Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Gaza Conundrum

Steven Erlanger, bureau chief of the New York Times in Jerusalem, doesn't always get it right. He has some of the usual inbuilt weaknesses of foreign journalists in these parts, and maybe some day I'll tell about an encounter I once had with him regarding these handicaps. This article, however, is quite good in presenting the impossible situation Israel finds itself in facing Gaza, almost two and a half years after pulling out. Were I to insist on being grumpy about anything in his report it would be that he somehow forgets to mention that if and when Israel does invade some day, he and his ilk will do their best to portray it in the worst light they can plausibly get away with. When that happens, I'll link back to this piece.

You also might want to notice the numbers of rockets and mortars launched against Israel since Israeli forces left Gaza, compared to their numbers while Israel was still there. The numbers are at the very end of the report.

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