James Bennet, former New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, is the current editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Monthly. In a short piece of writing, he spreads blame for the massacre in Gaza to all parties, but most prominently to the Bush administration.
This is the price of Israel’s decision, backed by an ignorant Bush administration, to unilaterally withdraw its troops and settlers from Gaza more than two years ago -- undermining pragmatic Palestinian leaders in the process. Now Israel is defaulting to trying to make Palestinians so miserable that they will overthrow the Hamas leadership that took over when Israel departed. This has the effect, of course, of making West Bank Palestinians assert common cause with those suffering in Gaza and, eventually, inevitably, of arousing international opinion against Israel. Because who, in the end, has the greatest stomach for Palestinian misery? The guys with the rockets.I would add "and the fighter jets" at the end of that sentence. Clearly the force causing the misery is stomaching it. Calling a spade what it is is so hard when it comes to Israel in American political discourse, so those who know a little get it in by blaming everyone else, too.
[tarboush tip: Shmuel]
4 comments:
Quit it with the whining about your divine victory, Will. Really, it's unbecoming.
All the suffering is worth it, though: the rockets haven't been stopped.
Nobody's been able to explain why the rockets are so important to the Palestinian cause, but they're clearly the number one priority of the Hamas government. Nothing must stop the rockets.
Israel should just start carpet bombing. Daily. Fair is fair.
"pragmatic Palestinian leader" is an oxymoron.
"Palestinian leader" is an oxymoron.
Palestinian = terrorist.
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