The Israel-Gaza Conflict, Egypt and the United States

The violence intensifies even as Obama and Netanyahu discussed "de-escalation"

Earlier this week, the Israeli Defense Forces began an air assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, in retaliation for mortars being lobbed into Israel from the strip. Rockets have been fired from Gaza for months, intensifying over the last several weeks.  Israel and Gaza's Hamas leadership have had a tense and often violent relationship  since Hamas was voted into power in the Palestinian Authority in January 2006. Those elections, which saw Hamas trounce the long-ruling Fatah Party, were initially hailed as a step toward progress by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; her office, apparently, did not see a Hamas victory coming. Fatah refused to hand power over to Hamas, and after an internecine conflict the status quo of a Fatah-ruled West Bank and a Hamas-rules Gaza emerged. That summer Israel initiated its first military operation against the Hamas government in Gaza, followed by another in the autumn.

The situation in Gaza and the wider region has changed somewhat considerably since then. From columnist Rami Khouri of the Lebanese English-language newspaper The Daily Star:

We should note three important new dimensions of the conflict on the Arab side, about the constantly improving technical capabilities of Palestinian resistance groups, the emergence of more radical Islamist groups over time in Gaza and around the region, and the impact of public opinion and the new, legitimate, governments in power in some Arab states. All three together suggest that a shift in the strategic balance of power may be under way in the Middle East, with huge implications.

Khouri postulates that the new democratically-elected governments in places like Egypt more closely mirror the view of their populations in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Egypt, in fact, is one of only a handful of countries in the region that recognize the state of Israel, thanks to the Camp David accords negotiated in 1978 by Jimmy Carter between Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin (seen at home as a radical nationalist before the agreement) and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat (who was hated for the deal, assassinated two years later and succeeded by Hosni Mubarak). What held together support for the Camp David Accords, of course, were payments from the U.S., to the tune of $1 billion a year in military aid to Egypt, on top of other aid, and about a total of $3 billion in aid a year to Israel. Public support for the peace deal, of course, is more popular in Israel than Egypt, which, like much of the rest of the Arab world, tends to scape goat Israel and Jews for domestic problems.

Nevertheless, for Egypt's president, the Muslim Brother Mohammed Morsi, it's not as simple as backing Hamas in the current conflict. Although President Obama earlier this year admitted Egypt was no longer an ally, as such (the State Department corrected him), it still receives hefty payments from the United States. The Christian Science Monitor explains Morsi's predicament:

Egypt's Islamist president finds himself pulled in competing directions by the head and the heart. The fighting this week – the result of heavy Israeli retaliation for escalating rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel – has the Islamist Mr. Morsi in a tight spot: caught between his co-religionists across the border in Gaza, on one side, and Washington, upon which a struggling Egypt relies for economic and military assistance, on the other…

The sudden flare-up involving Gaza and its Islamist leaders is also testing US influence in a region where the Arab Awakening has deposed a number of autocratic leaders more disposed to upholding a US-led system of security and stability – including former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak – in favor of Islamist-led governments.  

Morsi hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, as does Hamas, the militant Palestinian organization that governs Gaza…

Morsi has made his sympathies clear on Egyptian television, lamenting the spilling of Palestinian blood and railing against what he calls the Israeli "aggression." But privately he is apparently sounding more amenable to trying to convince Hamas to stand down, perhaps by accepting a cease-fire. Morsi has spoken by phone with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton several times this week, US officials say.

Meanwhile on the ground in Gaza, from the AP:

The image of a dead preschooler cradled by the prime ministers of Egypt and Gaza in a hospital hallway has drawn attention to the dangers Gaza's children face in this crowded urban battle zone.

Children make up half of Gaza's population of 1.6 million and seem to be everywhere in the current round of cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

Children loitered Friday outside a Gaza City morgue for a glance at the latest "martyrs." Others followed adults to funerals or even rushed to the site where Israeli missiles had just struck a government building and fire was still smoldering. Despite outward bravado, young boys of elementary school age said quietly that fear of airstrikes kept them awake at night.

And from Al-Jazeera:

At least nine people, seven of them schoolgirls, have been injured by an Israeli air attack in the southern Gaza Strip, sources tell Al Jazeera.

The raid on Thursday in Khan Yunis also injured a police officer, the AFP news agency reported, quoting witnesses and medics.

Israel seemed to be targeting a Palestinian fighter on a motorcycle, witnesses told Al Jazeera.

And the view from Tel Aviv, via Fox News:

Tel Avivians were caught by surprise Thursday when sirens wailed in the city for the first time in more than two decades — exhibiting a paradox of moving on despite the outrage that seemed somehow of a peace with the lovingly nurtured image of the city.

In high-rise office buildings, workers froze in silence for a few seconds before quickly and calmly walking down the stairwells to their buildings' shelters. Some murmured "I don't believe it" while reaching for their phones to call loved ones. Several mobile networks crashed from overload.

People parked their cars on the side of the Ayalon intercity highway, taking cover against concrete walls. Later, nightlife raged on.

On Friday morning, rockets were fired for a second day, catching Israelis lounging in their favorite cafes and restaurants.

"Everybody just got up and went inside, there was no panic, and when it was over they went back to their plates," said Rina Kol, a schoolteacher dining near Tel Aviv's largest open-air market.

Shortly after the siren sounded, an explosion sounded in the distance. Israeli authorities would not disclose the landing site so as not to help Gaza rocket launchers improve their aim.

President Obama has been receiving updates from the Israeli government, and he and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed "de-escalation" late today even as Israel appears poised for a ground invasion.

More updates on the conflict at Reason 24/7.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

It seems to be in Hamas' best interest to stop lobbing mortars into Israel, and yet... Maybe Washington needs to lob a little more money at the region.

It's interesting, the articles quoted here. AP tells us what the Palestinians are feeling while Fox News gives us the Israeli side.

[Hyperion]

Judging by what I have read of that Quran thing, I am thinking that the Muslims have had a hate boner for the Jews since around 600 AD and that doesn't seem to be going away.

I have been hearing all of my life who is wrong and who is right, Palestinians or Israel. I can't decide, so I say we let them decide, we can't stop them anyway.

[Killazontherun]

When Islamist began to win elections in nearby Turkey, a European nation state built on the repudiation of Islam's claims over secular institutions, it was really the last straw of hope being snapped for at least another generation for the reason. And our current Administration is obliviously helping them get back to the dark ages with support for the current Egyptian government whose current leader was literally caught on video tape praying for the destruction of Israel. Unfucking real.

[Killazontherun]

generation for the reason region.

[Fiscal Cliff]

Killaz got more of her from Monday?

[Killazontherun]

Auric Democles (I'm probably fucking your name up, sorry) supplied that nice set of backbone bonbons.

[Groovus Maximus]

An answer to your questions, Killaz. I guess I should get some sleep now. -))

[Killazontherun]

Thanks, doc! I'll be sure to call her that to her face! Don't worry, I'll take the heat.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Right, it was much better when the US was supporting Mubarak breaking off glass catheters in prisoners' urethras.

I'll take a guy who prays for destruction over one who actually performs it.

[Killazontherun]

Yeah, it is so much better now. This second.

Report: Rockets Fired from Egypt Hit Israel

http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....63502.html

[Cytotoxic]

Tulpa's only beef with the anti-semites is they didn't succeed in eliminating the JOOS.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

So, you prefer supporting tyrants? Just for the record.

The radicals letting their freak flag fly and getting their asses kicked by Israel is a very healthy (and likely) outcome. It would be even healthier if we stopped funding Israel so the rads would have no excuses.

[Lewisite]

"So, you prefer supporting tyrants? Just for the record."

http://english.alarabiya.net/a.....47065.html

http://www.reuters.com/article.....JX20121107

There is no alternative there now.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Uh, actually Jews in the caliphate had it much better than Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages. You want to rip on a religion for having a history of anti-Semitism, there's a much stronger and much closer to home candidate than Islam.

The current problems trace back to, you know, Palestinians being driven out of their land by European Jews. Of course that's not the fault of most current Israelis, any more than it's my fault my ancestors took the Iroquois' land, but let's not obscure the reason for the problems.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The current problems trace back to, you know, Palestinians being driven out of their land by European Jews.

When talking about the Gaza Strip that point is moot. Gaza is not considered by Israel to be part of its territory, it is not occupied by Israeli forces, and all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled in 2005.

Furthermore, since the split between Fatah and Hamas, the governments of Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip are, de facto, different entities.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

The point is, most Gazans are descendants of the Arabs who were forced out of what is now Israel decades ago. That's the origin of the animosity and the rocket attacks.

Obviously they shouldn't be doing it, any more than Cherokees should be blowing up the white man's buildings in their ancestral lands in the Southeast, but to blame the Koran is fundamentally misunderstanding the situation.

[MisterDamage]

The British broke up mandatory Palestine on the basis of demographics. Immediately upon the creation of the Israeli state, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt went to war with Israel.

Their war didn't go the way they expected. I'm so worked up over their disappointed expectations that I'm practically _crying_.

You go to war, expecting to live in your enemies land and loot their wealth, you're really not in a position to whine about your enemy securing it's position against your aggression.

[DesigNate]

Nevermind the fact that present time Palestinians are descendants of the diasporaed Jews.

[Cytotoxic]

expecting to live in your enemies land and loot their wealth,

It's not their land or their wealth.

[MisterDamage]

divvying up the land on the basis of demographics, as the British proposed, strikes me as perfectly reasonable (Democratic, even). This was consistent with a vote in the UN General Assembly which authorized the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states.

So you're going to have to do better than being all sulky and whining about whether Jews owned the areas they were living in any more or less than Arabs owned the areas they were living in.

Of course, the British _could_ have done what the Arabs wanted and just watched while the Arabs finished off what Hitler started.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Well, that has certainly been the position of the Western Intellectuals who love to dabble in Radical Chic causes. The facts (I won't insist on 'The Truth') are a little more complicated. The Zionist movement actually purchased a lot of Israel from Palestine's feudal landlords at the beginning, and then those same landlords often agitated the Palestinian peasants to attack Jews, so the whole thing has a longer history than the Israeli State?.and the Islamics have been behaving like sh*ts the whole time.

Once can make the argument that the West should not have recognized the Jewish State to begin with. However, once that is done what you have is a consistent pattern of Islamic peoples attacking Israel and then whining when they lose.

Not to mention that the Arabs who DIDN'T connive with the attacking armies in the original war have been living in Israel as full citizens all this time.

[Lewisite]

No, it was turkish (Ottoman) land, and British/League of Nations/U.N.'s wealth.

[MisterDamage]

Even assuming that it was British wealth and not that of the Jews who lived there, the British/League of Nations/UN were free to hand their wealth off to whomever they pleased, If the Arabs decided they wanted to go to war to seize it, that choice put their own wealth in the pot right along with that of their enemy. Again, I have no sympathy for anyone who goes to war expecting to seize that which belongs to someone else only for that someone else to come out on top.

The Ottoman empire didn't exist any more by that point so the land could far more justly be described as belonging to the folk who lived there. Breaking up the land along demographic lines was perfectly reasonable. The Arabs went to war expecting to seize land that Jews inhabited only for the Jews to be a more serious challenge than the Arabs expected. I'm not going to shed a single tear over the fact that instead Arabs driving jews out of their homes, as they expected would happen, in fact the reverse took place.

[Homple]

The Palestinians created Israel's wealth?

[Cytotoxic]

That's the origin of the animosity and the rocket attacks.

That's a fucking lie. Jews were 2nd class citizens before Israel.

Arab culture is degenerate and perverted.

[heller]

Alot of Israeli culture is derived from Arab culture, but don't tell General Warboner over here that.

[Xenocles]

"Arab culture" preserved Classical knowledge while the barbarians ran Europe after 476. Arab culture also gave us the number system we use. Islamic culture is also responsible for some of the most beautiful buildings in Spain, which was a paragon of religious tolerance and harmony until 1492.

It turns out history, like most things that involve humans, is complicated.

[db]

I know and agree that Arab/Islamic culture as a whole was once enlightened and healthy. Today's Arab culture doesn't necessarily live up to that. It seems like both the Arabs and Israelis are living a culture of death, not an enlightened one. I certainly wouldn't want to be making arguments that the past glories of any culture excuse the base inhumanities of its heirs.

Similarly, Cytotoxic's incessant calls for the destruction of current islamic culture are disturbing. It's one thing to want to crush out aggression; quite another to destroy a culture that foments that aggression.

[Xenocles]

I'm not attempting to excuse any misconduct or to credit the present generation with the glories of the past. I'm just saying it's complicated, and statements like "Arab culture is degenerate and perverted" are not helpful for anything but demonizing your enemy, which in turn is only useful for justifying war.

[Suthenboy]

"...statements like "Arab culture is degenerate and perverted" are not helpful ..."

Maybe not, but it is true. They are bloodthirsty, intractable savages. As inconvenient as that may be for the purposes of making peace, it is solidly true.

" It's one thing to want to crush out aggression; quite another to destroy a culture that foments that aggression."

When a culture 'foments' aggression, or in this case, is a culture of aggression and oppression, how else would one eliminate aggression and oppression besides destroying that culture?

[db]

One could ignore it as being unrelated to one's interests. Why we continue to stick our national dick into the toothed maw that is the Middle East is beyond me.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That ship has sailed. We could pack up our tents and go hard-core isolationist tomorrow. The only reaction from the Muslim world would be a pause and then a shrug before they went right back to their hourly screeching of Marg bar Amrika!

[db]

Who cares if they screech? The moment they cross your border under force of arms or attack your citizens overseas, you deal them a hammer blow and then go back home. I'm sick and tired of our leaders feeling like they have to run the place over there or rebuild after we crush their shit. Part of a punitive strike is that the original aggressors lose shit that is valuable to them. Then we go and buy them more shit to replace it. Doesn't make sense.

Again, we don't have to go "hard-core isolationist" to just back off and let them break themselves against our defense.

[Hello Kitty]

From what I've been reading - this is a myth perpetrated by the leftist academia. See here: http://www.gatestoneinstitute......e-of-islam

I realize it's complicated, but something doesn't add up.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Arab culture also gave us the number system we use

It's more correct to say that Indian culture gave us the number system we use by way of the Arabs.

Jus' sayin'

[Cytotoxic]

The rebuttals to me above are pretty weak. Yes, The Caliphate was great and enlightened back in the day. It is a shame it fragmented and the barbaric Christians of the time took back Spain. Arab culture today is another matter. They are the savages the Christians were. I actually think the problem is more Arab culture than Islam but Islam is aggravating that situation. The only way to true peace is changing/'destroying' that culture.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

I really don't give two shits about destroying cultures or whatever. America has, coercively and non-coercively, destroyed hundreds of cultures since coming onto the world stage, and you know what, the world is probably better off.

What I am concerned about is killing innocent people, and considering you've several times used negative effects of a culture to justify slaughtering innocent people from that culture, forgive me if I react to your armchair cultural anthropology in a negative manner.

[seguin]

It's more complicated than that. I don't want to short-change Muhammed ibn Musa, but the Christian monastery system preserved a good deal of Western knowledge after 476, and the Byzantine Empire never lost it - in fact, I'd say the destruction of Constantinople in 1453 had more to do with the renaissance than any cross-cultural contact with Arabs or the Muslim world.

[Sevo]

Tulpa (LAOL-PA)| 11.17.12 @ 12:05AM |#
"The point is, most Gazans are descendants of the Arabs who were forced out of what is now Israel decades ago."

Most of us are descendants of people who were forced out of someplace or other. And I'll bet you hoped everyone would give you a pass on that pile of crap, right?

[Cytotoxic]

actually Jews in the caliphate had it much better than Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages.

Back then, yes. Since then, and before Israel, Jews became second-class citizens in Arab lands and were subject to pogroms. Since cause tends to precede effect, that would eliminate the driving out of Palestinians as the cause of JOO hate.

BTW Jews were driven out of Palestinian lands. Such mutual expulsion is a feature of the formation of EVERY FUCKING NATION ON THE PLANET.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

No pogrom that ever occurred in Arab lands can match what the Europeans did to the Jews, bub.

Maybe we should have given part of Germany over to be the Jewish homeland.

[Homple]

The Germans seem to have pretty much gotten that antisemitism out of their system. I'm waiting for the Arabs to do the same.

[seguin]

Yes, but it was still pretty bad...being pushed out of Iraq, Yemen, Syria, etc. so on and so forth. When will they be compensated for their losses?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That's a very broad over-generalization.

First of all, which Caliphate? There were several in the history of medieval Islam -- sometimes concurrent with one another. At one point, the Fatimid Caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate, and the Abbasid Caliphate all claimed suzerainty over the ummah -- and all of them had different policies as regarded Judaism. Suffice it to say, it is also unhelpful and sloppy to put all of Europe under one categorization -- various regions of Eastern Europe (as well as the Byzantine Empire, the Italian city-states, and Sicily/Naples) were relatively welcoming to the Jewish people. FWIW, the Papal states had a fairly sizeable Jewish community at one point.

At any rate, I don't see how any of that has any bearing on what motivates Palestinians today to lob rockets over the border in the hopes of killing a few Israeli civilians.

[Robert]

No, the current problems trace back to the British, who promised the same pony to 3 different parties. In fact, the problems of much of the world in recent centuries can be laid to the British. It's their standard m.o. The did it in North America, they did it in the Near and Far East, they did it in Europe. "Let's you and him fight." And as my friend Bob Falk pointed out, you'll find their agents on both sides of every conflict, profiting. Wherever British boots have touched, you'll find a swath of destruction in their tracks.

[Hyperion]

Don't worry, the big O is going to fly over there and bow to someone. That will fix everything.

Of course I am going to say, we need to stay the fuck out of it. Israel can take care of themselves.

[Big 'Orra]

I side with Israel, but yes, we need to stay the heck out of it.

[The Derider]

The anti-rocket defense system that has shot down over 100 rockets aimed at Israeli cities had 200M dollars of US funding.

[Sevo]

The Derider| 11.17.12 @ 8:25PM |#
"The anti-rocket defense system that has shot down over 100 rockets aimed at Israeli cities had 200M dollars of US funding."

Cite, deidiot?

[DJF]

Its none of the US governments business and they should stop sending US taxpayer money to those involved.

Those involved can stand on their hilltops, scream and throw rocks at each other about which god is better or whose god gave them claim to the land. There is nothing there that is worth one drop of American blood or one dollar of US taxpayer money.

[Sevo]

Fist of Etiquette| 11.16.12 @ 8:19PM |#
"It seems to be in Hamas' best interest to stop lobbing mortars into Israel, and yet."

As I understand it, it's rockets, not mortar shells. But regardless, WIH does Hamas hope to gain by lobbing either one?
Whoever makes that choice has to know that the Israelis are gonna respond with some serious ordinance.

[Marshall Gill]

WIH does Hamas hope to gain by lobbing either one?

Didn't you see the above picture of the dead child? All they have to do is keep up the fight, with the "international community" on their side, no matter how many Jews they kill, the only way for them to lose is for them to quit.

[Sevo]

Have to admit, I had hopes that Hamas wasn't trading dead kids for PR points, but then that would presume a degree of civility that fundy Muslims have yet to show.

[VG Zaytsev]

But regardless, WIH does Hamas hope to gain by lobbing either one?

They want to draw Egypt and Israel into war in the belief that Egypt will annihilate the Zionist Entity.

[C. Anacreon]

What if Israel just bought Baja Mexico for One Trillion Dollars and moved the entire country there. Mexico would be so rich it would be the end of any immigration issues to the US, and those displaced can be paid off handsomely. Then let the Palestinians and all their pals have that little Rhode Island of land they have been fighting over for themselves.

I would think problem solved, but no doubt a few recalcitrant Mexicans would refuse to leave and would start bombing the new Israel, and the entire world would support them.

[Homple]

It was suggested some British that the new Promised Land could be in Kenya, but the Zionists would hear nothing of that. (Read "A Peace to End All Peace" by David Fromkin for some background in these matters.)

[Sevo]

Homple| 11.17.12 @ 8:13PM |#
"It was suggested some British that the new Promised Land could be in Kenya, but the Zionists would hear nothing of that"

I'll bet you thought that comment had some validity, didn't you?
Or, were you hoping a non-sequitur would distract people?

[The Derider]

I think Hamas is shoring up the base. Nothing more popular in the middle east than lobbing some shit at Israel.

Also, they're rocket mortars-- rockets because they're not purely ballistic, and mortars because they take a high, indirect flight path.

[Lyle]

I love that we're getting to see what many Egyptians really think about Israel. Yay liberty!

[Nigel M]

Oh look, Imperialist Americans siding with the Israelis agin.
Goody.

[JeremyR]

Yeah, how dare those Israelis complain about getting attacked by rockets. They should just sit their and be killed.

[Sevo]

Nigel M| 11.16.12 @ 9:13PM |#
"Oh look, Imperialist Americans siding with the Israelis agin.
Goody."
Cite missing.
But there's plenty of evidence that stupid, fundy Muslims are doing exactly as MG mentions.

[Sevo]

Nigel M| 11.16.12 @ 9:13PM |#
"Oh look, Imperialist Americans siding with the Israelis agin.
Goody."

Can I presume Nigel M is siding with the troglodyte fundy Muslims again?
Just asking...

[The Derider]

Just like they did in WW2, those damned American interventionists!

[seguin]

You do remember that Japan and Germany declared war on the US and not the other way around, right?

[The Derider]

You do remember that the US was materially aiding the enemies of the axis long before December 1941, right?

[Sevo]

The Derider| 11.18.12 @ 4:22AM |#
"You do remember that the US was materially aiding the enemies of the axis long before December 1941, right?"

OK, let's here the apologia for Pearl Harbor, deidiot.

[Bardas Phocas]

In the long run they'll all be dead.
In the short run, a few hundred will be dead.
The usual prison riot of peace process in the Middle East. [yawn]

[JBinMO]

After reading this article I figured out how the US can reduce our deficit by four billion dollars a year.

[Cytotoxic]

I look forward to Israel crushing Gaza and Hamas into dust. Failure to do so would be a massive moral failing, much like Cast Lead.

I almost hope Egypt's new government does something retarded and gets huffy with Israel. I love it when Israel kicks ass. If Egypt starts another war, Israel should nuke an Egyptian metropolis.

[heller]

WARBONER!

[Cytotoxic]

Hells yeah.

[The Derider]

Nothing could be worse for Israel than nuking somebody. They'd immediately lose whatever international support they have-- mostly the billions that we send them.

Another good reason to keep sending them money.

[RyanXXX]

HEAVY METAL BRO!!!! WHOOOOOOO!!!!

[heller]

Instead of having another stupid and pointless Israeli-Palistinian argument, take your drug of choice and watch this:

http://www.captainmurphy.xxx/

[Darrenwj]

World War 3 is coming.

[Bardas Phocas]

Probably not WWIII. More like a middle east version of the 30 year war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years'_War
Endemic warfare across the region for more stupid reasons than you can count for a decade or two.

Maybe Israel will survive it but a lot of Arabs wont.

The US will try to show "global leadership", but we're broke, we're tired of endless wog wars and Obama doesn't seem like he gets the war boner required to get in a ground war (to his credit).

As the slaughter gets worse and worse and they run out of money for food (Egypt) expect great waves of Arab refugees to flood southern europe.

The Arab Spring will usher in a dark age.

[Darrenwj]

As soon as this war spreads across the Middle East eventually dragging in Iran somehow you will absolutely shocked from the annihilation this war will cause such as the radioactive clouds that will spew across the region from attacked Iranian nuclear reactors.
Watch what this does to all ready weakened world economy & the global carnage it will bring. The devastation will be on a scale not seen 1945. It will spiral out of control very rapidly, no thirty year war it will be a thirty minute war. 30 minutes being the average time for ICBM's to deliver high yield nuclear explosions across the globe.
Think is all exaggerated madness, then watch what happens when this war explodes into a wider regional conflict.

[MisterDamage]

If conflict rises to the level that it did in the 30 years war, the war wont last 30 months. Hell, if it goes nuclear, as it may well do, 30 hours is on the high side.

[Cytotoxic]

Isreal will greatly benefit. The Syrian civil war has already made life easier. If all their enemies are killing each other then even better.

When the price of oil collapses in real terms it gets funner.

[Darrenwj]

WORLD WAR 3 is coming.
Soon Isreal will be at war on fronts,against Hamas in Gaza,Hezbollah in Lebanon & Syria in the Golan heights. Given the instability of the region from the "Arab" spring this war will spread rapidly across the entire Middle East. Iran will get dragged into this full scale Middle Eastern war. This will see massive amount of death in Iran,Israel & across that region not seen from war since 1945.

Oil prices will skyrocket & the world economy will completely collapse. This will drag in more nations into this war like nuclear armed nations like Pakistan & India. China & Russia will get drawn into this conflict and then rapidly a full scale global thermonuclear war will erupt. (WORLD WAR 3).
From there humanity will cease to exist.

[Julio Cesar Samper Uribe]

You have a shiny disposition.

I bet you kill it at any parties you're invited.

[db]

Is Gaza just about Israel and the Palestinians? I'm inclined to believe otherwise.

If Israel wanted to attack Iran, or had knowledge that someone else were going to attack Iran, what would their game be? Iran would be very likely (at least they openly threaten) to attack Israel if attacked even by a third party.

Iran would likely not limit itself to use of long range missles. It has a surrogate in Lebanon in the form of Hezbollah, which it would likely use as a prong of a counterattack. Hamas is trickier: its leadership has claimed that it would not take part in an Isreal-Iran conflict at Iran's bidding, but even if that were true, Hamas would likely see this as an opportunity to hit Israel at a time when Israel is distracted.

Would Israel, knowing all this and more, choose to disrupt and weaken Hamas prior to any action against Iran that they suspected was coming?

[SIV]

They're on to us!

It starts just after the end of World War Two, when America's industrial and financial giants, fattened up from war profits, established a new lobbying front group called the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) that focused on promoting a new pro-business ideology?which it called "libertarianism"

this needs to be repeated again: "Libertarianism" was a project of the corporate lobby world, launched as a big business "ideology" in 1946 by The US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

[db]

Wait, so we're really Fascists?

I wouldn't be surprised if the socialist left would try to paint that picture, knowing the animosity between the two factions of extreme statists.

[SIV]

The author "outs" Brian Doherty as a corporate-apologist tool.

The jig is up.

[Sevo]

The guy's missing the big story; starts with Nixon and Hitler meeting in Uruguay...

[VG Zaytsev]

How dare those corporate stooges create an ideology that calls for ending their government support.

[John]

Anyone trying to say anything outside of the liberal orthodoxy must be oppressed.

But remember, we are the fascists.

[John]

http://www.volokh.com/2012/11/.....ight-laws/

This is probably too much too hope for. But wouldn't it be wonderful if the Republicans got smart and went after copyright law? It is such an obvious and correct political move. They would stand for the little guy and young people and progress and force the Dems to be on the side of stagnation and big business.

[VG Zaytsev]

Yep, I've been calling for them to do that for years.

Problem is they're just to stupid.

[Cytotoxic]

It might be 'smart' but it would be very wrong to turn against IP. SOPA is wrong and there are some misapplications of IP that the GOP should stop however and that would be smart.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

It doesn't look like they're turning against IP in general, just against the ridiculousness of the past 40 years or so.

[The Derider]

Yes, I hope the republicans get smart and go after copyright laws, so democrats can add big business to their majority coalition.

[Sevo]

The Derider| 11.18.12 @ 4:26AM |#
"Yes, I hope the republicans get smart and go after copyright laws, so democrats can add big business to their majority coalition.

Yeah, dipshit, anything to increase control, right?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Shit is getting real.

Did Hamas really think producing another Pallywood propaganda campaign was worth the re-occupation of the Gaza Strip? And if Israeli troops take one step inside the Gaza Strip, how can Morsi not intervene without the Egyptian populous calling for his head?

[VG Zaytsev]

It seems to me that Hamas is trying to provoke a war between Israel and Egypt. And Israel is trying to pacify their left flank in preparation for a strike against Iran. So an Israeli invasion of Gaza seems imminent. The real question is whether or not Egypt will intervene.

[Cytotoxic]

Egypt won't do dick. Their army doesn't want it and they are dependent on foreign aid. I'd love to see them do something stupid though. Sinai is turning lawless and I think it looks better as an Israeli province.

[johnl]

Maybe Egypt will take the opportunity to occupy Sinai.

[Mike M.]

Yep, and this is the ultimate result of your so-called "Arab Spring" ladies and gentlemen: the start of possibly World War III.

Like anyone with a tripe digit IQ couldn't see this coming from miles away! I still laugh my ass off when I think about the crap all the stupid-ass Beltway cosmotarian disphits around here were saying about it early on.

[Cytotoxic]

Er...that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Hamas has been occupying the Gaza since 2006...I believe.

[Darrenwj]

Cytotoxic soon you will be dead. Russia has mobilised its army in the southern Caucuses in expectation of a full blown Middle Eastern war. Medvedev warned if the US or Israel attacks sovereign states like IRAN that are of strategic importance to Russia then there is fair chance of a nuclear war.
Watch what happens when the contagion of a full scale Middle Eastern war starts to spread outside that region involving nations like Iran & nuclear armed Islamic nation of Pakistan. Watch what this does to the US & World economy as they utterly collapse. Watch what happens then involving Russia,China & the West.
You will die, just like me and everyone else on this planet . WORLD WAR 3 is coming.

Thousands of cities are going to destroyed far beyong that of Hiroshima & Nagasaki in 1945.
The radiation left from this will be 20,000 times greater & will kill all human life on the planet.

[ThatSkepticGuy]

CATS AND DOGS, LIVING TOGETHER, MASS HYSTERIA!

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Right, we should have kept paying Mubarak to torture people.

It's perfectly healthy to let the new radical leaders in Arab countries blow their wad and get their asses kicked in a fair fight, which is probably what would happen if we stopped financing both Israel and Egypt. Ultimately Mo Blow is going to realize that praying for the destruction of Israel is more profitable than fighting for it and things will go back to normal.

Keeping radicals under the boot of a tyrant just gives them excuses.

[Mike M.]

These lunatics don't need any excuses, and they can come up with more justifications, excuses, and bogus rationalizations for their endless jihad than you can think of.

[4tehsnowflakes]

Oddly enough, no one in the news is reporting my theory that the recent upswing in rocket and mortar attacks on Israel is (unknown to Hamas and Egypt) the work of Assad's Syrian agents. This may be because I pulled the theory out of my a** however. The thinking is that the noose is tightening on Assad with the UK laying the groundwork for more aid to the rebels, and his people are looking to re-unite the country on the people's shared opposition to the Zionist aggressor. If Israel is at war with Gaza and Egypt, Assad can declare his support and hope the people rally behind him.

[Moe Effingood]

Why the fuck should Uncle Sam be involved in other people's quagmires? Save billions in foreign aid a year and mind your own fucking business.