Nation of the dead.

The Israelis have struck Gaza hard over the past two weeks, killing well over 100 Palestinians (including a substantial number of children), and - predictably - Palestinian militants have struck back, shooting up a seminary in Jerusalem, killing 8. Is anyone surprised by this? Olmert's policy of "isolating Hamas" (i.e. strangling Gaza to death) has elicited the kind of violent response that Israeli politicians pray for - the kind they can use to justify the very policy that provoked the response in the first place. And as the situation goes septic, what is more appropriate than having Condi Rice stroll through the wreckage of yet another Bush policy? As in the case of the Lebanon war two years ago, this consummate diplomat has refrained from calling for a ceasefire, uttering the usual platitudes about Israel's right to self-defense and the importance of sparing civilian lives, when possible. Yes, we've been here before, and we've yet to see a military attack that the Bush administration wouldn't at least tacitly endorse.

It's clear who the enemy is... same as it has always been: negotiations. And no, I don't mean the farce brokered by the U.S. between Olmert's people and Abbas's people (essentially two wings of the same organization). I mean actual, good faith negotiations with the people within the Palestinian community who actually resist Israel and its 40-year occupation. The 2006 parliamentary elections that put Hamas in power presented a danger to the Israeli administration... the danger of Hamas's growing political legitimacy. Unlike the P.L.O., Hamas did not depend on Israel's remittances for its very survival, and with the Palestinian Authority more closely identified with the interests of the occupier that with those of the occupied, it's little wonder Hamas won a majority. The Palestinian people are not religious fanatics - they'd merely suffered through the previous six years of Fatah's serving as the Israelis' colonial administrators, and so they opted for the organized group that had not been co-opted. Two choices, one lamer than the other, so you pick the less lame one. Sound familiar?

I've covered this ground before, I know, but I think it's worth saying again. Amongst any people denied nationhood, denied basic freedoms, denied livelihood and frequently even life itself by a hostile occupying power, there will always be individuals and groups who will resort to heinous acts such as took place at that Jerusalem seminary. The more pressure is put on that oppressed population, the more a sense of hopelessness is engendered in them, the more likely it is that those incidents will take place. Consider the Israeli government's consistent line on this. There have been no similar attacks within Israel in what, four years? Olmert and company mostly attribute this to their loathsome apartheid barrier, but it's clear that no matter how massive a wall you build, you cannot stop a truly determined person. Their considered reaction is to accuse the Palestinian Authority - their Palestinians - of not doing enough to fight extremists. If there are no attacks, as during the past few years, it's not because of the Palestinians, it's because of the wall. This is a game the Palestinians know they can never win.

It is another one of those atrocity-producing situations. And the best Bush can manage is a lame soft shoe.

luv u,

jp