Palestine, Gaza, And Long Shadows

In modern times it's hard to unpack all the info-maelstroms, it's easy to get snagged by electronic histrionics. They strobe-blind and strand us from seeing our natural backgrounds of time, connection and depth. The Media excel at casting, destroying, discovering, and re-casting Molochs of irrationality, erecting false yet powerful narrative arcs which demand our mental fealties. The falsities control us on the cheap, leaving collateral damages of knowledge, context, and common sense.

Israel's invasion of Gaza, for example, is utterly devoid of a context which should be completely obvious, even to Westerners, and some will soon be provided below. First, it's wise to admit my approach to thinking about politics and conflict was already unorthodox by inclination, and was kicked even further towards a "long shadows" framework by once being horribly, frighteningly wrong.

In Yugoslavia in the 1980s, I failed to see a devolution into chaos and genocide as it was happening right in front of my eyes. I cheerfully walked and stayed in places where little old women and pre-schoolers would die by sniper fire for hurrying groceries across a street, where pits would be dug to dispose of massacres, where a war against civilians (focused on Islamic Bosniaks) would soon ensue. The war consisted of ethnic cleansing, siege, mass rape, execution and torture, where it was lucky to starve in concentration camps. Rather than predict reality, however, I reported future prospects in line with official perceptions, and pronounced the area ripe for Western expansion.

All the calling cards of chaos were there for me to see: the empty shelves, rationing, black markets, Soviet-style surveillance, sharp ethnic and religious divisions, the eroding commons, growing inequities and casual police corruption. Rather than think for myself, I chose to believe what an optimistic media told me. Here's the kicker: even if my ignorance of the area's history had been corrected, I would still have denied, and vehemently, that an imminent war of atrocity would be caused by conflicts which took place more than 400 years earlier.

There's nothing like knowing that even if you'd done the homework, you still would've failed the exam. The lesson of not being equal to that test has never left me. It has urged me to be more clinical in appraisal, more mindful of past echoes, to scrutinize first-hand observations over distant theories. It forever shook my faith in the blithe premises of unchaperoned diversity, and taught me that context, however complex, is reality's keystone.

Now, then: let's go back to Israel, Palestine, and Gaza. All the way back to Zephaniah chapter 2, verse 5:

For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day, and Ekron shall be rooted up.

Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of the LORD is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant.

The scripture above was written circa 630 B.C. by one of the most obscure prophets of the Old Testament. "Philistines" is a Hebrew term derived from the root p-l-sh, or פלש‎, which means to invade, divide, or overwhelm. Referring to that same people, the Romans used the word to rename Israel as "Palestina," a final insult to the Jews after their million-corpse rebellion was put down late in Hadrian's reign, 135 A.D. As for the Philistines, no one knows where they came from originally. The available evidence indicates they were ethnically distinct Caucasian refugees or prisoners, (likely from one of the Aegean islands, maybe Mycenae) sent by an Egyptian pharaoh to the southwest coast of Palestine some 14 centuries ago. They were a sea people, remarkably skilled mariners, iron-smiths, and merchants.

At that time, and until its name was changed to Judeah post-Exodus, "Canaan" was the name for all the lands east of the River Jordan to the sea, which had been a province of Egypt dating to 2000 B.C. Beautiful purple fabrics, prized above all others, were made in Canaan with dyes coaxed from an indigenous murex snail. The dye was called Knaa, and the Phoenicians (Greek for "purple people") became famous for shipping the fabric all over the known world from Jaffa (Haifa). It signified royalty.

Many peoples existed in the land other than Philistines and Judeans, most of which are even more lost to history than the Hittites. The Old Testament remains the only document to list the tribes and clans apparently displaced following the Exodus (see Genesis 10: 15-19). Today's Palestinians and Israelis are the survivors of those ancient disputes, in which one can imagine a violent churning of migrations, innovations, and assimilations. The southwest coast of Canaan which the Philistines first seized is now known as the Gaza Strip.

Gaza ("strong point") was named for the most formidable of its five city-states, and the Philistines gained their pejorative stature after gaining them by Egyptian mandate. They became wealthy, built up and pushed further out into Hebrew-held lands. And so it came to pass that the Hebrews developed a special hatred for the Philistines--and they must by no means have been alone in reviling the strange and powerful usurpers of choice coast-line. In the Bible, conflict between them seems to be a constant, and several hundred Old Testament scriptures are devoted to heaping scorn on Philistines over and above the other unwanted occupants of Canaan. The stories of Samson and Delilah, Saul, Samuel, and David all feature Philistines as villains, and when David slew Goliath to become King of Judah, he slew one of their champions.

To a contemporary Israeli with even a cursory knowledge of tradition, Palestinians are synonymous with Philistines, the Gazans most of all, and ancient Canaan is geographically synonymous with the outer borders of modern Israel. As a policy, revenge and cleansing of them and the other cattle-people ("goyim") are deeply embedded in Israeli tradition, and more. It's repeatedly spelled out in sacred text as the will and commandment of god. as it is in Deuteronomy 7, verse 1:

When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

Fast forward to last November, stop, and note: it's handy to keep deep background in mind while you debate whether to fire up your Bullshit Detector. Our media now tells us that Gaza's Hamas Party broke a cease-fire with Israel, easy enough to believe. But rewind two years, stop. Hamas won a democratic election held in 2006 at the behest of the Bush Administration. The US, Canada, and the EU froze Palestinian government accounts and withheld all payments. Israel then blockaded the Gaza Strip, where 2.5 million people are crammed into a hundred square kilometers, and the industrial output and trade promptly shrank by 95%. The only food Gazans get is from humanitarian aid, and Israel supplies the electricity (not!). All manner of subterfuge, spy-craft, and force have been applied to throw Hamas out, and have failed.

Israel broke the cease-fire on November 4th, 2008 when its forces killed a Palestinian in Gaza. Some people there responded with a single mortar barrage towards Israeli positions, no casualties. Israel then killed six Gazans, to which Hamas responded with its "advanced" Qassam rockets. This fits the pattern. 79% of Israel-Palestine conflict pauses were interrupted when a Palestinian was killed. 8% of pauses were interrupted by Palestinian attacks, with the remainder unclear because 13% were interrupted by both sides on the same date. Of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel broke 24, or 96%. Israel attacked and killed Palestinians every time after 14 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than 9 days (data source: Israeli Consulate, New York).

The picture above is of a Qassam rocket impact on a road. It didn't even leave a pot-hole. Rewind 2638 years, Deuteronomy 7, verses 2-3, stop:

And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them:

Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

The shadows are long and often ugly, but the sun also rises on the naked and the dead. On Jew and on Muslim. Israel has finally lost a PR battle for narrative arc in the West, as we have seen the pictures and video unravel on the InterNews. When the next Gazan school is bombed, the next family lies in a house entombed, Hamas will gain strength. It's not enough for Israel to stop now, the ship embarked and is cruising for a distant boycott. To survive another 20 or 30 years, Israelis have to pull their heads out from where they are so deeply stuck: from the dream of a Zion that never was, and from the Bible's ass.

Palestine, Gaza

Remnants of Hamas leader and his family, after being hit by 2,000 lb. bomb.

Gaza Protests In Beirut

A juxtaposition of how viciously stupid Israel is being, via Fox News:

The day after Christmas, White House special counsel Charles Colson told the president that the American people needed to hear "some explanation of why it is we're continuing to bomb [North Vietnam], and that it isn't simply an exercise in trying to decimate a country."

"It's too damn bad we aren't decimating the country," Nixon snapped.

"I wish to hell we were," Colson replied.

"We're doing one hell of a lot," the president continued, marveling at North Vietnam's "war-making capabilities." But Nixon added that the North had been "clobbered this time, because...I told [Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Thomas] Moorer...'Now look here. May 8th, we mined, we bombed. We did a hell of a lot. And it set 'em back a year. Now, we're going to set 'em back two years."

Nixon then told Colson: "The targets they've had have been really something. Everything, except, of course, we're avoiding civilians. I mean, even -- with all the screaming about civilians, believe me: If we were trying, the goddamn place would be leveled. Leveled!"

"God, yes," replied Colson, who after pleading guilty during the Watergate scandals became a born-again Christian and dedicated his life to his Prison Fellowship ministry.

The next day, talking by telephone with Kissinger, the commander-in-chief said of the enemy: "We gave 'em a hell of a good bang, you know. And I'm glad we only lost two B-52s. That wasn't too bad."

Kissinger pointed out that a loss rate of three percent was "about average."

"We're punishing the hell out of them, aren't we?" Nixon asked.

"Oh, there's no question about it," Kissinger replied. The NSC chief added that the French foreign minister had shared with American diplomats a report from France's consul general in Hanoi in which the Frenchman fretted: "I've just lived through the most terrifying hour of my life. An unbelievable raid has just taken place."

When Kissinger, a former Harvard professor and master courtier, sought to flatter his boss, the president cut him off. "You have shown that you are not to be trifled with," Kissinger told the president, producing a mirthless chuckle from Nixon.

"I wouldn't worry about the people here," Nixon said. "I mean, they're bitching around in the news magazines. Don't worry about it, Henry. It's not all that important. The public isn't that much concerned about all this."

Israel: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

So, the peace on earth thing is a problem. Israel's attacks in Gaza are now targeting buildings that are "symbols" of Hamas. (BBC outlines some of the "symbols.") Hamas is learning from the awesome IDF prop machine, and is getting pretty good at PR themselves, which accounts for the picture above getting into the Western press--no reporters are allowed in Gaza. Whether the five dead siblings are staged or no, a thousand innocent Palestinian natives have been killed and maimed by indiscriminate bombings because, according to the IDF, some recent mortars and rockets were allegedly launched into Israel which caused no casualties.

The Guardian reports that the Israelis have been planning the assault for six months, and relates a few other confirmations of previous suspicions: 1) It's about the election in February, so Likudniks can hamstring the moderates; 2) The operation is punishment for the Lebanon/Hezbollah disaster; 3) The Israelis moronically believe it will weaken Hamas, rather than serve as a powerful recruitment tool, and 4):

The three weeks before Barack Obama's inauguration were Israel's last chance to assume automatic diplomatic support from Washington, as it got from George Bush over both West Bank settlements and the Lebanon war.

It is hard to imagine an Israeli government testing Obama, whom it views with foreboding because of a sense he has more sympathy for the Palestinians, with a crisis of these dimensions during his first days or weeks in office.

And, in the NYTimes: "Obama Defers to Bush, for Now, on Gaza Crisis." Obama's reaction will be cool and measured, disapproving of the loss of life and implying Israel's action was too strong, and then salving it with recognition of being an important ally with a right to defend itself, yada-yada. This probably screws chances for any West Bank/Golan Heights/Iran progress for some time.

When analyzing Palestine one should bear in mind that to avoid an unfavorable settlement hard-liners in Israel would quite literally shoot rockets at themselves. As that as a political solution, Israel makes about as much sense as would sending my descendants back to rule Ireland 1,900 years from now because they have a special stubborn gene.

For the record, Hitler and his planners engaged with Zionism as a way to get rid of the Jews in Germania, but sending them back to Palestine struck them as unrealistic in both short and long terms. (See, amongst others, Hannah Arendt's 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' and Paul Johnson's 'A History of the Jews.' Influential rabbis collaborated with the Nazis in the belief it would speed their return to a lost ancient homeland. Through a round-about of horrors, it did.) Britain and the US chose not to predict mayhem because Palestine was an Arab territory, not a state, and because aggrieved Jews had become their problem.

While Obama will strive to keep his personal feelings out of diplomacy in America's best interests, he has studied apartheid and genocide, and disapproves mightily. There is reason to think his patience with Israel as presently composed ran out as long ago as mine, and he may even realize that country has outlived any meaningful utility as a US ally. Further, that it's tied to our interests like an anchor to an ankle. Am I projecting? Sure, but Obama's smarter than me, and if I can put it together, he can. A dispassionate Realpolitik analysis will yield a similar conclusion, and that these Gaza attacks are intended to push Obama into a dunce-cap wearing corner. Such that if he's nice, his advisors can hand him a piece of chalk, so he can proceed to the blackboard and write "I love Israel" 500 times.

Update: Another interesting "News Analysis" in the NYT suggests the Israelis' primary goal is to show they're no paper rabbi and to reestablish fear across the Arab world after the Lebanon disaster.

Update 2: the WaPo has an editorial pointing out that any gains against Hamas are likely to be small or none, while these attacks undermine the efforts against Iran's nuclear program. Also, Turkey and Syria have canceled their negotiations with Israel.

Update 3: For another US propaganda defeat, a significant bomb being used by the Israelis is the US-made and supplied GBU-39 guided bunker buster. It was Hezbollah's skillful concealment of bunkers which defeated their incursion into Lebanon, and my guess is their plan is to identify those bunker sites and lawn-dart them with GBU-39s.

Pretty Statecraft, Brilliant Statecraft, Dressed In Holiday Cheer

Professional observers firmly believe there won't be serious progress on Palestine and Iran. Who could blame them?

With Palestine, zionists will reject any objectively fair (or do-able) two-state solution. Ditto the involved and aggrieved muslims, which include those of greater Arabia.

With Iran, the zionist position is even worse. Israel will knee-jerk into war if Iran develops its force projection capabilities, and nuclear deterrence doctrine (mutal assured destruction) doesn't apply well to any scenario which includes technically advanced muslim states. That's why Israel doesn't want any, as each would bear a legitimate existential threat. (Note: If you run into a zionist, just mention the words "nuclear Iran," it's really all you have to say. Then sit back and watch the show. Free entertainment, for hours!) Meanwhile it's easy for Iran, and fully within its interests, to keep up deniable pressure on Israel's backside.

Obviously, Israel's the diplomatic problem to solve. It's a poison to three-quarters of US bilateral relationships on the globe, its people have suffered from an abiding and deepening insecurity complex from the reign of King Zedekiah onwards, and its policies are, at this juncture, politically pathetic and suicidal. Policy which relies on keeping nukes away from Iran is doomed to deadly failure. They're going to have them soon enough. Policy which relies on running a national ghetto generates greater backlash the longer it goes. So much so, it supports the argument to not open the gates. (Apres moi, la goy-luge.) What on earth to do...oh! Wait! I know! Let's obviate Israel's need for nuclear weapons?

"Obama to offer nuclear shield to Israel:"

President-elect Barack Obama plans to offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.

Quoting an unnamed American source close to Obama, Haaretz daily said Obama's administration would pledge under the proposed "nuclear umbrella" to respond to any Iranian nuclear strike against Israel with a U.S. retaliation in kind.....

The latitude for unilateral Israeli action might be limited by a U.S. nuclear umbrella. Similar Cold War treaties -- NATO in Europe, the nuclear umbrella over Japan -- defended U.S. allies while obliging them to get Washington's nod for military moves.

The article was intentionally leaked by Obama, laying an impressive new groundwork:

1) he offers Israel what they already have, but in a new and very reassuring way. It takes pressure off them and creates wiggle room for quid pro quo without giving or taking much away.

2) he opens maximal manoevre room with Iran, including a lifted embargo. Do we want US companies to supply Iran with nuclear plants, or do we want the Russians to get the work?

3) Which, by the way, the Israelis have been sucking up to Russia hard, via detente with its client state Syria. Obama one-ups that move, and says, in effect, "Don't twist your forelocks over Iran. We'll vouch for them. And we're still top dog in the region."

4) Iran's first quid pro quo would be to stop Hamas and Hezbollah with the bottle rockets in Palestine, feeding into a more stable framework there.

As you know, I've long viewed Clinton as SecState in the (for my first time ever, positive) light of Obama making an immediate run at de-escalation in the Mid-East, a.k.a. Peace. The temperature will lower, and the ambition is now confirmed. I realize the words above do not in any way spell out "two-state solution," and given the actors and history involved, skepticism is warranted. I'm mainly encouraged because the statecraft is of the highest quality. Obama's cabinet has betrayed itself as being able to think wisely in multiple dimensions, the hallmark of great diplomacy, the X Factor in international relations. It makes a far bigger difference in outcomes than war, even when accompanied by war.

For example, if Edmund Burke had been Prime Minister rather than the over-reaching, ham-fisted simpleton Lord North, America would not have revolted, and might have remained part of England's Commonwealth to this day. Parallels between North and his Tory Party's bungling bellicosity and Bush and his Neo-con Gang of Pugs, although someone should write a book about them, they practically draw themselves. The one-track-mind diplomatic methods common to both cabals come in a black box with electrodes attached.

We should be thoroughly cheered by the deftness of Obama's first Mid-East overture. Call me starry-eyed, but when I say, "Peace on earth, good will towards men" this holiday season, for the first time in a great while--for the first time in my adult life--I'll know my government means it.

The Wit And Wisdom Of Rahm Emanuel

I hate Rahm Emanuel. I hate him for being a shitty DCCC chair, for battling with Howard Dean over the 50-state strategy, for doing everything possible to undermine the winning strategy, then for taking credit when it worked. I hate him for running Bush-sympathizing 'Blue Dog Democrats' in red districts in 2006, and I hate him for being a smirking phoney smarm. He is rumored to hold an Israeli passport, to have volunteered for the IDF during Desert Storm, he is a Zionist and passes out Uzis to Jewish gangstas, "The Isros," in synagogues all over Chicago's north side. My mildest reaction to him as Obama's chief of staff was "Blerrrchh!"

But then I thought, "What would Saul Alinsky do? What would a community terrorist who has improbably seized power next do?" Get himself an enforcer. A Laurenti Beria, Luca Brazzi, knock-on-the-door-in-the-night Bad Cop. My hunch is it was in part a "keep your enemies closer" move. By naming Emanuel, Obama fulfilled Chicago political machine payback in perpetuity and also removed a major, ongoing congressional pain in the ass, one which is now condemned to schedule meetings and incessantly listen to people bitch and whine about how they absolutely must see the President. Music, sweet music.

Is it any wonder Rahmbo didn't immediately accept the post? He's done it before, and knows it often requires arriving 5AM and leaving 9PM. Plus, it messes with his ambition to be Speaker of the House, so he only committed 2 years to the job from hell. A placeholder will take his congressional seat, but things aren't always predictable on that watch. Especially now. The shit that's being aerosolized will not have settled back down upon the turnip field a short two years from now.

So Obama has a (preferably hypoallergenic) pit bull for CoS, and past holders of that slot like Dick Cheney and John Sununu were noted for startling levels of unapologetic rudeness. You don't need to trust the holder of the post to be nice, you need smarts, stamina, effectiveness, and quick answers to your reins. Obama trusts his combat team: Axelrod, Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, and his wife. Not the Merchant of Hyde Park, who will henceforth be Axelrod's responsibility. Emanuel scares the ever-living shit out of the Reich Wing, and he's as bipartisan as a broken nose. (See the cancelled SNL sketch above.) Politics is his blood sport. This is a good thing, if your President backs off from it.

Here's another Rahmbo angle: I suspect Obama will throw deep right away on the Palestine-Israel issue as a way to open up the options, because progress there, or the convincing illusion of it, makes everything else easier in the Mid-East. Emaneul knows how to work with the Clintons, is an intimate who maintained his neutrality, which pushes a few jigsaws together with Hillary as SecState. Baggage or no, the Clintons have mondo stature on the archway issue that's screwing the entire world up. They're the most recent people to make any headway on reconciliation and recognition, exact roboratives needed to free the Mid-East oxen from the desperate mire.

Obama is going after Israel, and it will be leaned on hard, with all the remaining US leverage available. Right where it should've been placed for the last decade and more. It may be too damned late, as Israel is busy sucking up to Russia with all possible speed, but having Rahm as CoS is like establishing an open channel to Tel Aviv. He will communicate what's doable, what's not, and he'll be believed.

For everything else domestic, he'll be diabolically effective, and will use his time in the White Cabin to gather power, not burn bridges. Aaron Sorkin's scheming character on the West Wing, Josh Lyman, is supposedly based on Emanuel's three-ring performances with the Clintons. Which, if true, means he gives a shit about liberal causes. And as for the rest, I'll take Machiavellian over Vaudevillian any day.

(Note: this post was originally written on November 8th, so the Clinton appointment and SNL sketch were added.)

The Wit And Wisdom Of Rahm Emanuel

I hate Rahm Emanuel. I hate him for being a shitty DCCC chair, for battling with Howard Dean over the 50-state strategy, for doing everything possible to undermine the winning strategy, then for taking credit when it worked. I hate him for running Bush-sympathizing 'Blue Dog Democrats' in red districts in 2006, and I hate him for being a smirking phoney smarm. He is rumored to hold an Israeli passport, to have volunteered for the IDF during Desert Storm, he is a Zionist and passes out Uzis to Jewish gangstas, "The Isros," in synagogues all over Chicago's north side. My mildest reaction to him as Obama's chief of staff was "Blerrrchh!"

But then I thought, "What would Saul Alinsky do? What would a community terrorist who has improbably seized power next do?" Get himself an enforcer. A Nastasi Beria, Luca Brazzi, knock-on-the-door-in-the-night Bad Cop. My hunch is it was also a "keep your enemies closer" move. By naming Emanuel, Obama fulfilled Chicago political machine payback in perpetuity and also removed a major, ongoing congressional pain in the ass, one which is now condemned to schedule meetings and incessantly listen to people bitch and whine about how they absolutely must see the President. Music, sweet music.

Is it any wonder Rahmbo didn't immediately accept the post? He's done it before, and knows it often requires arriving 5AM and leaving 9PM. Plus, it messes with his ambition to be Speaker of the House, so he only committed 2 years to the job from hell. A placeholder will take his congressional seat, but things aren't always predictable on that watch. Especially now. The shit that's being aerosolized will not have settled back down upon the turnip field a short two years from now.

So Obama has a (preferably hypoallergenic) pit bull for CoS, and past holders of that slot like Dick Cheney and John Sununu were noted for startling levels of unapologetic rudeness. You don't need to trust the holder of the post to be nice, you need smarts, stamina, effectiveness, and quick answers to your reins. Obama trusts his combat team: Axelrod, Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, and his wife. Not the Merchant of Hyde Park, who will henceforth be Axelrod's responsibility. Emanuel scares the ever-living shit out of the Reich Wing, and he's as bipartisan as a broken nose. (See the cancelled SNL sketch above.) Politics is his blood sport. This is a good thing, if your President backs off from it.

Here's another Rahmbo angle: I suspect Obama will throw deep right away on the Palestine-Israel issue as a way to open up the options, because progress there, or the convincing illusion of it, makes everything else easier in the Mid-East. Emaneul knows how to work with the Clintons, is an intimate who maintained his neutrality, which pushes a few jigsaws together with Hillary as SecState. Baggage or no, the Clintons have mondo stature on the archway issue that's screwing the entire world up. They're the most recent people to make any headway on reconciliation and recognition, exact roboratives needed to free the Mid-East oxen from the desperate mire.

Obama is going after Israel, and it will be leaned on hard, with all the remaining US leverage available. Right where it should've been placed for the last decade and more. It may be tool late, as Israel is busy sucking up to Russia with all possible speed, but having Rahm as CoS is like establishing an open channel to Tel Aviv. He will communicate what's doable, what's not, and he'll be believed.

For everything else domestic, he'll be diabolically effective, and will use his time in the White Cabin to gather power, not burn bridges. Aaron Sorkin's scheming character on the West Wing, Josh Lyman, is supposedly based on Emanuel's three-ring performances with the Clintons. Which, if true, means he gives a shit about liberal causes. And as for the rest, I'll take Machiavellian over Vaudevillian any day.

Feeding The Mouths That Bite

In 2005, the Jacobin ideologues who cling to the Bush Administration like cow farts in a barn wanted free and fair elections held in Palestine. "Yasser Arafat's marginalized because he's dead. That opened a grand path to peace," went the thinking, "and the solution is obvious. Let's turn Palestine into a democracy. That'll fix everything." Oddly, free and fair elections somehow transpired, and on the eve of them Dubya prompted hisself to beneficently proclaim, "We make elections."

Problem was, the Palestinian people apparently harbored inexplicable hostility to US designs, and they swept Hamas (aka "the evil doers," the Eye-Ranyans, Ay-raabs, etc) into power. The poor result was a matter of distress and dyspepsia to the Jacobins, or castle-in-air neo-cons, and the mess was shrouded in dissimulation and silence. If publicly discussed at all, the wreck was blamed upon froward and fickle natures understandably inherent to former savages, having been so recently ennobled with the rites of voting.

Therefore, thwarted by whims of a misguided populace, the rabbinical hermeticists who ran our curiously flawed policies arrived at their next verdict: clearly the best means way to redress this unsightly blot on democracy's perfect track record was to send truckloads of cash and AK-47s to Fatah, the party Palestinians had voted out, and start a vicious civil war.

For someone who has deployed anti-neocon nets around the bed, it was easy enough to connect the dots at the time, even if only in private. It's so tiresome to be called an anti-Semite, after all. Now, however, a concerned party in the State Department has quite helpfully leaked an internal memo outlining the civil war scheme to Vanity Fair. Thank you, brave patriot, for getting that on the record:

According to Dahlan, it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas—whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea—won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

These pedestrian putzes. May they learn that the penalty for political malpractice is reality.

Sniglets & Nerdlets Form Unity Government

Actually, it's Palestine's Hamas and Fatah parties who did so. Many non-Palestinians have trouble telling them apart. The main difference seems to be that the US likes Hamas, and gives money to it. This was fine until Palestine held democratic elections, whereupon they promptly elected Fatah, which the US won't give money to and calls very bad names. Yet both of them hate the US and Israel. Complicated? You bet. Why am I making fun of them? Because it's very, very complicated. And yes, I know those are Smurfs dancing over at the right. Sniglets and Nerdlets do not exist, except in my mind. They happen to share many attributes with Smurfs.

Geopolitically, however, this is interesting. Sick of not getting money and exchanging gunfire in the streets, the two parties got King Abdullah to host them in Mecca, where today they signed an agreement to share power. Essentially, the agreement says they're not going to follow the script and have a civil war, and that it's ok to start sending money. We'll see if the Israel Lobby likes this enough to allow their blue-eyed slaves to let the UN cash start flowing again. (Doubtful.)

Update: Sheesh! That didn't take long. It's 3AM in Israel. I can only wish I had their PR department:

"Israel expects a new Palestinian government to respect and accept all three of the international community principles," (Israeli government spokeswoman) Eisin told The Associated Press after the accord was announced.

At stake is roughly $1 billion a year in frozen aid from foreign donors in addition to approximately $500 million in withheld tax revenues collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinians.

Palestinians also hope the agreement will avert an outright civil war. Clashes between Hamas and Fatah gunmen have killed 130 Palestinians since May, and cease-fires have repeatedly broken down. The latest fragile truce came Sunday, after four days of fighting killed 30 people.