Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari killed by Israeli strike

[Viking]

Egypt recalled its ambassador to Israel.  Not cool.

What is cool is the IDF using Twitter:

Did you see Hamas's response? 

Yes, IDFSpokesperson is liveblogging the second gaza war.

[The Minsky Moment]

If only there were a way to de-escalate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to just vicious exchanges of internet trolling.

[Sheilbh]

Egypt recalled its ambassador to Israel.  Not cool.

Plus ca change, Mubarak did it relatively regularly too.  It doesn't necessarily matter.

What does matter and is new is that Egypt's opened the Rafah crossing for wounded Palestinians.

Because of Israel's position I always feel that a lot of these wars serve the strategic interests of someone else (as in Israel can rarely strike pre-emptively or at a time of their choosing when they could have maximum effect against Hamas, so they're normally retaliating which I think is what Hamas and others want), which makes this sort of conflict particularly sad.

[Brazen]

The IDF has adopted the hashtag #IsraelUnderFire

[DGuller]

The IDF has adopted the hashtag #IsraelUnderFire

European antisemites. 

[Sheilbh]

I agreed with this from Jeffrey Goldberg earlier - since then there have been rockets at Tel Aviv and three killed in South Israel, so all bets are off and an invasion's possible:

What Does the Gaza Attack Mean?

inShare
NOV 14 2012, 5:21 PM ET 45
So, weirdly, my advice to the Israelis to take a deep breath before taking a big swing at Gaza again was not heeded.

I'm on the road again -- I just got into a fight with a former head of the Pakistani ISI at a security conference here in Istanbul (the moderator of our panel was surprised, I think, that we got into a fight) that I can't tell you about because the aforementioned ISI chief declared that most of his remarks would be off the record. Suffice it to say I won the argument.

But I digress, and I don't have much time to post, but let me just ask one question: What is this Gaza conflagration about, exactly? Or let me rephrase the question: What are the goals of the Israeli counter-attack on Hamas? Right now, we're seeing, once again, a tactical response, provoked by a vile Hamas policy of acquiescing to, or even helping to launch, rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets. But what is the strategy? The fact remains that there is no long-term military solution to the challenge posed by Gaza, but the Israeli government doesn't want to acknowledge this.

There are enough weapons, and enough young men in Gaza ready to use those weapons, to make life miserable for millions of Israelis for years to come, barring a full-scale invasion by the IDF of Gaza that wipes out the entire military structure of Hamas. And good luck with that, by the way -- good luck to Bibi getting the world to acquiesce. Netanyahu's failure to convince the world that he is serious about compromise (he might have succeeded, given his Palestinian counterpart's own alternately lackadaisical and obstreperous approach to peace talks, if he wasn't hell-bent on growing settlements) means that he has no political capital to spend.

This operation will put President Obama in a tough spot, and remember, Netanyahu needs Obama for what he allegedly believes is the most important threat facing Israel. This operation also drives Egypt's president even further away from Israel (he wasn't close before but, like the Qataris, he might have been encouraged to to talk some sense to Hamas).

But it does help Netanyahu's reelection campaign, and, it must be acknowledged, it might set back Hamas in some ways, but only temporarily. Another big question, of course, is, will Hamas use its longer-range rockets to bring Tel Aviv into the fight? I don't think this is overly likely, because this would put immense pressure on Netanyahu to launch a massive retaliation, even invasion. Hamas doesn't want an Israeli invasion of Gaza right now. Its leaders are already surprised by the Israeli response, though I don't know why; have they not been paying attention?

Meanwhile, this gives Bashar al-Assad sufficient cover to kill even more of his citizens over the coming days. Keep an eye out for that. 

More coming....

One thing that I hope is noticed in America is the amount of support the Obama Administration's given Israel in helping fund and build their Iron Dome system and in supplying it.  Given Bibi's behaviour over the last four years, you'd never know.

[Valmy]

The IDF has adopted the hashtag #IsraelUnderFire

Yeah I mean the Canadians shoot 150 rockets at us at least once a week and you don't see us using hashtags.

[CountDeMoney]

#SiegeBreakerBreakingOutTheWineCoolers

[Malthus]

I agreed with this from Jeffrey Goldberg earlier - since then there have been rockets at Tel Aviv and three killed in South Israel, so all bets are off and an invasion's possible:

What Does the Gaza Attack Mean?

inShare
NOV 14 2012, 5:21 PM ET 45
So, weirdly, my advice to the Israelis to take a deep breath before taking a big swing at Gaza again was not heeded.

I'm on the road again -- I just got into a fight with a former head of the Pakistani ISI at a security conference here in Istanbul (the moderator of our panel was surprised, I think, that we got into a fight) that I can't tell you about because the aforementioned ISI chief declared that most of his remarks would be off the record. Suffice it to say I won the argument.

But I digress, and I don't have much time to post, but let me just ask one question: What is this Gaza conflagration about, exactly? Or let me rephrase the question: What are the goals of the Israeli counter-attack on Hamas? Right now, we're seeing, once again, a tactical response, provoked by a vile Hamas policy of acquiescing to, or even helping to launch, rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets. But what is the strategy? The fact remains that there is no long-term military solution to the challenge posed by Gaza, but the Israeli government doesn't want to acknowledge this.

There are enough weapons, and enough young men in Gaza ready to use those weapons, to make life miserable for millions of Israelis for years to come, barring a full-scale invasion by the IDF of Gaza that wipes out the entire military structure of Hamas. And good luck with that, by the way -- good luck to Bibi getting the world to acquiesce. Netanyahu's failure to convince the world that he is serious about compromise (he might have succeeded, given his Palestinian counterpart's own alternately lackadaisical and obstreperous approach to peace talks, if he wasn't hell-bent on growing settlements) means that he has no political capital to spend.

This operation will put President Obama in a tough spot, and remember, Netanyahu needs Obama for what he allegedly believes is the most important threat facing Israel. This operation also drives Egypt's president even further away from Israel (he wasn't close before but, like the Qataris, he might have been encouraged to to talk some sense to Hamas).

But it does help Netanyahu's reelection campaign, and, it must be acknowledged, it might set back Hamas in some ways, but only temporarily. Another big question, of course, is, will Hamas use its longer-range rockets to bring Tel Aviv into the fight? I don't think this is overly likely, because this would put immense pressure on Netanyahu to launch a massive retaliation, even invasion. Hamas doesn't want an Israeli invasion of Gaza right now. Its leaders are already surprised by the Israeli response, though I don't know why; have they not been paying attention?

Meanwhile, this gives Bashar al-Assad sufficient cover to kill even more of his citizens over the coming days. Keep an eye out for that. 

More coming....

One thing that I hope is noticed in America is the amount of support the Obama Administration's given Israel in helping fund and build their Iron Dome system and in supplying it.  Given Bibi's behaviour over the last four years, you'd never know.

I've seen lots of commentary of this sort, and all of it is a waste of time - what these commentators eternally fail to realize is that local politics are local. Bibi, surprisingly enough, cares more about what Israeli voters think that what the rest of the world thinks, and so it is politically impossible for him to just sit back and do nothing in response to Hamas provocations (even if the rest of the world wants him too - and even if "doing nothing" is, objectively, the best policy).

Same would hold true for a US politician of course -  try firing rockets at US cities and see what happens. Even if the best response would be "nothing".

[Malthus]

The IDF has adopted the hashtag #IsraelUnderFire

Yeah I mean the Canadians shoot 150 rockets at us at least once a week and you don't see us using hashtags.

Yeah but those were aimed at Detrot. You are luck we didn't send you the bill for civic improvements. 

[Syt]

Looked it up today: Gaza is actually a smaller area than Vienna.

[Sheilbh]

I've seen lots of commentary of this sort, and all of it is a waste of time - what these commentators eternally fail to realize is that local politics are local. Bibi, surprisingly enough, cares more about what Israeli voters think that what the rest of the world thinks, and so it is politically impossible for him to just sit back and do nothing in response to Hamas provocations (even if the rest of the world wants him too - and even if "doing nothing" is, objectively, the best policy).

That's a fair point but I think Goldberg's generally pretty good on Israeli politics and I know of no better writer on Israel-US relations.

Secondly it's not politically impossible for Bibi to sit back and do nothing because that's what he's done for most of this term - with a few brief exceptions - despite regular rocket assaults.  It hasn't affected his political position.  As you say, all politics is local and the failure of the Israeli centre and left, combined with his merger with Lieberman, have left him in a very strong position.  There's been a lot more rockets fired in the last two weeks but still less than there was in October.

So the political necessity isn't there and the rationale for an Israeli response wasn't clear to me for the reasons Goldberg gives.  The situation's changed today.  A family were killed and rockets were launched at central Israel and the warning's gone off in Tel Aviv which are two things that Israel's always made clear they will retaliate over.  Given that that's happened I think it's difficult to predict what we can expect but I wouldn't be surprised by an invasion.

[viper37]

BTW, in recent Norway/Israel related news

- the media is covering the multiple children injured in the conflict
- researchers from PRIO (the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, founded by anti-semite and holocaust denier Johan Galtung) have already declared that Israel will not escalate to a full scale war
- the Norwegian FD has observed that Israel has a right to defend itself but..... etc.
- anti-semitic and former revolutionary maoist and convert to islam Trond Ali Linstad almost got the norwegian equivalent of the OBE before the mayor of oslo declared that he would under no circumstances hand it out. Presumably this was due to Ali Linstad's homophobia.
- The annual Kristallnacht memorial now has no jewish representation as an american jewish musician scheduled to play has backed out on the advice of the norwegian jewish congregation protesting anti-semitic and anti-zionist speakers.
- In the last few months studies on attitudes towards jews revealed that all 2000 norwegian jews have experienced anti-semetism and report a rate of 6000 incidents per month (yeah, that's 3 per jew per month on average).
- After a local Islamist group posted on facebook that they were getting hunting licences so they could shoot jews in norway it took a few weeks of public pressure to get a police guard for the synagogue and whatever joos call a sunday school. The islamists have been arrested. The islamist that did shoot at the oslo synagogue a few years ago is somewhere in pakistan training with the pakistan according to himself, although norwegian muslim sources say he's too much of a lazy twit to actually do any hard work.

It's like the shit hit the fan. The norwegian media is gearing up for war. I'm trying to keep the blood-pressure down as I read unverifiable assertions made by anti-israeli activists treated as true while verifiable statements by the official IDF spokesperson being treated as probably untrue hearsay and propaganda.

e.g. "Palestinian children injured in the bombing of civilian targets brought to hospital by crying mothers." and "The IDF claims that 70 "rockets" have been launched at a "major Israeli city" by "terrorists"."

so far, nothing of the sort here. Not even an editorial about it, as far as I can see, mostly stuff from Reuters, AFP and other press agencies.

[Viking]

so far, nothing of the sort here. Not even an editorial about it, as far as I can see, mostly stuff from Reuters, AFP and other press agencies.

It actually seems a bit contrived, at least compared to last time round. The media is reacting to the expected public reaction.. it's just that public reaction hasn't materialized yet. I think the israelis are able to get out the point that this is a long delayed reaction to rocketing over months.

[Josephus]

Seems as though they're firing rockets into Tel Aviv now. Stratfor is predicting a ground invasion to be imminent.