Just another rogue nation on a killing spree

Sara Lee may stay popular, but at this point nobody I know doesn't hate Israel. Again. Even those on the deep inside are discouraged and frustrated.

"As Israel clamps down on the Gaza Strip and prepares for the possibility of sending thousands of soldiers into the Palestinian area controlled by the militant Islamic group Hamas, its leaders are facing a diplomatic conundrum: They have clear military goals but no political vision for how to end the confrontation.

"'I don't see how this ends well, even if, in two weeks time, it looks like it ends well,' said Daniel Levy, a political analyst who once served as an adviser to Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister who's now leading the military campaign against Hamas as Israel's defense minister.  ...'To the extent to which there's a scenario where Israel wins a tactical round, it will again lose a strategic round,' said Levy, a senior fellow at The New America Foundation, a liberal policy institute in Washington, D.C. that's providing ideas and personnel to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

"Clamps down" is a funny way for a McClatchy reporter to describe the assault on heavily populated civilian areas.  Already, according to reports this morning, there are witnesses to what can only be called "war crimes."  For years Israel had a good supply of political capital.  But that capital has been spent.  For at least a decade, every cruel move on Israel's part has made it more enemies among its former friends. 

We have gone from tolerance to surprise to defensiveness on Israel's behalf to no longer being able to defend that nation.  Infected with hubris and self-righteousness, it is now just another rogue nation on a killing spree.

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Washington Note has what is, in effect, a fact check on Israel's excuses for violent action.  Read a Palestinian point of view from Mustafa Barghouthi, of the Palestinian National Initiative.