News from Gaza

Israel has followed air strikes up with a ground offensive and casualties are starting to mount- with at least 90 people, including 26 children having been killed since the ground assault began. By all accounts the humanitarian situation is going from bad to worse and supply lines for the civilians are getting increasingly stretched as medical facilities in the Strip are being overtaxed.

I can't say that I like civilians getting killed in large numbers, but at least the Israelis actually worry about that kind of thing before they fire off a bomb- I saw a figure quoted in the media as saying that Hamas had fired something like 8,000 rockets into Southern Israel- not giving a damn whether they landed on military targets or civilians ones. A palpable difference between the two sides, I think- plus, before people starting jumping up and down on Israel, let's all stop and think a minute: if someone dropped 8,000 rockets on the United States, what would we do? I think everyone know we would be PISSED OFF and BOMB something- because, like or not, that's just how we roll here in the United States- and I'm not going to piss all over Israel for doing essentially exactly what we'd do in the same situation.

As for the whole Hamas, Israel, Palestine mess- I like Joe Biden's take on it all:

“Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with a party that calls for its destruction, engages in terrorism and maintains an armed militia. Hamas must choose: bullets or ballots.” (January 2006)

That seems reasonable enough to me- after Hamas decided to contest the Palestinian elections, you knew this was going to be a choice they would have to make. Legitimacy amongst Palestinians had been won because unlike Fatah, they didn't pocket international aid for themselves, but gave it to the people. That's how they got support- but contesting the elections, they had to translate that support into democratic legitimacy and they failed. Miserably. And the people of Gaza are paying the price for their failure.