Painting a smiley face on Netanyahu's Gaza debacle

Netanyahu's goals going into this latest Gaza adventure were clearly articulated and universally broadcast. He would eliminate the ability of the Hamas rocketeers to threaten Israelis, and he would eliminate Hamas as a political force.

It is thunderingly obvious that neither goal was achieved.

Far from it.

Yet Aluf Benn claims that the goals of this exercise in stupidity have been achieved.

To justify this claim the Haaretz editor-in-chief conjures up, post-facto, two new goals entirely out of thin air.

The goals, according to Benn, were to re-establish a truce with Hamas, and to "test" the Morsi government's commitment to the peace treaty.

Were Netanyahu interested in a truce with Hamas he could have respected the last one. As for testing the Morsi government, I think it's pretty clear that Egypt is no longer the Egypt of Mubarak, and that Egyptian interlocutions this past week were unambiguously weighted in favor of Hamas.

The ultimate goal of Netanyahu's great Gaza adventure was of course to portray himself as the man of steel just in time for the January elections.

To what extent that goal was achieved will be made known then.

Gaza Night on CNN

Hillary is off to visit the "good" Palestinian tomorrow, the pathetic President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas has totally squandered whatever credibility he inherited from Arafat with his fruitless concessions to Israel over the last eight years. He is completely irrelevant to what is going on in Gaza today.

So why the Hillary visit? Because US policy is bound to an "anybody-but-Hamas" course by AIPAC. That policy as much as anything else has served to enhance the credibility of the very Hamas they are trying to undermine.

It's telling to see who CNN brings in as objective observers who can shed light on the current situation. Fouad Ajami. Dianne Feinstein. Allan Dershowitz.

Oddly enough, each of them were able to recite the current talking points about Hamas' "double war crime" of targeting civilians while also hiding behind them.

Frankly, it's too little and too late. The rest of the world would dismiss out of hand the choice of Ajami, Feinstein, and Dershowitz as objective commentators about anything to do with Israel and Palestine.

In fact, the rest of the world immediately recognizes the trio as long-time pro-Israel propagandists.

And whether we like it or not, the era of America not having to consider the rest of the world is rapidly winding down

Gaza cease-fire "imminent"... and then Hillary shows up!

And suddenly that cease-fire is not so imminent anymore.

Hillary appeared at a press conference next to Netanyahu tonight to reaffirm Israel's right to defend itself.

Thanks Hillary. I don't think that there's anybody on the planet who doesn't already know that.

But in a truly shocking development, there was a Guardian headline on the Google news aggregator today claiming, hold on to your kippa, that the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves too!

We're living in a brave new world alright.

Hillary in the Holy Land

Hillary's trip to Jerusalem and Cairo smacks of desperation.

Thus far the only official comments out of Washington re the current Gaza "crisis" have been about Israel's right to defend itself.

While that line still has some resonance with the American audience, most of the world understands that this latest conflagration has absolutely nothing to do with Israel defending itself.

And as Washington sticks to the official AIPAC-approved script, more and more supposed US allies are making it plain that they hold Israel responsible for the events of the past week.

Senior diplomats from Tunisia and Turkey toured Gaza today in a show of solidarity. Tunisia is the cradle of Arab Spring, which the US has desperately been trying to co-opt ever since it unexpectedly sprung a year and a half ago.

Turkey is our go-to player in the Syrian revolution, and even more significantly, a NATO ally.

So while Washington spews bromides about Israel's right to defend itself, a senior minister of a NATO ally is in Gaza talking about "Israeli aggression."

It's a brave new world.

But the ultimate blow to American prestige in the region can still be averted. What if Hamas and the Israeli's came to a cease-fire agreement via the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood intermediaries in Cairo, with no input from the biggest of big dogs, the USA?

What a catastrophe that would be for America!

That's why Hillary is in the Holy Land right now.