You Can't Out-Hawk Me, I'm A "Pro-Israel" Democrat!

Around the world, countries are obsessed with trying to broker a cease-fire in Gaza. Egypt and France have put together a proposal, and both sides seem to be responding favorably toward it, at least tentatively. In the United States Congress, however, the obsession is not peace but who can get the pro-Israel resolution out faster.

U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the U.S. House of Representatives majority leader, told JTA he was looking at such a resolution, which is being drafted in the office of Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“Certainly it would not demand a cease-fire,” Hoyer said. “It would speak to the conditions that would justify a cease-fire. A cease-fire is not a just cease-fire when it’s just Israel” holding fire.

Good thing they have their priorities in good order.

Meanwhile, the President-elect finally spoke out on the situation, at least partially, with a balanced statement.

Barack Obama, who takes over as U.S. president from George W. Bush on January 20, broke his silence about the violence in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, calling the loss of civilian lives in Gaza and in Israel a "source of deep concern for me."

Obama added he would adhere to his principle that only Bush should be the voice of U.S. foreign policy at this time but he would have plenty to say after his inauguration in two weeks.

Nonetheless, Obama said that he is "not backing at all from what I've said during the campaign we're going to engage effectively and consistently in the peace process."

"We've got plenty to say about Gaza, and on January 20, you'll hear directly from me," he added.

One thing Obama needs to do in the Middle East if he wants to engage in the peace process would be to ask the right questions and leave no sacred cows - the settlements in the West Bank, Jerusalem, a binational state, and all the rest must be on the table. But he'll have to work past the unilateral nature of Israel/Palestine relations in Washington, where it's "Israel, right or wrong" all the time. That doesn't aid ISRAEL in their security, by the way.

Daniel Levy has a lot more on the situation which is very solid.

The War In Gaza

The news out of Gaza is quite terrible. Israeli forces have moved deeply inside the strip and bisected the country. To soften up the defenses from Hamas, the ground invasion was preceded by a shock and awe artillery strike and aerial bombing, which allegedly included banned weaponry.

The ground invasion was preceded by large-scale artillery shelling from around 4 P.M., intended to "soften" the targets as artillery batteries deployed along the Strip in recent days began bombarding Hamas targets and open areas near the border. Hundreds of shells were fired, including cluster bombs aimed at open areas.

Cluster bombs are nasty, and most of the deaths from them typically are civilians who step on unexploded ordnance. There are other credible reports that the IDF has used white phosphorous, which is a banned substance.

One example of this is the use of White Phosphorus rounds in a way where the phosphorus does not burn off before it hits the ground. Phosphorus burns more or less on contact with air, and keeps burning until deprived of oxygen. People who suffer phosphorus burns not only have terrible burns, but they absorb the phosphorus through the skin, and suffer acute phosphorus poisoning. This used to be more common than it is, because phosphorus was used in friction matches and in industrial processes, it was sold for rat poison. During World War II, it was dropped on London as part of "the blitz." In the 1940's it was called by one journal article a menace to public health after noting that 50% of the people admitted for phosphorous poisoning died, as compared to 6% of all other non-alcohol poisonings.

So while using phosphorus rounds itself isn't against the relevant treaties, using it in a way that takes advantage of its toxic qualities makes it a chemical weapon, and it is completely inconsistent with any claim to be cautious or worrying about civilian loss of life to use it in a populated area, and allowing it to fall to the ground.

FDL has more.

Aside from the atrocities (which really shouldn't be put aside), I'm still wondering what Israel hopes to achieve. The standard claim is that they want to stop the rocket fire into Sderot and points south from Hamas. But outside of emptying Gaza of people, I can't see how this ground invasion will actually accomplish that. Not even the residents of Southern Israel think so.

"It's the same as usual," Peled, the community's security coordinator, said as he stood in a wheat field examining the mangled remains of a 19mm Qassam rocket that had slammed down minutes before. "They probably built this one just a couple days ago. It's brand new."

Since the Israeli offensive began nine days ago, the country's leaders have insisted that Israel's largest military operation in Gaza since its troops withdrew in 2005 would not stop until it ended the Hamas rocket fire. But residents of southern Israel have no such expectations. The rockets, they say, will go on despite what Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak described as an "all-out war" on the armed Islamist group that runs Gaza [...]

Most of the Qassams, Katyushas and mortar shells fired from Gaza have fallen without causing damage. But four Israelis have been killed in the barrage, while other strikes have caused injuries or destroyed buildings. Cities once believed to be beyond the range of rocket fire from Gaza -- including Ashdod and Beersheba -- have been hit regularly in the past week.

"I hope the invasion succeeds," said Peled, 65, who is responsible for finding the rockets after they land and making sure they have detonated. "But after so many years, it's difficult to believe this will work."

In fact, even if Hamas is disarms and overthrown - which Israel has stated is NOT their policy - there are other radical elements inside Gaza who could be strengthened by a weakened Hamas. The Salafists would be even worse than Hamas to deal with on Israel's southern border (think Al Qaeda in Palestine), and indeed the history of this conflict is a radical actor in the Palestinian territories replaced by an even more radical adversary. We have this notion that there is one radical Islamist unified front, but it's not true, and picking winners and losers often has unintended consequences.

Instead of airstrikes and ground attacks, why not talk to the enemy, as this former head of Mossad suggests.

The former head of the Mossad intelligence service, Ephraim Halevy, argues that ultimately it may be in Israel's interest to negotiate with Hamas if it helps to curb Hamas's political influence.

Alpher agrees that Israel should talk to Hamas. "Hamas doesn't want to talk to us ... just as Hezbollah doesn't want to talk to us, they don't recognise us. But as a strategic approach to Hamas, the offer to talk and recognise is another viable option which we have not taken."

Obviously, with an election coming in Israel, this is not going to happen. But ultimately, it's the only end to the conflict, and one wonders if the Israelis are learning from their losing of the propaganda war inside the United States, that bluster and neoconservative maneuvering has no home anywhere in the world anymore.

Ground War

Israel has moved ground troops into Gaza. They could not achieve their goals through long-range bombing alone, no matter how precision. In fact, it was completely unclear what they were trying to achieve with the air assault, other than inflaming the entire Arab street. As for the goals of the ground attack:

The Israeli military said in a statement that the objective of the ground campaign was “to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas,” the militant Islamic group that controls the area, “while taking control of some of the rocket launching sites” that Hamas uses to fire at southern Israel.

I just don't know how that can be accomplished. A ground attack on Gaza is equivalent to a ground attack on New York City in many respects. The area is dense, meaning that civilians will certainly be at risk (and dropping leaflets telling them to get out of harm's way when they are blockaded from moving anywhere is almost comically cruel). In addition, the Hamas "infrastructure," consisting of crudely made rockets, could be literally anywhere in the tightly packed strip. So unless the goal is regime change or mass death, I don't see how they can be successful. And Tzipi Livni has said that Israel is not seeking regime change.

This is a replay of the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which also ended poorly, with Hezbollah able to claim victory after the ground war failed to achieve murky objectives. The result will not make Israel safer or move us toward peace.

I have to applaud Lois Capps for being an American leader willing to reject internal pressure and make an independent judgment of the situation:

"Obviously, Israel has the absolute right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists and other threats to its security. The ongoing rocket attacks on Israel are unacceptable and must be stopped. However, I fear the current military operation in Gaza represents a vastly disproportionate response that will further destabilize the region.

"Simple humanity demands that we grieve for the dead Palestinian child as much as we mourn the dead Israeli child. The numbers of dead and injured in Gaza, and the televised images of the humanitarian crisis now unfolding are truly shocking. And while this renewed state of war is clearly a tragedy for the Palestinian people, it will also bring a renewed state of fear in Israel because the threat of another wave of suicide bombing in Israeli cities is all too real.

"As a Member of Congress strongly dedicated to Israel's security, I believe an immediate ceasefire is necessary. And since this eruption of violence in Gaza is so clearly detrimental to U.S. national interests, I call upon both President Bush and President-elect Obama to use their influence to push both sides to stop shooting and renew the ceasefire."

We need an immediate cease-fire on all sides. An international force to maintain it, with Palestinians responsible for border crossings, would be a good step.