The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has extended its ban on flying to Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport for another 24 hours. With John Kerry in the region to push for a cease-fire, this amounts to hardball even if the intention behind it truly is caution and the protection of air crews and passengers.
Israel has put themselves in a pickle now. There is a still a constant drumbeat of rocket fire accompanied by sirens. The tunnels have not been shut down. The death toll on the Israeli side has gone up dramatically in the last few days. Even though they’ve technically agreed to a cease-fire, they can hardly afford one. At this point, they’ve lost by every metric except body count. And Hamas is only too happy to keep beating them.
I can’t say I am enjoying this spectacle, but it is what I’ve been predicting would happen if the Israelis kept up with the status quo.
Too funny.
Interesting what legislation causes Congressional Democrats to rediscover hardball.
What would winning/losing be for the Israelis?
What would winning/losing be for Hamas?
Can you elaborate?
Winning for Israel would be forcing a cessation of rocket fire and tunnel infiltration on a short timeline, without high casualties, and without having to concede anything.
Winning for Hamas is forcing Israel to make concessions to stop the rocket fire. Killing their tourism industry is just gravy.
I suspect that Hamas and Islamic Jihad want to take a bite out of the IDF. Winning for them is inflicting significant casualties while avoiding destruction.
Israel has an entirely reservist army. Simply prolonging the war inflicts considerable economic damage to Israel. This whole conflict is already looking very bad for Israel, even if they do achieve their (poorly articulated) war goals.
As the adage goes:
The State loses by not winning.
The guerrillas win by not losing.
I think that’s right.
Under Booman’s definition, Israel wins if it doesn’t make concessions, while Hamas wins if it gains concessions. But I think that the bar is actually tilted a bit further away from Israel. Israel only wins if it demonstrates a clear victory over Hamas, while Hamas wins as long as it bloodies the IDF noticeably and mostly survives.
Which is why it was stupid for Israel to go to war, and why Hamas was eager to encourage them.
That 24-hour extension is curious with Bloomberg suddenly deciding to grandstand. Wonder what messages from the White House Mikey might be carrying. And how long Bibi has to comply.
Bibi has outright campaigned with Obama’s opponent in a Presidential election. Funny things happen politically to members of Congress who have done that. Or with generals who play the wrong sort of politics.
And as your comment says, the Iron Dome funding supplemental is in Congress attached to an immigration bill. There is a carrot yet to be delivered.
Obama is in a position relative to Bibi of getting some progress. It depends on how much pain Bibi is capable of tolerating and how subtly the Obama administration can put the screws to Bibi for past double-dealing.
The heroic romantic settler mythology about Israel in the era of kibbutzim is dead. We are looking in the Knesset at attitudes reminiscent of George Armstrong Custer. Even US Jews are breaking against this massacre.
TarheelDem, what you described in your last paragraph can’t come soon enough for me!
I would love to hear more about paragraphs 1, 2 and 4. If you have the time and the inclination.
I really appreciate your contributions here.
Mostly just idle speculatin’ and ruminatin’ on paragraphs 1 and 2. It just struck me that maybe Bibi’s trip and the 24-hour announcement of the FAA ban went together.
Paragraph 4 is based on how much I/P controversy there really is this time and on the Tweet and Facebook opinions of my Jewish friends. Where the response is not silence, it is dismay at what Israel is doing or actual disagreement with Israel’s policy. None of the defensiveness or bogus charges of rising anti-semitism about criticism this time.
Yes, friends of Israel holding it accountable for bad policy cannot come too soon.
I’ve been interacting quite a bit with my facebook friends over Israel. Many of them are people with whom I went to high school in a Long Island Jewish enclave. Many of them cannot see Israel as anything less than noble. But I keep speaking truthfully as to what I see and more and more agree with me. Those who disagree seem to grow quieter. I think the reality is beginning to seep in for a lot of folks who, like me, were raised on a steady diet of pro-Israel propaganda. My Hebrew school pals and I used to collect nickels and dimes for Israel as if it were a third world country. Oy!
Bloomberg has landed in Tel Aviv on an El Al carrier. He’s a hot man. He defies his own government. Or maybe not. Netenayhu personally greeted him. This is farce that’s not even suited to Broadway.
I already made my guess. Bloomberg is a secret presidential envoy between Obama and Netanyahu.
As to body count, about all most inmate…er, Gazans can do to oppose the Israeli oppressor is die. There is no way forward for them.
Kerry sure seems to be seeing a lot more SOS “action” than Hillary did….and who knew the FAA would be the key to Bibi’s latest crisis? Is the American “conservative” movement in apoplexy over this lib’rul Obammy interference in Israel’s right to pummel Gaza? How do we know he isn’t puttin’ a monkey wrench into The Rapture?!
Anyway, forget aid packages and our AIPAC Congress, haha—just suspend flights to Tel Aviv! Maybe the EU should be watching this bureaucratic tactic for the Russia-Ukraine War….the new air “power”!
When your propaganda is this shameless, I don’t think you’re winning.
I think we’ve found a new definition of chutzpah.
Reminds me of when some wacko Murdochian wingnut in Norway nominated GWB for the peace price in 2004.
Yessir, only 500 dead Gazans so far! (er, mostly civilians) But it coulda been 5,000!
Now THAT’S unimaginable restraint!
Holy shit.
Maybe they can share it with Assad.
Well damn Ted Cruz figured it out
http://therightscoop.com/ted-cruz-the-facts-suggest-president-obama-has-just-used-the-faa-to-launch-
an-economic-boycott-on-israel/
So he sniffed it out. Another lone star genius. He didn’t even need glasses to see the payback.
Did ya know the Israeli airlines have counter measures installed on their planes to deflect missiles? These anti missile systems are not on any American commercial planes. Thus, we would be taking the same risks MH17 took flying over the Ukraine war zone.
The Hamas rockets are unguided; their chance of hitting an airplane in flight is approximately zero.
But even the plane-mounted anti-rocket system doesn’t help much when a crater appears in the runway during takeoff or landing.
The resolution to start an UN investigation got support from a clear majority 29 members for, 17 abstentions and one vote against: United States covering Netanyahu’s arse.
○ Gaza War: Bringing Out the Worst in Israeli Misogyny, Racism
There’s no way to get Israel to shift course that doesn’t involve dead bodies.