Post-Inaugural Reasons to Be Cheerful: It's Kristol-Clear

At the end of a rambling New York Times essay by a neo-conservative advising Barack Obama and the rest of us on how to be good liberals --- "a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty" (translation: can you find someone somewhere to beat up without an aftermath like Iraq 2003?) --- this footnote:

This is William Kristol’s last column.

Now there's something to be unapologetically patriotic about.

The Latest from Israel-Gaza-Palestine (26 January)

Earlier Updates and Links to Posts: The Latest from Israel-Gaza-Palestine (25 January)

10:10 p.m. So We're Hopeless at Diplomacy but....The European Union on Monday put itself firmly behind the US- and Israeli-led plan to block arms shipments to Gaza: ""The EU welcomes the commitment of the United States to contribute to stopping arms smuggling into Gaza and is prepared to identify ways to cooperate in such efforts."

An internal EU paper proposed that European help could include training of security forces, provision of necessary specialised equipment and, a curious and unclear provision, "the creation of alternative incomes".

10 p.m. President Bashir al-Assad, pressing his advantage from Syria's position in the Gaza conflict, has said that there can be talks with Israel but only on Damascus' terms, "If whoever is elected in Israel won't be willing to pull out of the Golan Heights, there will be no negotiations." He added:

We held talks with Israel over recent weeks, but Israel did not convey its commitment to peace talks, and it became clear that they only understand the language of force.

Assad took a no-cost shot at outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, "If Olmert were to come to me today and say that he was ready for peace, what could we tell him? We would tell him that he is a criminal and that we don't talk to criminals."

And the sharp-eyed might care to notice Assad's choice of outlet for his statement: Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television.




6:30 p.m. Reuters, summarising what we've been saying since the start of the Gaza conflict, observes, "Syria eyes strategic gains after Gaza war." A Damascus official lays out the new order: "The stiff resistance in Gaza has proved that Hamas is a political force to be reckoned with. There is a new regional reality and more countries are supporting this view. Turkey is one important player."

5 p.m. Extending the European Union's record of clumsy diplomacy in the Gaza conflict, the EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, said today, "I intentionally say this here - Hamas is a terrorist movement and it has to be denounced as such." Michel made the statement as he toured the town of Jabaliya, which suffered extensive casualties and damage during the Israeli bombardment.

Michel's statement is particularly inopportune, amidst the talks in Cairo seeking cease-fire proposal, as the EU's Javier Solana travels to the Middle East to meet President Obama's envoy George Mitchell and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

4:45 p.m. Turkish Manoeuvres. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, having distanced Turkey from Israel at the start of the Gaza conflict and thus moving closer to Syria and Iran, has taken another public step today. Speaking to the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, Erdogan said, "Hamas, without a doubt, erred by firing rockets at Israel, but immediately added:

We must consider that Hamas fully abided by the truce agreement with Israel for six months, even though Israel did not. Israel didn't do anything to lift the blockade and open the crossings despite the agreement, and provoked Hamas and Gazans.

Erdogan offered Turkish forces to monitor borders "if they are required to stabilize the truce between Hamas and Israel". He made clear, however, that Hamas had to be recognised openly and, possibly with an eye to the movement's strengthening political position, that "everyone must honor the [forthcoming] Palestinian Authority elections."

In a parting shot at Tel Aviv, Erdogan said, "I am not against the Israeli people, but I am against its political leadership and those who back barbaric killing."

3:30 p.m. Reconciliation? Amidst a relatively quiet day, a possible breakthrough: Hamas and Fatah officials have met for the first time in 10 months. Jamal Abu Hashem of Hamas and Azzam al-Ahmed of Fatah held the discussions as part of the talks in Cairo seeking proposals on a cease-fire and opening of border crossings.

Of course, this is only a small step forward: al-Ahmed told a press conference, "I agreed with [Abu Hashem] in a clear way to have another meeting."

9:30 a.m. A reader, noting yesterday's story that the Israeli Government has authorised a legal defence team for any military officers accused of war crimes, has asked us about the background to the story.

A search on Enduring America for "white phosphorous", "dense inert metal explosives", or "Spike missile" and glance at the stories will give you some idea of the scale of the allegations against Israel. For example, this was our first reference to Israel's apparent use of white phosphorous against civilians, posted on 5 January, two days after the Israeli ground invasion:

6:30 p.m. Following story in The Times of London that Israel used white phosphorous bombs to cover its ground invasion, Moussa el-Haddad, Gaza resident and father of blogger Laila el-Haddad (”Gazamom”), reports “series of bombs in a row, followed by a large white halo, white smoke; people in vicinity cannot breathe…irritation, and exposed areas [of body] become red, blistered, and itchy".

8 a.m. Israel/Gaza/Palestine time: No Israeli reaction yet to yesterday's news of a Hamas offer of a 12-month cease-fire, including an opening of border crossings and European Union and Turkish monitors.

Our colleagues at Alive in Gaza have posted an audio update and photographs from photojournalist Sameh Habeeb, "Empty Tunnels and Terrorist Chickens".

Obama on Top of the World: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (25 January)

Later Updates: Obama on Top of the World (26 January)
Earlier Updates: Obama on Top of the World (24 January)
Latest Post: Obama Keeps (Illegal?) Surveillance Powers
Latest Post: Post-Inauguration 2009: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

2:55 p.m. Get Ready for a Bumpy Ride. Vice President Joe Biden is preparing the US public not only for a surge in US troop levels in Afghanistan but a rise in dead and wounded. Asked this morning on Face the Nation if he thought there would be an increase in casualties, he replied, "I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be. There will be an uptick."

11 a.m. An inadvertent revelation in attempted boosterism by The Sunday Telegraph of London today. The article headlines that 300 British bomb disposal technicians and intelligence staff are going to southern Afghanistan to combat the Taliban's use of improvised explosive devices. The reports adds that this will raise British troop levels to 8600 but it then undermines all the good work: "The size of the force is likely to increase to around 10,000 in the autumn or early next year with the deployment of an additional 1,000 strong battle group into Helmand."



So the total British boost to complement the expected US surge will be 1300 troops, no more. That's out of the more than 4000 UK forces being withdrawn from Iraq by July.

No wonder there's been sniping in the US press about the lack of British commitment to the Afghan effort. And no wonder that "General David Petraeus, the commander of the US's Central Command, is due to visit the UK in the next few weeks", trying to armtwist Prime Minister Gordon Brown into a further British escalation.

10 a.m. Propaganda of the Day. Uzi Mahnaimi, who writes from Tel Aviv for the Sunday Times, trumpets, "An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas."

That's not news --- we posted this days ago --- but then Mahnaimi is not a reporter in any meaningful sense of the day. Instead, he's a channel for Tel Aviv's "information" line, which in this case is ramping up the campaign against Iran.

Thus Mahnaimi states that a US ship intercepted a "former Russian vessel" and held it for two days --- again, not news, as we noted the incident when it occurred earlier this week --- and adds, "According to unconfirmed reports, weapons were found." Very unconfirmed: the former Russian vessel had artillery, which Hamas does not use, and no further arms were found when it was searched in report.

Of course, this doesn't stop Mahnaimi, who tosses in the Israeli suspicion that two Iranian destroyers, sent to help fight piracy off the Somalian coast, are part of a scheme to run weapons to Gaza. And he has more:

Iran plans to ship Fajr rockets with a 50-mile range to Gaza. This would bring Tel Aviv, its international airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor within reach for the first time.

Of course, Iran may be supplying weapons to Hamas but this story is Israeli-inspired misinformation, of value to Tel Aviv's political schemes but worthless for any analysis of the aftermath of the Gaza conflict. (cross-posted from The Latest From Israel-Palestine-Gaza thread)

4:20 a.m. Thousands have marched in Afghanistan on Sunday to protest US airstrikes and civilian deaths.

3:40 a.m. Here's another reason not to close Guantanamo Bay: Bad Paperwork. Since the Bush Administration never had plans for a legal process for the detainees, there was no reason to keep organised files. The Washington Post reports:

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

3:15 a.m. It may be the weekend, but the campaign to limit and possibly undermine the Obama plan to close Guantanamo continues. We noted on Friday and on Saturday that some in the US military and intelligence communities are feeding "exclusives" to The New York Times about ex-detainees who are rejoining Al Qa'eda.

Today Times reporter Robert Worth, who might as well collect his paycheck from the Pentagon, writes a follow-up: "Two former Guantánamo Bay detainees now appear to have joined Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, which released a video on Friday showing them both and identifying them by their names and Guantánamo detainee numbers." One of the detainees is Said Ali al-Shihri, the featured bad guy in Worth's Friday article.

2:55 a.m. The Daily Telegraph of London has a good article looking at the US detention facility at Camp Bagram in Afghanistan. The prison currently holds 600 detainees, more than twice as many as Guantanamo, and...

Not only are there no plans to close it, but it is in the process of being expanded to hold 1,100 illegal enemy combatants; prisoners who cannot see lawyers, have no trials and never see any evidence there may be against them.

2:50 a.m. We've posted a separate entry on a little-noticed development, in a court case in San Francisco, which indicates the Obama Administration will maintain the Bush executive orders sanctioning wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping at home as well as abroad.



Overnight update (2 a.m. Washington time): Friday's US missile strikes in Pakistan, which killed 22 people, may escalate into a political test for both the Obama Administration and Pakistan Government of Asif Zardari. In comments and a wordy statement, Zardari and the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said --- at least publicly --- Back Off:

With the advent of the new US administration, it is Pakistan's sincere hope that the United States will review its policy and adopt a more holistic and integrated approach toward dealing with the issue of terrorism and extremism. We maintain that these strikes are counterproductive and should be discontinued.

Obama has not commented on the strikes, but US officials have been spinning the line that the attacks show his commitment to former President Bush's policy of unilateral American military action in northwest Pakistan.

Elsewhere, some news outlets are paying attention to yesterday's suicide bombing in Somalia, which killed 15 people and illustrated the growing turmoil in the country.

Post-Inauguration 2009: Words for How We Feel Now

Following up on the theme of music to commemorate the events of this week, writer and photographer Emily Troutman has pointed us towards this video on her blog:


President Obama: Words for How We Feel Now from Emily Troutman on Vimeo.

The Latest from Israel-Palestine-Gaza (25 January)

Later Updates: The Latest from Israel-Palestine-Gaza (26 January)
Earlier Updates: The Latest from Israel-Palestine-Gaza (24 January)
Latest Post: How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas

11:15 p.m. Finally, Some White Smoke. After talks in Cairo today, Hamas official Ayman Taha said his organisation is offering a one-year cease-fire to Israel.

This is just an opening move, however. The Hamas delegation has to confirm the 12-month offer with the organisation's leadership in Damascus, and it is linked to a full opening of Gazan borders. Israel's offer of an 18-month cease-fire, presented by the Egyptians to Hamas, held out only a partial opening of crossings.

10:45 p.m. Soft Power, Tehran Style. While aid to Gaza is held up by Israeli restrictions, Iran continues to further its political objectives with assistance. Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani said today that Iran will rebuild the Gazan Parliament destroyed by Israeli air raids.

9:30 p.m. While there were no concrete results from the Cairo talks, Egypt is publicly rushing away from Israel and towards "the Palestinians". In Brussels, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit appealed to Europeans to press Tel Aviv to ease the economic blockade, "I ask the European Union to do (things) very, very quickly to rebuild to help the Palestinians to get out of this crisis. We need to force the Israelis to negotiate and also tell them to open crossings and to give Palestinians a chance to live in a normal way."

Gheit's statement is more rhetoric than substance, however. Egypt is refusing to have foreign monitors on its side of the border, so it is effectively passing the buck to Israel, which is balking at an arrangement on the Gazan side.

Meanwhile, some Europeans are still stuck on the old script of the Palestinian Authority's triumphant re-entry into Gaza. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband proclaimed, ""The reunification of the Palestinians under the recognised and cherished voice of President Abbas is so important."



6:35 p.m. No significant news from the talks in Cairo with Hamas and Fatah delegations. Egyptian officials have issued a holding statement that  "Egyptian efforts to consolidate the ceasefire, reach a [permanent] truce, reopen Gaza crossings and resume Palestinian national dialogue" were discussed.

6:10 p.m. As expected, Israel's Cabinet has approved a measure providing legal protection to its military officers if they are accused of war crimes over the Gaza conflict.

5:15 p.m. Propaganda of the Day. Uzi Mahnaimi, who writes from Tel Aviv for the Times, trumpets, "An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas."

That's not news --- we posted this days ago --- but then Mahnaimi is not a reporter in any meaningful sense of the day. Instead, he's a channel for Tel Aviv's "information" line, which in this case is ramping up the campaign against Iran.

Thus Mahnaimi states that a US ship intercepted a "former Russian vessel" and held it for two days --- again, not news, as we noted the incident when it occurred earlier this week --- and adds, "According to unconfirmed reports, weapons were found." Very unconfirmed: the former Russian vessel had artillery, which Hamas does not use, and no further arms were found when it was searched in report.

Of course, this doesn't stop Mahnaimi, who tosses in the Israeli suspicion that two Iranian destroyers, sent to help fight piracy off the Somalian coast, are part of a scheme to run weapons to Gaza. And he has more:

Iran plans to ship Fajr rockets with a 50-mile range to Gaza. This would bring Tel Aviv, its international airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor within reach for the first time.

Of course, Iran may be supplying weapons to Hamas but this story is Israeli-inspired misinformation, of value to Tel Aviv's political schemes but worthless for any analysis of the aftermath of the Gaza conflict.

3:30 p.m. Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Beirut, has issued a defiant statement about the attempt to block arms shipments to Gaza: "We will continue to get weapons into Gaza and the (West) Bank. Let nobody think we will surrender to measures. Perhaps matters will get more difficult, but we are ready to ride out any difficulty ... so that the resistance continues."

Hamdan added that those who think monitoring can detect the movement of weapons through tunnels "are deluded".

11:15 a.m. Rafah Kid has posted a series of new photos from Jabaliya with the note, "It's a mess here."

11 a.m. From the diary of Mohammad Dawwas, reprinted in The Independent of London:

22 January: I went to the burns department in Shifa hospital. I've never seen anything like this in my life. These phosphorus burns. Their bodies were black. One person has stitches everywhere. It's worse than killing people. They look like the living dead. I also went to the north, to Beit Lahiya. This was one of the most beautiful areas of farmland. Now it's gone, you can't recognise the place. I wanted to cry.

10:05 a.m. More on the aid front: Iran has established a Gaza Reconstruction Headquarters to "build 1,000 houses, 10 schools and five mosques, and reconstruct 500 shops, a hospital and a university".

10 a.m. Hamas has begun distribution of $52 million of aid in Gaza, with families receiving $1300 for each member killed and $650 for each wounded. The Observer of London has a lengthy background article.

Morning update (9:20 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): Important talks in Cairo today with Hamas and Fatah delegations on issues such as the manning of the border crossings. Hamas representatives will meet the head of Egyptian intelligence, Omar Suleiman, who met with an Israeli envoy on Thursday.

As we noted yesterday, if Hamas and Fatah agree on an arrangement in which some Gazan-based members of the Palestinian Authority join the border force, along with guards from European Union countries and Turkey, it will throw a difficult choice back at Israel. Tel Aviv will either to hold out, maintaining its stranglehold on aid and the Gazan economy, or ease its policy on the crossings.