You may not like his writing, but he takes one of the most reality based positions in the general media.
After reading this horror in the Jerusalem Post yesterday
There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.
~snip
This needs to end quickly – with a bang, not a whimper.
With
today's follow up
Although some of our allies are already urging us not to respond “disproportionately,” such a concept has absolutely no relevance to the threat facing Israel. While still seeking to minimize civilian casualties, we must create genuine deterrence in order to avoid future full-scale conflicts of ever increasing magnitude. In fact, a disproportionate response to aggression is fully consistent with international law in which the prime obligation of the state is to protect its civilians.
It was a relief to
read something less toxic
And we journos are writing like performing bears, repeating all the clichés we’ve used for the past 40 years
I suggest you read the whole article
In the battle of rockets – not least Iran’s Fajr-5s and Hezbollah’s drones – a new warpath is being trodden by both sides. It’s no longer about Israeli tanks crossing the Lebanese border or the Gaza border. It’s about rockets and hi-tech drones and computer attacks – or “cyber-terrorism”, of course, if committed by Muslims – and the human dross ripped apart by the wayside will be even less relevant than it has been over the past three days.
And if Benjamin Netanyahu believes that the arrival of the first Iranian Fajr rockets necessitates the Israeli big bang on Iran, and then Iran fires back – and perhaps at the Americans, too– and brings in Hezbollah – and Obama gets swallowed up in another Western-Muslim war, what happens then?
Well, Israel will ask for a ceasefire, as it routinely does in wars against Hezbollah
He also makes to my mind the most important point in the article as many still argue for the two state solution.
Thousands of acres of land are stolen from Arabs by Israel –for Jews and Jews only – on the West Bank. There isn’t even enough land left there now for a Palestinian state.
So we have calls for "flattening Gaza" on one side and "opening the gates of hell" on the other"; couple this with no idea how to resolve the issue on the horizon we have a powder keg.
The region is no longer the home of US and USSR sponsored dictatorships, it is much more fragile than that.
If you believe that the two State solution is the only viable outcome then Israel has to make that concession and remove their settlements. The Palestinians for their part have to reject Hamas. It comes down to how you keep the waring parties apart and that means international troops on the ground. Neither side will agree to this without incentive to do so.
1] Impose an arms embargo.
2] Impose trade sanctions.
3] Freeze international assets.
You have to treat both sides with equal disdain, and both sides need to understand that their actions bear equal reprisal. If Israel attacks Iran then they have to know that they are on their own. If Iran continues sponsoring terrorism then the sanctions and embargoes need to be complete.
None of this seems likely, it will continue down the same road it has been doing for so for the past decades. Hamas is right in one respect; the road they are both traveling down leads to hell on earth for both populations.
Now who can be a neutral arbitrator in this? Not the US; after our performances over the last decade.
The one thing for sure is if nothing changes in Israel and Palestine the "war on terror" cannot end, and the toxic fallout will continue to spread.
6:23 AM PT: And today another "helpful" statement by Hamas
Our enemy is drowning in the blood of children.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...