Comments on: Israel “drunk with power”? Parsing the Middle East

By: Dick Stanley

Dick Stanley — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:47:23 +0000

Meanwhile, the Saudis are whining that those wicked Jooze have the Arab world on the ropes:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129497

Boo hoo.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:17:06 +0000

The damage and death toll in this particular war has been decidedly one-sided, but it helps to remember that thousands of rockets shot by Hamas into thousands of Israeli homes is what caused this latest operation. Read this article for a human sympathy play for the Palestinians: In Homes and on Streets, a War That Feels Deadlier And the MSM begrudges Joe the Plumber walking through a few bombed out Israeli homes. The bastards.

By: DougS

DougS — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:16:27 +0000

I agree that Israel has the strong hand. Support within Israel (which is all that Olmert really has to worry about) for Cast Lead seems to be running 90%+. Casualties have been very low, which was my main worry — military reverses would erode domestic support, which is what seemed to happen with Lebanon ’06. The IDF seems to have acquitted itself pretty well, which presents the rest of the world with a fait accompli.

The al-Reuters story I read this morning claimed 10 Israeli soldiers killed during the entire operation (and some of those, IIRC, were friendly fire). And even if you buy the MSM claim that half of the Palestinian dead are civilian (Strategypage puts it at no more than 1/3), that gives the IDF a very impressive casualty ratio and makes it exceedingly difficult for Hamas to claim any sort of victory, except among the people who are nutters and would take any Hamas claim at face value. And remember, being the strong horse matters a lot in that part of the world.

It sounds like the cease-fire today was the result of the IDF not having any more targets to hit. That’s a good problem to have, politically and militarily. They can write their own terms. Does that make them “drunk with power and violence?” Well, maybe. But in a good way.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:21:05 +0000

Have to go Ynet on this. I think Haartz is betting on the come. After reading this NYT article, I think the very first paragraph spells out the situation:

Israel’s security cabinet is expected to meet Saturday night to declare a cease-fire in Gaza and will keep its forces there in the short term while the next stage of an agreement with Egypt is worked out.

The next stage of the agreement to be worked out is about having international monitors at the tunnels:

The agreement hammered out in Washington would provide American technical assistance, as well as international monitors, to crack down on the tunnels.

And just who were the signatories of this agreement?

The most promising element for bringing the three-week conflict to a close occurred in Washington on Friday, where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel signed an understanding on a range of steps the United States would take to stem the flow of new arms to Hamas from the Egyptian Sinai, mostly via tunnels.

The understanding was between the U.S. and Israel, NOT between the U.S., Israel and Egypt. Egypt will be under a tremendous backlash if they sign on to the tunnel monitoring agreement worked out between the U.S. and Israel. I'm not surprised that the Egyptians are acting very cool towards it. It's...how do you say it...politically expedient?

By: Jamie Irons

Jamie Irons — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:51:39 +0000

My non-expert take on the Gaza operation is that its main purpose is to restore Israeli credibility and deterrence. Comments like the one you cite here, and some items floating about the news last week that had Arabs saying the Israeli’s had “gone crazy,” seem to hint at a mission accomplished.

Jamie Irons