Today's David Miliband Non-Story

The media is all excited over a Labour minister disparaging the term "war on terror" and saying things like "this isn't us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives" and "What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others, without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."

Except the example above is not drawn from David Miliband's Op-Ed piece in today's Guardian that the paper highlighted on page 1 and which the BBC repeatedly reported on. Instead, it is from a speech that then International Development Secretary Hilary Benn gave in New York City in April 2007 that both the BBC and the Guardian reported on extensively. 

Oh, the short term memory of the media.

Gaza: It's Fatah In, Hamas Out, and No Cease-fire for Now

Earlier I blogged with updates (between 1:30 and 1:45 p.m.) on the press conference of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Israeli Foreign Tzipi Livni, but what has just occurred deserves a separate post.

Livni's 8-minute statement said almost nothing about the cease-fire. Instead, from the start, she demanded the "de-legitimisation" of Hamas as a terrorist organisation and a restoration of the "peace process" with "the legitimate Palestinian Government". And Ban Ki-Moon, preceding Livni, opened the door to the strategy: “Gaza is reunited with West Bank under one legitimate Palestinian Authority”.

In 15 minutes, the current diplomatic process has been reduced to this: there will only be a cease-fire if Hamas humiliates itself with an acceptance of a string of Israeli conditions. I see no way that Israel can climb down from Livni's statement, without discrediting itself before its own people, and process with any meaningful negotiation of the Egyptian proposals.

Instead, Israel and the US hope that a humiliation of Hamas will lead to its overthrow, preferably by its own outraged people. And, from what I've just seen, Ban Ki-Moon --- whose own facilities have been damaged, whose personnel have been injured, and whose organisation has been shattered this morning by Israeli military action --- is happy to go along.

Ali Fisher on State Department Twitter-Diplomacy

Our colleague Ali Fisher has emerged as one of the top analysts of public diplomacy, including its pursuit through new technologies and media. Following our own engagement with the State Department's efforts to spread its message via Twitter, he has offered a critique, "To Tweet or Not to Tweet, What is the Question?" on his website Wandren PD:

If [Twitter] is just another means to deliver a message (even if it has more of a human voice than other methods), another way to ask for comment just to answer back with the same rebuttals that will also appear in other media, to take a centralised view and drive traffic to other sites or stories produced by the same organisation, it is a missed opportunity. But if that’s all you want if for, then it will do the job just fine.

Simon Toner: Obama Dashes into an Afghanistan Quagmire

Simon Toner from Dublin is very worried that, days before his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama is creating his first foreign-policy nightmare: Afghanistan.

Many supporters of Barack Obama were disheartened by his endorsement, toward the end of his presidential campaign, of an Iraq-like surge for Afghanistan. Some of those people might have gained solace from the news that, according to yesterday's Washington Post, the incoming administration has now acknowledged that the surge is unlikely to significantly change the state of play in Afghanistan.

It's a false consolation. Far from making the obvious conclusion that it might be best not to pursue a surge which will fail, the Obama administration still intends to send 30,000 additional troops, doubling the US presence in the country. The reason? Not because it will work, but in to buy time for the US and its NATO allies to develop a successful strategy.

"We have no strategic plan. We never had one," a "senior US military commander" says. This is a significant admission and a disturbing one. According to the article, the Pentagon and military are not even certain if the correct strategy to follow is conventional war or "the population security strategy", pursued since early 2007 in Iraq.

Certainly the latter approach would be more effective but even this will have little impact on the fostering of properly functioning institutions that can meet the needs of the Afghan people or address the other important issues that Obama acknowledges. Thus the US is getting deeper into the Afghan quagmire, doubling the number of troops but admitting that it has no strategy for success.

Yes, there are echoes of Vietnam here. From 1961-65 Presidents Kennedy and Johnson continued to commit more troops to South Vietnam, simply to stave off defeat and prop up the failing Saigon regime rather than to pursue a coherent strategy. Unfortunately, in the coming months we may have a repeat. We could end up with more than 60,000 US troops in Afghanistan and still no strategy; not to mention an exit strategy.

As Vietnam and Iraq taught us, it is far easier to get into a war than to get out of one.

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (14 Jan --- Evening)

Later Updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (15 January)
Earlier Updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (14 January)

1 a.m. Israeli shell hits car carrying senior UN officials, wounding driver.

12:45 a.m. Clarification on the state of play over the Cairo proposals. Hamas says it has presented a "detailed vision" on implementation of a cease-fire, which Egypt will now relay to Israel. Hamas' conditions include guarantees that Israel will lift the blockade on Gaza, but significantly Hamas is prepared to accept European and Turkish monitors of Gaza border "along with the Palestinian Authority's security forces and those of the government in Gaza". (In other words, Palestinian Authority can have a role as long as there are no Israeli monitors.)

Hamas sources say that if Israel accepts the Egyptian proposals, "We will be ready to start (the ceasefire) immediately."



12:30 a.m. Our colleagues at Alive in Gaza have posted a second audio dispatch from Gaza City by photojournalist Sameh Habeeb.

12 midnight: Saudi Arabia has called for an emergency summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. This is not as much a diplomatic initiative as a blocking move, forestalling calls for a full Arab League summit.

Evening update (11:30 p.m. Israel/Gaza time): The diplomatic flutter of a possible Hamas agreement to Egyptian proposals appears to have been premature, as "news" has reverted back to a summary of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's trip to the Middle East.

The near-irrelevance of that mission has been highlighted by the news that, after the talks in Egypt today, Ban will visit Israel, Jordan, and Syria...but not Hamas. So the facade of negotiations, in which one side can only be approached by Cairo, continues.

Gazan death toll is now about 1017 with almost 5000 injured. Al Jazeera correspondent Ayman Moyheldin says that, while fewer Gazans killed on Wednesday, residents faced "complete fear and terror....For those who venture out [for food] ... they know that anytime they leave their house it could be the last time."

Israeli death toll is 13, of whom 10 are soldiers.