Hide yo' wife, hide yo' kids - they kidnappin' errebody!

[Hnv1]

The Egyptian and the Americans are sharing the blame for this madness continuation. The lethargic effort to negotiate to an already known ceasefire is equally at their doorstep.

[Hnv1]

The Egyptian and the Americans are sharing the blame for this madness continuation. The lethargic effort to negotiate to an already known ceasefire is equally at their doorstep.

I thought I had read that Egypt was trying to talk with Hamas, but Hamas left the table to shoot more rockets.  Hamas is in dire straights, they've lost a LOT of funding in the last couple of years and it's thought that this is just a really loud cry for help.

I'd rather it not to happen at all...

Sure, sure, me too...but when a country is attacked, especially in the barbaric ways this country has been attacked they can't sit on their hands or send an angry letter.

So you'd rather it be proportional?

You keep raising proportionality as if it were a preposterous irrelevancy - but disproportionate  military action is a crime of war, and has been for a very long time.

The proportional response in this case would be to murder 3 innocent teenagers and then launch hundreds of rockets randomly at civilians, and no sane people would be cool with that.  Going after the launchers, the stock piles, command and control centers and the people running the show seems like a much saner option to me.  If those things are located with little regard for the people and things around them, well it sucks, but it still needs to be done and the fault shouldn't lay at the feet of the people defending themselves.

So far the Egyptians are dragging leg to see Hamas suffer a bit, whilst there's also a schism between the political branch and the military branch of Hamas. The former seem to want a ceasefire sooner than later and to return to building a unity government the later seemed mindset for a short round. With no strong negotiation (Sissy\Obama) to try forcing an end and with escalating air strikes and longer ranged rockets (futile and inaccurate as they may be) this little adventure could see a ground move that no wants but no one is trying to stop.

[Hnv1]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/11/house-israel-resolution_n_5578649.html

Anyone care to comment on this besides the Ayatollah Snowstalker and Holy Joe dead0man?

Whenever I think our house is run by mad men I can always look at the American one and relax, there are worse. Obama's ineptitude in restraining Aipac. is a mockery.

Now can the administration start brokering a ceasefire? too many people already died.

[Hnv1]

The Forward's J.J. Goldberg has an excellent article on how this whole mess is at least partly Netanyahu's fault.

http://forward.com/articles/201764/how-politics-and-lies-triggered-an-unintended-war/

The article focuses on how 1) The government implemented a gag order on the news of the deaths of the three teens (which they learned of the day after the abduction), and 2) immediately denouncing this as a Hamas operation and a result of Hamas-Fatah unity. In fact, the Hamas in Hebron is generally independent from Hamas in Gaza. Both of these dangerously inflamed right wing sentiment, so that when the bodies were finally found, Netanyahu found himself between a rock and a hard place with respect to his Jewish Home ministers.

There are also rumors abound that the Israeli authorities on some level may have deliberately forsaken an opportunity to rescue the victims because having them end up dead would provide an excuse to demolish some Palestinian houses while having them alive and held hostage would possibly have ended in a prisoner swap they really didn't want to do. Supposedly one of the teens called the police and managed to stay on the phone long enough to trace the call, but whatever police department it was did not attempt to pursue their location and didn't take any further action until their parents actually reported them missing.

there could be no rescue, they were shot dead shortly after being taken (it's on tape when one of the lads called a police line)

[Hnv1]

Whenever I think our house is run by mad men I can always look at the American one and relax, there are worse. Obama's ineptitude in restraining Aipac. is a mockery.

Now can the administration start brokering a ceasefire? too many people already died.

Anyone and everyone who brings up that issue is labeled as a an "anti-Semite". A coalition of Jewish and Christian Zionists have taken over American foreign policy discourse on this issue, but God help you if you mention it. They are one of those groups you "aren't allowed" to disagree with. It's pathetic. And they have the gall to wonder why so many people think there is a "Jewish conspiracy" to control American foreign policy. It's one of those things where it's like "Well, yeah kinda".

Obviously most American Jews are rather liberal on this issue but you can see where the narrative comes from.

The president has his ability to enforce his will on foreign policy, and considering most of the Jewish and\or democratic vote is not that hard line a showdown during his tenure to assert his position and platform on a band of renegades who cause more damage here than there would have been the way to go.

He was elected as a left-wing hope on  foreign policy as well (even here we had such high hopes of suddenly having an American president with the guts to do what's right) but through his tenure he proved to be frail. Kerry as SoS improved the American foreign policy act from the dire Hillary years, but still Obama's 8 years will be remembered as a failure in the foreign field and especially in the ME theatre.

[Hnv1]

Ceasefire to be announced tomorrow 09:00 (GMT+2) and enforced by 21:00.

[Hnv1]

Hania confirms there negotiations, ISraeli cabinet to vote on the blueprint tomorrow morning. Bennet and Liberman will probably rage a bit to get extra credit with the right wing base but this is happening.