate confirmation hearings yesterday, fellow democrat, Senator Evan Bayh asked: “Is it your belief that Iran is seeking a nuclear military capability? Or are their interests solely limited to the civilian sphere?”
Panetta then replied, “From all the information that I’ve seen, I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability.”
By contrast, the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, issuing the collective view of 16 different US intelligence agencies, found that,

“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.”

For all of the problems of the intelligence community, a veteran insider wisely warned me 20 years ago that, “the worst thing that can happen to the intelligence process is if analysts tailor their reports to please perceived wishes of their political masters. Former DIA chief Pat Lang famously called it, “drinking the koolaid.”
If I were a Senator in follow-up hearings, I’d want to press Congressman Panetta to see what he really meant. Does he know something about Iran’s nuclear programs since 2007? Was he misunderstanding a leading question? Does he come into office disagreeing with the considered understanding not just of the CIA, but of the entire intelligence community? Does he intend to require those he would supervise to re-write their reports to match pre-formed conclusions?

Obama @ Prayer Breakfast

Despite his hesitance to say anything “principled” ahead of Israel’s upcoming elections, President Obama today did remind us of a profound truth about all major faiths at this morning’s National Prayer Breakfast:

But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.
We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Torah commands, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” In Islam, there is a hadith that reads “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

While these humble, yet vital words are not getting much press, I am encouraged. Like his inaugural reference to “the slaughter of the innocents,” might today’s reference to all faiths having a shared humanity have an implied application to those who would turn their eyes away from the sufferings anywhere, including in Gaza?
Such ecumenical sentiments will not go down well with the “just warriors” and their media agents who have been so determined to launch crusades against “the jihadi religion.” Yes, the ironies in that statement are intended. In my experience, those “religious” figures most determined to do battle with another “jihadi” religion often seem themselves most determined to justify war in the name of their religion.
Yet just as each creed breeds its own jihadis, so too we can yearn for better angels to emerge. May they draw from within to build common ground in our shared humanity, our capacity for empathizing with the suffering of another, beyond creed and confession.
As the 13th Century Persian poet Sa’di put it, as etched into the walls of the United Nations:
Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain.

Gaza ceasefire-consolidation talks update

I’ve been busy recently: I’ve been in New York with editors and (separately) the new grandbaby… Also, preparing for my next reporting trip to the Middle East, which starts this afternoon as I head off from freezing Washington DC to Cairo.
Cairo is the place where negotiations have been continuing over the past two weeks to consolidate the still extremely shaky, in-parallel, and un-negotiated brace of reciprocal ceasefires across the Israel-Gaza border that went into operation January 18.
A negotiated, and therefore mutually agreed, ceasefire is absolutely essential if the military actions that have already marked the period since January 18 are to be prevented from escalating, at any moment’s notice, into yet another full-blown war between Israel and Gaza. This negotiation need not be direct. In fact, both sides at this point probably prefer strongly not to deal directly with the other. But it does– as Jimmy Carter’s point-man Bob Pastor pointed out at the excellent panel discussion of his that I attended last week– need to be written down, and to have some form of third party authentication, oversight, or even more preferably still a continuing, third-party verification and monitoring mechanism. (Evident parallels there with the development of Israel-Hizbullah relations that took place between 1993 and 1996. Btw, the 1996 war was also launched by an Israeli PM as a part of his general election campaign… )
Bob Pastor said that Hamas and the Israeli government had notably disagreed, thoughout last summer and fall, about what exactly Israel had promised, regarding lifting the siege on Gaza, in the Egyptian-negotiated, six-month-long, mutual ceasefire (tahdi’eh) the two sides reached on June 18 last year; and that’s why, if the new ceasefire is to have any durability t needs to be written down, signed, and counter-signed. It also makes elementary sense that, in a situation of such grave mutual distrust, any agreement needs to be written down, signed by authorized representatives of both parties– and those signatures and texts authenticated by a third party whose third-party role is trusted and authorized by both of them.
Several Hamas people have expressed grave distrust in the role that Egypt has been playing as mediator/intermediary. But apparently Egypt– and in particular, Egyptian intel boss Omar Suleiman– is still trusted “enough” by both parties that he is once again the main intermediary/channel between them.
That’s one reason why it’ll be interesting for me to be in Cairo. From there I’ll proceed to Amman, Israel, and Palestine and perhaps also Syria, depending on a number of things.
As far as I understand the Hamas-Israel negotiation, Hamas has been adamant that any renewed ceasefire agreement must include solid provisions for lifting the siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza ever since Hamas won the January 2006 elections. The present Israeli government, for its part, is facing tough elections next Tuesday. The war on Gaza did not go nearly as well as Olmert, Livni, and Barak had hoped. The intermittent descent of Gaza-launched rockets onto southern Israel that has occurred– along with many Israeli military actions against Gaza– even since January 18, reminds Israeli voters that the Olmert government has not “solved” the problems with Gaza that the war was, they had promised, intended to solve. Pressure from (and support for) the rightwing Israeli parties has intensified…
Under these circumstances, it’s unclear to me whether Olmert even has any motivation at all to conclude– far less announce!– any ceasefire agreement with Hamas before next Tuesday. Probably the only thing that just might make such an agreement acceptable to Israeli voters, in their current state of great anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Hamas frenzy, would be if it included the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli POW who has been held by unidentified militant groups in Gaza since June 2006, and by Hamas since it took control of the Strip in June 2007.
Hamas wants to keep the prisoner-exchange negotiations separate from the Gaza-ceasefire (and siege-lifting) negotiations. More than two dozen elected Hamas negotiators from the West Bank– including the speaker of the Palestinian parliament– have been held by Israel, without charges, as apparent bargaining chips for Shalit. Israel also holds a further 11,000-plus Palestinian detainees in its extensive complex of prisons for political prisoners. Most of these are being held without trial. Many of them are Hamas supporters and activists– though they come from all branches of the Palestinian national-liberation movement.
The rightwing Likud party is now clearly expected to win in Tuesday’s elections– and parties even further to the right like Avigdor Lieberman’s “Israel Beitenu” party have been moving up in the polls. Israel Beitenu now outranks Ehud Barak’s Labor Party as #3 in the opinion polls. (This marks yet another phase in the long decline of Israel’s once completely dominant Labour Party, which I have chronicled since 1998.)
… In other news, George Mitchell returned to DC a couple of days ago after completing his first “fact-finding” tour of the Middle East in connection with his role as the special envoy appointed jointly by Pres. Obama and Sec. Hillary Clinton. He reported back to both Clinton and Obama– in the White House’s Oval Office, yesterday. Tuesday, Clinton had earlier jumped the gun in terms of public announcements, by declaring that Hamas would still have to meet the three tired old, and very exclusionary “requirements” before it could be included in any US peacemaking. (Commitments not to use armed force and to recognize Palestinian rights have notably not been reciprocally required from the Government of Israel.)
Time has been running out for Obama to say something principled and clear about our country’s own strong interest in and commitment to a fair and durable Israeli-Palestinian peace, in time for that statement to resonate effectively with Israeli voters before they go to the polls Tuesday.
That’s a pity. I guess Obama has had a few other things to deal with, like the still-imploding national economy and the tanking of his nomination of old buddy Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services. But he really does need to keep his eye on this Israeli-Palestinian ball; and I hope that george Mitchell is dedicated to helping him do that.
This matter certainly can’t be left to the uncertain capabilities and understanding of Hillary Clinton.
Well, that’s it for now… Watch this space for continuing field updates as I travel. (Also, given how clunky the hosting service has become here at JWN, I’m considering shifting over to WordPress sometime soon. No change for JWN readers, though Don and Scott, as occasional authors, will need to get the new info when I do that. But until I can get that switch organized, I’ll probably be doing a lot of Delicious-ing of online resources I find helpful– check them out on the JWN sidebar. I’ll also be Twittering as the spirit moves me. So check that out, too. I’ve figured how to do that from my cellphone… I think.)

Obama: What if this happened to your girls?

When he was on the campaign trail, Pres. Obama gave Israel nearly “carte blanche” to act as it wanted against Gaza by saying– in southern Israel– that if his daughters were threatened by rocket attack in the same way that kids in southern Israel were, then he couldn’t imagine what he would do in response.
So I hope he reads this piece by Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise in the NYT today, about what happened to Sabah Abu Halima’s family in Atatra, Gaza during the recent war:

    The phosphorus smoke bomb punched through the roof in exactly the spot where much of the family had taken refuge — the upstairs hall away from the windows.
    The bomb, which international weapons experts identified as phosphorus by its fragments, was intended to mask troop movements outside. Instead it breathed its storm of fire and smoke into Sabah Abu Halima’s hallway, releasing flaming chemicals that clung to her husband, baby girl and three other small children, burning them to death.

But that’s not all. Later on,

    Omar Abu Halima and his two teenage cousins tried to take the burned body of his baby sister and two other living but badly burned girls to the hospital on that Sunday.
    The boys were taking the girls and six others on a tractor, when, according to several accounts from villagers, Israeli soldiers told them to stop. According to their accounts, they got down, put their hands up, and suddenly rounds were fired, killing two teenage boys: Matar Abu Halima, 18, and Muhamed Hekmet, 17.
    An Israeli military spokeswoman said that soldiers had reported that the two were armed and firing. Villagers strongly deny that. The tractor that villagers say was carrying the group is riddled with 36 bullet holes.
    The villagers were forced to abandon the bodies of the teenage boys and the baby, and when rescue workers arrived 11 days later, the baby’s body had been eaten by dogs, her legs two white bones, captured in a gruesome image on a relative’s cellphone. The badly burned girls and others on the tractor had fled to safety.
    Matar’s mother, Nabila Abu Halima, said she had been shot through the arm when she tried to move toward her son. Her left arm bears a round scar. Her son came back to her in pieces, his body crushed under tank treads.

Bronner and Tavernise’s piece is tragic. (Though the NYT gave it an inappropriate headline, I think.)
It’s also notable because they make a point of noting how many Palestinians were killed by Israel’s security forces in the 39 months between the IDF’s supposed withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005, and the outbreak of the hostilities last December: about 1,275.
Israeli hasbaristas have argued throughout this time that the siege the Israeli government has maintained around Gaza has been the main (or sometimes, the only) Israeli “response” to the rockets launched against Hamas and other militants in Gaza over this time. I have always argued that this was never a simple situation of “rockets versus siege” but that during this period, in addition to the siege, the Israelis maintained very lethal military ops against Gaza, as well.
Also, few if any of Israel’s actions against Gaza have been undertaken solely “in response to” Palestinian rocketings. There has always been a cycle of violence; and very frequently (including, most notably, last December 27) Israel has been the one to initiate a new round or significantly escalate an existing round. The number of Israelis killed by the Gazans’ for the most part extremely primitive, home-made bottle rockets has been very low. Certainly, far fewer than 100 killed over that same time. (Though Bronner and Tavernise somehow omit to mention the number. I believe it’s available at B’tselem’s site.)
But anyway, main point of post: Pres. Obama, what would you do if your family members got treated the same way Sabah Abu Halima’s family got treated? I am assuming, of course, that you and everyone else agrees that a Palestinian life is every bit as valuable as an Israeli life…