Gaza strikes: how the US sees it
Updated on 06 January 2009
A sample of reaction to Israel's actions in Gaza over the weekend from the American media.
Scott Shane in the New York Times notes that many Middle East experts say Israel acted against Hamas before George Bush leaves office on 20 January.
"Israeli officials could not be certain that President-elect Barack Obama, despite past statements of sympathy for Israel's right of self-defence, would match the Bush administration's unconditional endorsement," he writes.
In contrast to Bush's weekly radio address on Saturday, in which he "said the United States did not want a 'one-way ceasefire' that allowed Hamas to keep up its rocket fire", Obama has been quiet on the issue.
"Mr. Obama has disappointed many commentators in the Muslim world by steadfastly declining to condemn the Gaza operation"Scott Shane, New York Times
"Mr. Obama has disappointed many commentators in the Muslim world by steadfastly declining to condemn the Gaza operation, and he maintained his silence over the weekend as Israel began a ground invasion."
Shane quotes Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University who studies presidential transitions, as saying Obama's predicament exemplified the treacherous weeks between election and inauguration, and the way inspiring visions inevitably give way before unexpected events.
"On a campaign, you control what you talk about and when you talk about it," Ms. Kumar said. "When you begin governing, you have to respond to what happens in the world."
John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, calls for a "three-state option" in the Washington Post.
He says Hamas has killed the idea of a two-state solution - with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace - and we should ask why this peace road map is the goal when "we are obviously not progressing, and are probably going backward."
Instead, he suggests returning Gaza to Egyptian control and "the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty" - although he recognises this would be "decidedly unpopular" in Jordan and Egypt.
"Having the two Arab states re-extend their prior political authority is an authentic way to extend the zone of peace and, more important, build on governments that are providing peace and stability in their own countries," he argues. " 'International observers' or the like cannot come close to what is necessary; we need real states with real security forces."
Max Boot of the Council for Foreign Relations in the Wall Street Journal that "there is little doubt that Israel is morally justified in its offensive against Hamas" - but that it is too early to say whether its actions are well-advised.
"For all the accusations of brutality that are routinely flung at Israel's armed forces, their conduct has been exemplary by historical standards."Max Boot, Council for Foreign Relations
He compares Israel's military actions to the restrained approach to insurgency taken by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"For all the accusations of brutality that are routinely flung at Israel's armed forces, their conduct has been exemplary by historical standards."
"They have shown far less propensity for indiscriminate killing or torture than did European states in the 1950s when confronting insurgencies in such places as Kenya, Cyprus, Vietnam and Algeria, where the stakes for them were considerably less."
Marty Kaplan outlines the moral complications in deciding to sympathise with either side of the conflict on the Huffington Post.
"I wish I didn't believe that the events now unfolding in the Middle East are too complicated for unalloyed outrage," he says, after describing his seesawing reactions to the unfolding events.
"I can't help fearing that its military success in Gaza, should it come, will also entail a tragic cost."Marty Kaplan, Huffington Post
"I wish the arguments of only one side rang wholly true to me. I am the first to accuse myself of paralyzing moral generosity - the fatal empathy that terrorists prey on. But ambivalence is not the same as moral equivalence, and holy war, no matter who is waging it, makes my flesh crawl."
He concludes: "I passionately assert Israel's right to exist in peace with its neighbors and within secure borders. But I can't help fearing that its military success in Gaza, should it come, will also entail a tragic cost."
