Tweet
This is in the wake of the Egyptian brokered cease fire ending, and a growing perception that if Israel’s governing party wishes to win elections against rightist Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud Party, scheduled for February, that it must prove that it can strike with force. For its part Hezbollah seems unwilling to continue a cease fire without tangible benefits for its cooperation. According to Hamas this meant re-opening the Gaza, which was exactly what Turkey pressed for earlier this week.
Hezbollah has begun deploying rockets in Southern Lebanon. This means that Israel will likely face a two front war, and on one of those fronts, against an enemy that was able to inflict severe losses in their last military encounter.
As the AP report makes clear, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, and other factions on the ground, have all reached the point where allowing matters to unravel is seen as inevitable. The blockade was intended to pressure Hamas to make concessions in two state negotiations. However, all evidence indicates that it has merely hardened resistance. This is a far cry from Olmert’s recent interview on the peace process. Clearly, while it may have been time to say these things, it was not time to do these things.
The result is that the cycle of conflict is set to begin again, and the outcome is not clear, simply because occupation incursions against irregulars do not go the way expected. The irregulars do not need to win, merely make the regular military suffer unacceptable losses for long enough. This represents a fatal blow to the Annapolis talks and the Bush administration "road map" strategy, and sets the stage for a government in Israel that will have a mandate to bomb, and not negotiate.
37 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Sobering assessment. Thanks Stirling.
Yep….. Merry Christmas….. and lets have more wars….. bigger wars…..
stirling – what do you see as the most likely timing for an attack?
It is almost laughable (if it weren’t so sad) to think that the terms “road map to peace” were used by folks in the Bush Admin with a straight face.
For another aspect of Bush’s legacy is that the US has no business telling any other country what they can or cannot do with their armies.
That was not unexpected in the least… Conditions in Gaza with the blockade impacted all aspects of the Palestinians living there… Food, Medicine, Electricity, etc…! Completely abysmal living conditions and the Israelis ponder why Hamas is retaliating…?
“There ain’t no sanity clause.” — Chico Marx
since this is christmas day, here’s a picture from bethlehem. bernhard’s christmas wish is
if you follow his link there are more pictures. and this is the west bank, where things are not as horrible as in gaza. we have such a very long way to go.
my motivation for asking is quite selfish. a dear, and young, family friend leaves tomorrow for his trip to egypt and israel.
A great evil has overtaken Israel and directs the murder of the helpless and innocents, the extra-judicial murder of a people’s leaders, the extermination of a pre-existing rightful population, and the distortion of their very laws to achieve these ends. A great dark has settled over their festival of light which will not be removed until Israel, as a nation, as a people, have been forgiven their murders, their transgressions against humanity by all their victims.
Sure wish St McCain was gonna be president, since his get-them-all-in-one-room-and-tell-them-to-knock-it-the-hell-off strategy could certainly work here too!
this makes sense for the israelis. they realize they are loosing the edge in the eyes of the world. take more land. that is the only safe way for them. i don’t see a solution in that area that does not have the removal of the israeli state. the result of the shrub’s policies in iraq/afg/pak have created a huge muslim awareness that will not go away. hard times to come.
no it wouldn’t. he would be laughed out of the room.
I feel sorry for anyone born in that region. Frankly both sides are insane and Israel has turned out to be a rather racists society which oppresses arabs and invades neighboring lands which were not part of their political boundaries.
I am for a secular one state solution where religious “parties” are not allowed to participate in government. But there needs to be religious freedom for those who want to practice their religion to do so. The jews need to get over their chosen people BS and learn to live with and not dominate their neighbors. The arabs beed to accept the fact that jews want to live there as well and if they purchased the land it’s theirs. Land appropriation is should not be tolerated. It’s so middle ages.
The USA needs to get out of the mid east completely. If they want oil, we should purchase it on the open market and learn to use less of it so we are not dependent on making “deals” with corrupt despots.
The rich arabs are turning their backs on the palestinians who are starving while in UAR and Dubai the wealth is unfathomable as they cater to the uber wealthy of the world. Hypocrites. These guys have done nothing except were running their camels around of the deserts under which lay the oil. I don’t care for how they treat women or animals.
I can’t stand the whole of the ME and would never set foot there. Anyone who lives there with half a brain should get out.
Everyone said that those losses were the result of relying on air power. So will Israel send in lots of troops into Lebanon or has Israel gotten the latest Bunker Busting bombs?
A dry run before an attack on Iran?
Bush would love to close his Presidency with a *cough* Win.
Egypt is trying to broker a new cease fire
http://english.aljazeera.net/n…..65470.html
New Years is a good time to hit Iran most of us won’t be paying attention after the New Year and we won’t be up early the next day.
That should give Bush time to prepare another Mission Accomplished Photo Op.
the little bit i’ve seen was a beautiful place and many wonderful people. expecting people to leave homes and communities they have fought generations to keep when they have no where else to go seems to me both unrealistic and cruel.
it’s not like here where it is unusual for families to stay in the same community for 2 generations, let alone hundreds of years.
“And she’ll have fun fun fun
Till her daddy takes her T-Bird away”
With Condi running diplomacy for Bush I don’t think Peace was ever negotiated in good faith.
the calm has provided plenty of time for a weapons build. now is the time to strike while dubya is still a rubber stamp. maybe iran too. only got a few wks.
palistinians know there is no negotiating with christians and jews.
huh?
Has the Price of oil gotten so low that Bush thinks this is the only way to save Texas and Saudi oil men? I mean who else benefits from a war Israel?
Nope a decade of peace in the middle east and low oil prices would result in most of the Arab governments that hate Israel being over thrown. If nobody then opposes the new governments they will deradicalize.
Notice we never stopped hassling Iran and they have never stopped being radical.
But a war now means an oil embargo. An economic collapse. A lot of pushing in Congress to cut foreign aid when our economy is suffering because some dolts decided to start a war.
arafat!
Right Wing Christians and Jews who think they can win. An economic collapse in America and that could change.
maybe but it has to be political as well. we have a long way to go for people in that region to get their rights restored.
i’m sorry, i don’t understand. most of the christians i met were palestinians (or peace activists, like the christian peacemaker team in hebron)
yes, ma’am those folks are the good actors. they are not the problem unless you wish to blame them for being naive. it’s dangerous business over there.
I have no idea WTF you are talking about. At least half of my Palestinian friends are Christians, have been for centuries and centuries.
yes, sir. i’m sure you don’t understand.
Emptywheel upstairs “Best gifts Ever” where you get to identify the best gifts you’ve ever given.
You seem to be implying that it’s the Palestinians’ fault they’re about to be invaded, eh?
Pastor Hagee is sporting an apocalyptic yule log over this news.
All sides will go for another round of blood letting.
-G
I too have no idea what crc is saying.
I appreciate brevity…until the meaning is lost.
Ironically, the one good thing about invading Gaza is that they probably won’t be able to attack Iran — as Stirling mentions, with the invasion of Gaza the Israelis will already be fighting a two-front war.
The world is awakening to the genocide in Gaza. It is the Zionists who are responsible.The young of Israel are refusing to fight in ever increasing numbers. They are going to jail rather than do their mandatory two year service. It is your government and your tax dollars that are allowing this to happen. Your compromised and complicit government. Your blackmailed government. Your dirty arms dealing government. Your Zionist run government. The PNAC pieces of human garbage that want to rule the world are responsible for this horror. Buy the oil? Don’t you get it yet? The PNAC plan is to control, not buy.
Not that any of you would know it from the MSM, but there are protests all over the world against the genocide that is occurring in Gaza. Israelis have tried to get aid in and the Israeli government stops their ships, too. It is the same problem in Israel as it is in the US; the government doesn’t give a damn what its citizens think if it is not election time.
The media around the world is not silent.
http://www.freegaza.org/upload….._media.pdf
Almost half of the population is under 18. The slaughter of children. Think about that if Israel attacks. Don’t call it a war. It is not.
http://www.freegaza.org/index……test_news&
id=742114417c773c8bb4df70e16d3d0c8c&offset=
CTuttle: – Don’t you forget that Israel withdrawal out of Gaza letting the Gazans to control them selves. The Gazans chose to elect the Hamas, an extreme Islamic movement that swore to fight Israel until annihilating her. From day one the Gazans were firing rockets into Civilian areas in Israel intending to kill civilians! What do you expect the Israelis? Not to defend themselves? To turn the other cheek? This situation continues for almost 3 years. In the meantime, Hizbullah and Iran set front foot in Gaza and supplied extra rockets and weapons to Hamas.
I wonder if and how much, a state as the US, would have waiting and holding it self against such a severe violation of law and risking its own citizens from a neighboring country?!
californiarealitycheck: – hard time for whom? I think that California will be removed (a good and lethal earthquake) from the face of the earth before the Muslims annihilate Israel. Do you agree?
SanderO: – I want to remind you that Jordan (trans-Jordan) is Palestine too. The Arab Palestinians their created their national body in the 20th under the British occupation mandate and had their independence in 1946. Why do you think that the Arabs in Palestine have the right to a second state whether you call it WB or “one state solution”?
The Arabs are not ’starving’. You generalize reality and making no sense. The Hamas works hard to picture false reality in Gaza in order to influence people as you. Food and medicine are pushed into Gaza, from Israel and Egypt, on surface and under (tunnels). Don’t build you political picture from the Falsetinian ProPALganda.
Phoenix Woman: – Are you paid by the Iranians Mullahs to defend Nuclear’s Iran?
Bluebutterfly: – You forward so “beautiful” Falsetinian ProPalganda by talking about “THE genocide in Gaza” which you put as a fact. In the mean time no one is dead in Gaza because of starvation but because of the militant terror activity of the Islamic terror groups. Yound Israelis enlisting to combatant units in high numbers than ever. The Israelis, lefties as righties, agree that some armistice operation should be made against Hamas in order to hint the stubborn Islamic terrorists to halt their terror against Israel’s civilians.
Enough with your Falsetinian ProPALganda!
I wonder why the Arab Falsetinains can’t be human as Christians and Jews!
Its time for Israel to attack the Gazan’s terror’s spots, while trying not to harm civilians. I hope that Israel will go further by hitting Hamas leaders and all those who carry weapons and terror tags. Let the Muslims hard core villains run for their rescue to Sinai, Jordan or Tunisia. Let free the Arab Palestinians from the Hamas dictatorship!!!!