Netanyahu's options on Gaza

The first and best option would of course be making peace with the neighbours.

But anyone who has followed Netanyahu's blood-soaked career knows that's not in the cards.

Having got yet another "war" that was cynically and obviously provoked by him alone, he seems unsure what to do now.

Faced with a Hamas leadership every bit as cynical and opportunistic as he is, if not more, he is being goaded by his own right wing to a ground invasion.

Netanyahu knows that's a bad idea, but at the same time, quitting the war he started while Hamas can still fire one single rocket anywhere will look like failure for him and victory for Hamas.

So that means a ground invasion, which is exactly what the Hamas are waiting for.

Iron Dome has been surprisingly effective in deflecting Gaza rockets.

Iron Dome won't save those Israeli tank crews once they are running rough-shod over Gaza City.

Hamas has already surprised Israel with the exponential improvement in its rocket inventory since Pillar of Defense. Gaza rockets hitting Haifa has been unheard of in any previous conflict.

Those rockets came through the Gaza tunnels.

What else has come through the Gaza tunnels?

The IDF and everybody in Netanyahu's government knows what else has come through those tunnels, which is why they're all hoping "international pressure" will provide a convenient excuse to abort a ground mission.

It will let them pose as the humanitarians who stopped a ground invasion or reoccupation of Gaza because they were concerned about the loss of life etc..

The reality is that a ground invasion means Israeli casualties, and plenty of them.

It will be the Hamas dream come true. Sure, lots more Gaza civilians will die, but there's lots more where they came from.

Even while Israel gets token support abroad from Israel-firsters like Canada's foreign minister John Baird, the reality is that this "Protective Edge" (and who comes up with these really stupid monikers?) has already done grave damage to Israel's reputation.

Netanyahu is up a stump, and no matter which way he jumps, it's only gonna get worse... for both the Palestinians and Israelis.

Then again, you could always give that up and make peace with the neighbours.

Netanyahu gets his war (again)

But his time, he really means it! Apparently Operation Pillar of Defense was just kidding around... and Operation Cast Lead before that was just a warning.

Today the Greatest Leader Since Moses has launched Operation Protective Edge, which we are told is the real deal. Yes, "the gloves are off" this time... no namby-pamby half-measures.

Hamas will be dealt with "once and for all".

We've heard all this before, haven't we?

NYT calls out the hypocrisy of the Egyptian Government on Gaza

David Kirkpatrick takes a swing at Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president today. Apparently it's not kosher to play peacemaker while openly favoring one side over the other, and Morsi has made it plain who he holds responsible for the current crisis.

There is no hint in David's article that he is aware that this is exactly how America and "the quartet" have been seen by most of the world, and especially the Muslim world, for the past fifty years. It does indeed undermine the credibility of the peacemakers when they clearly hold one side blameless.

In America's case and in the Nations of Virtue generally we finance and arm one side and continuously blame the other, yet we hold ourselves out to be credible "honest brokers".

The main difference between our hypocrisy and that of Morsi is that he's only been at it for five days.

We've been at it for fifty years.

Netanyahu's ground war bluff

At last report 75,000 reservists have been called to active IDF duty in anticipation of a major Gaza invasion.

Netanyahu is bluffing.

He is betting that after another week or two of a one-sided affair in which the IAF can smash Gaza with impunity, Hamas will petition for a cease-fire and the ground invasion won't be necessary.

It is one thing to run thousands of bombing sorties over an opponent with no air force and no air defenses. It will be quite another to fight street to street in Gaza City with ground troops. It's what the militants dream of.

Any meaningful incursion into Gaza will mean Israeli casualties, and plenty of them. Yes, the traditional kill ratio of 100:1 will no doubt be maintained, but even a few dozen IDF casualties will give Israeli voters pause for thought on January 22.

Everybody in Israel understands the timing of this war. It was a war entirely of Netanyahu's choosing, a mere two months before the election. It was designed to make Netanyahu look like the strongman Israel needs to survive.

If IDF forces are bogged down in Gaza on the eve of the election, if reservists are going home dead, the voters will certainly be having second thoughts.

Gaza attack wipes Syria off the news map

Click on any major American news site right now and chances are you won't even find a reference to the Syrian conflict. When the only democracy in the middle east decides, (and it usually needs to do this just before an election, coincidentally) to teach those implacable Palestinians one of their periodic good sharp lessons, all other news disappears.

Which is not to say it stops happening. In fact, if one visits news sites based in the region, there seems to be quite a lot going on.

The popular Turkish news site Hurriyet has a take on the Gaza strikes that readers here wouldn't imagine. In the first place they seem to assume, incorrectly, that the Israelis would never undertake such an adventure without the explicit approval of the US.

Secondly, the tone used by Hurriyet suggests that they see the US/Israel attack on Gaza as an attack on Islam, and take offence accordingly. They have gone from being the crucial conduit  keeping the Syrian insurrection going to being yesterday's news.

They further seem a little put out that only France among the NATO allies has joined Turkey in recognizing the new Syrian opposition coalition that the Americans themselves were pushing so hard for the past two weeks. Yesterday Obama seemed to say the US still doesn't trust the rebels.

Here's another reason the Turks are miffed. Regardless of how the Syrian insurrection unfolds for Assad, there is a de-facto Kurdish state being created right now all along Turkey's border with Syria. The Kurdish militias creating the new Kurdistan are allies of the PKK that the Turkish state has been fighting for years.

Erdogan is up a stump. In an attempt to ingratiate himself with his NATO pals he went along with their plans to destroy his one-time ally Assad. In doing so he's allowed his country to violate international law continuously for the past year and a half by providing safe haven and supplying the rebels operating in Syria. Not only is Assad not out of power, but Erdogan's NATO friends, with the exception of France, are clearly losing interest.

And in the meantime, his worst nightmare, an independent Kurdistan, is blossoming right at his door.

So in spite of what you see or don't see at Fox or CNN, Gaza is just one story from a Middle East in chaos, and probably one of the more predictable ones. A few thousand Palestinians and a few dozen Israelis will die, Netanyahu will be re-elected, and it will be business as usual in the Holy Land.

But it's that rapidly changing landscape all around it that we need to be watching.