Archive for April, 2004

The Palestinians are definitly interested in peace:

No doubt about it. Peace is here is you want it.

You remember that line from his recent press conference? There’s still apparently some confusion. A couple days ago there were rumors that the Bush administration was walking back their assurances to Sharon. Yeah, turns out not so much:

Hamas and Islamic Jihad ditched a meeting on cross-Palestinian cooperation that they didn’t want to go to anyway:

I’m going to start using the same excuse with my professors. “Sorry I didn’t come to class today – the IDF was trying to kill me.”

Are Likud voters really stupid enough to throw away the historically unprecedented situation that Sharon has created for withdrawal? Take it as axiomatic that Israel will eventually have to leave Gaza – everybody knows that those settlements are going to be the first to go under any peace deal. Sharon has worked it out so that the withdrawal is about as close to a victory as Israel is going to get – there will never be another White House that will let Israel knock out the entire leadership of Hamas while it withdraws, which means that by definition when Israel finally withdraws it will take more of a deterrence hit. You think when Israel withdraws “in the context of a peace deal” Hamas won’t claim it as a victory? You think when Israel withdrawing “in the context of a peace deal” Hamas won’t desecrate the synagogues in the settlements? Literally every example we have – Hebron, Jericho, etc – goes the other way, with gunfire and celebrations in the streets and loudspeakers declaring victory as Israeli troops and settlers withdrew in shame. This is a withdrawal of strength – I hope the Likud doesn’t blow it.

At first glance, this seems comforting:

Then you realize – double of zero is still zero.

Sharon has two hoops to jump through in the next couple of weeks: the disengagement vote and the Greek Island affair. Looks like he’s gonna make it through at least the second hoop. As a reminder – about a year ago, somebody decided to take one of the most significant moments in the history of the Israel to realize that there’s (gasp) corruption in Israeli politics. Brilliant. I don’t mind the principle behind keeping politics clean, but seriously, timing.

It’s so tough trying to maintain law and order in the West Bank and Gaza Strip these days:

This should go well. And by well I mean “in the most disgusting, shameful, and primitive way possible”:

Seriously, the Palestinians are like this close to having a functioning civil society. Just another couple of weeks, build them a courthouse, and they’ll be good to go.

Again, I don’t mean to tell people how to do their jobs. But if I was in charge of the IAEA I’d be spending more of my time on the country that’s openly taunting me with nuclear weapons and even more openly threatening to use them offensively and less time on the country that has done everything possible not to ever have to use their nukes.

Then again, I’m not a lying anti-Israeli hypocrite imposing a double standard on the Jewish state and the country that wants to obliterate the Jewish state, so what do I know?

Hamas is back to making it trying to look like they’re forcing Israel out of the Gaza Strip. It’s not my place to tell them how to do their job, but I’m skeptical that Sharon is going to let Gaza become Lebanon. And now that the Mossad earned their paychecks for the week… Well, it’s not like the newspapers are going to have to spend the money to write new headlines:

I mean, what do you say?