What Ever Happened to Peace, Love and Understanding?

Another heartbreak in the Middle East. Hamas launches junk rockets into Israel, and does it purposely in civilian areas. Israel always retaliates, often at 5 times the excess force. Now nearly 400 are dead and over a thousand wounded in Gaza.

Israel could listen to the UN by complying with a call for a cease-fire. Lorilei Kelly at the Huffington Post went further with an plea of peace and goodwill:

In less than two decades, the measures of national security have gone from being rational, linear and technological, to random, chaotic and very human. Those who want to survive need to modernize their toolkit accordingly: More persuasion, less coercion. More prevention, less reaction. More participation, less exclusion. More people, less machines, More life strategies, less death strategies.

But Israel is turning a deaf ear to such pleas. It believes war is the only alternative. That's like saying that the death penalty deters crime in the US, when we know that hasn't been the case either.

What ever happened to peace, love and understanding? That goes for the Palestinians (and those who are calling for war against Israel) as well as the Israelis.

As usual, our President is siding with the Israelis without much opinion. Taylor Marsh nailed it about George Bush:

But don't expect George W. Bush to ask this [for Israel to cease fire] of our friend. He hasn't been a leader of peace in eight years. He's not going to start now.

Obama, Biden, and Clinton have their hands full of more messes to clean up after Bush is gone.

I'm with Elvis Costello on this one.



(h/t to Taylor Marsh)

Update: for further analysis, read Glenn Greenwald and Juan Cole.

Second update: Zbigniew Brezinski schools Morning Joe Scarborough in promoting how to help with the peace process.