Gaza: More Tasteful Video Games
You even get an introductory quote by Olmert, "The parameters of a unilateral solution are to maximize the number of Jews, and to minimize the number of Palestinians." (Yes, it's a real quote.)
We don't even see Hamas police in the streets. It isn't that they've gone underground, but they are wearing civilian clothes and they don't dare to show their weapons, or drive their blue police cars which are all still parked in the same places they were in when this started.
Not that there is any law and order to enforce. The prisons have been emptied by the bombing and some have taken advantage of the chaos to carry out vengeance killings or to settle clan feuds.
i noticed a message from areej, my uncle mohammads wifes: the tanks have reached us, theres smoke in the house, please pray for us.
i called her. i could hear explosions just outside, and machine gun fire. just before 2 am, israeli tanks and special forces had entered an area just outside tal al-hawa, near the community college. they'd come up against surprisingly touigh and violent resistance. tanks firing randomly into neighbrhoods. white phosphorous munitions used to cover an aparent retreat. the entire apartment is filled with white smoke, the kids are up, screaming. there seems to be a definite retreat, but they're expecting the worst. they say to please keep praying for their safety and for the resistance. they dont know if they will live.
Enduring America, 10 January: It’s a final legacy for President Bush, refusing to back a cease-fire and effectively green-lighting Israel to carry on with the killing (of both Hamas fighters and civilians) in Gaza. But that leaves a further mystery: who really made the decision to pull away from the resolution?
[Bush] was taken off the podium [at an event in Philadelphia] and brought to a side room. I spoke with him; I told him: You can't vote for this proposal.
He said: Listen, I don't know, I didn't see, don't know what it says.
I told him: I know, and you can't vote for it!
He then instructed the secretary of state, and she did not vote for it.
"There are 4,000 injured people just 50km from here," [the surgeon] says quietly. "We're sitting in a very well-equipped hospital with more than 100 doctors on call, ready to deal with more than 400 emergency cases through the week. But they are not coming. We don't know why. We just wait."
Israel says it has no information of an incident in which 30 people were killed when the house they were placed in by the Army was shelled.
When the dust settles in Gaza...American efforts must focus on strengthening the capabilities of the Palestinian party upon whom hope for peace can rest, the Palestinian Authority, and ensuring the stability of the West Bank....American efforts can forge a basis for security between Israelis and Palestinians by developing a professional Palestinian security system that would help inhibit Hamas in the West Bank and eventually allow the PA to reestablish its authority in Gaza.
The authors --- one of whom (Slocombe) was responsible for the disastrous order to disband the Iraqi security forces in June 2003, one of whom (Crouch) was in the midst of the disastrous US policy towards Iraq from 2005 to 2007 --- argue, "The United States already has a framework for supporting this process through the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC), headed by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton." Here's the bit of history that they forget to mention:
In November 2006, Dayton met Dahlan for the first of a long series of talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Both men were accompanied by aides. From the outset, says an official who took notes at the meeting, Dayton was pushing two overlapping agendas.
“We need to reform the Palestinian security apparatus,” Dayton said, according to the notes. “But we also need to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.”
Dahlan replied that, in the long run, Hamas could be defeated only by political means. “But if I am going to confront them,” he added, “I need substantial resources. As things stand, we do not have the capability.”
The US tried to give Dahlan and the Palestinian Authority that capability, only to come unstuck when Hamas won the running battles against Fatah in mid-2007. Eighteen months later, the Israeli attack on Gaza is an opportunity at a do-over of that plan.
Crouch, Slocombe, and Meigs note, of course, that the current Palestinian security force has been put forward in Jenin and Hebron "enforcing order in previously lawless cities", calling for expansion of funding and equipment for the effort. Then they, rather clumsily, shift to Gaza: since an international monitoring force in southern Gaza will not work, "empowering Palestinians to assume security responsibility and continued measures to enhance the Palestinians' ability to keep their side of an agreement should be America's principal contribution to the peace process in the coming months".
Given these folks' track record in Iraq, I am not trembling at the prospect of their success this time. The tragic part is that schemes like this, standing in the way of a cease-fire, are the reason why more Gazans are dying each day.