Israel is now in day 3 of pounding the unfortunate Palestinians trapped with Hamas into falafal. Estimates at this point put Palestinian dead at 315, but given the not-quite-stellar medical facilities of Gaza, already getting choked by blockade, that number will probably get quite a bit higher as casualties “injured” are downgraded to casualties “muerto.”

The international stink likely is going to bake in the sun for months to come. The cards are falling on predictable lines - the residents of the Arab nations don’t like Israel, which they see as an usurper. By default, the governments of the Arab nations have to appear not to like Israel or risk legitimacy. I expect a lot of noise and sabre rattling from Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey along with the impotent fist-pumping from Iran. Noise is likely all we’re going to get. None of the aforementioned military superpowers (har har) are going to risk going toe to toe with the already kicked up hornet’s nest. Lebanon, probably hoping none of those F-16s make a quick detour to Beirut, is keeping its trap mostly shut. Minus a few Hezbollahns.

The weird things about these battles is the real lack of a winner or loser. Israel can’t flatten Hamas outright from the air, much to the dissapointment of America’s far-right. Israel is firing up the reserve troops but they’d have to be flat out nuts to go marching into those slums - there’s nothing to accomplish short of shooting up a bunch of dirt farmers while getting shot up, yourself.

Man, these guys with nothing to live for sure do fight hard.

As for Hamas, they certainly can’t get rid of Israel by firing half-baked rockets across the border. Their best possible outcome, and a likely one, is to win the PR campaign. They can accomplish this by doing their best to keep people in Gaza to become red mist when the Israelis swoop down with the big bangs. After 60 years they surely realize that no one is about to swoop to the rescue and embroil themselves in the mess. Both Egypt and Lebanon are doing about everything they can to keep the gates up and the flood of refugees back. It must be an odd experience to be imprisoned in your own country.

The U.S. gets to do the usual balancing act. It can’t appear overtly pro-Israel without alienating the Arab world, specifically Iraq. On the other hand, the pro-Israel lobby will be looking for Uncle Sam to put some weight to the wheel (and for politicians to earn their campaign contributions.) What makes this round particularly interesting is the U.S. acting as the world’s great democratizer for the last seven years has to appear anti-Hamas without appearing anti-democratically elected-Hamas. The U.S. cannot afford the cynicism of past decades with so much policy still in the balance.

So what will be the grand finale of the recent flair up? Well……. any guesses?

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.