I'm in favor of the unilateral cease fire Israel declared last night. I know some of my friends disagree (including friends who were visiting us last night when the announcement was made). I agree with them that peace with Hamas in not ever going to happen as long as Hamas remains Hamas. I'm inclined to agree with them that peace with the Palestinians is not going to happen anytime soon, with Obama or without. As I've been consistently saying ever since my trust in a peace process was destroyed in late 2000, our task is to manage the conflict as intelligently as possible, with as few casualties (on both sides) as possible, until the world changes and peace becomes possible.
In that conceptual framework, Hamas raining rockets on Sderot is bad conflict management. Now we've got to wait till the morning after the morning after (I liked Thomas Friedman's formulation) to see if Hamas has reached a stage similar to the one Hezbullah reached the morning after their morning after their "victory" in 2006. If this morning's rockets cause no casualties and cease by the afternoon, not to be renewed for years, that's fine. If they continue, however, even if only in a drizzle, we have to keep on hitting, inaugural parties in Washington or not.
FROM CAROL HERMAN
ReplyDeleteYou know, you'll probably have to prepare yourselves for the "visuals." Since with a "cease fire" you may get a few foreign journalists IN, and they'll get to see "results."
I did read that to stop suicide bombers from reaching Israeli troops, the streets got ripped up. So, there's nothing left to give ya a smooth ride. Heck, even if you're walking ... you'll see the military's answer to suicide bombers on bikes.
Even if the press can't figure it out, people WILL!
Remember Lincoln said "you just can't fool all of the people all of the time."