The "BLUR of tit-for-tat"

Steve Clemons writes at The Washington Note

.... Part of what is going on today with Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak's unleashing of massive Israeli airpower against Hamas offices in Gaza is a test of Obama's America. Hamas's decision to end its "lull", or temporary ceasefire with Israel, also has a lot to do with testing the U.S. and seeing what the outlines of Obama's policy will be.

Barack Obama cannot afford to allow his presidency and its foreign policy course to be hijacked by either side in this increasingly blurry dispute. Israel's actions today just created thousands of aggrieved and vengeful relatives committed to delivering some blowback against Israel.

Hamas, at the same time, overplayed its hand at a fragile time. Hamas will never play the role of supplicant or subordinate to Israel's interests -- but its resumption of violence before the Israeli elections and during a time of transition in US politics triggered a devastating responce from Israel that signficantly undermined its own interests as a potentially responsible steward of a Palestinian state.

The violence we are watching is just yet another installment in the blur of tit-for-tat violence from both sides of this chronic foreign affairs ulcer.

The US -- and the incoming Obama administration -- must move an agenda forward in Israel-Palestine negotiations that works at levels higher than the perpetrators of this violence. It's time to get this conflict out of the weeds, and time to stop allowing any actors in this drama to hijack the foreign policy machinery of governments trying to push forward a Palestinian state.

Steve may see a blur, but that problem is with his vision (which he should own and then keep to himself). It has nothing to do with what's really going on, which -by the way, and believe it or not- has nothing to do with Barack Obama, The American Left should go back to worrying about various senate seats and leave this matter of war to the grownups.

P.S. BtB notes that Clemons has posted a statement from "one of the principal shakers" at J-Street. Ew.

Comments

[scp]

"Part of what is going on today with Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak's unleashing of massive Israeli airpower against Hamas offices in Gaza IS A TEST OF OBAMA'S AMERICA. Hamas's decision to end its 'lull', or temporary ceasefire with Israel, also has a lot to do with testing the U.S. and seeing what the outlines of Obama's policy will be." A test of Obama's America?? Ummm... Obama is not the President yet. "Obama's America" does not exist yet.