Meanwhile, Back On Planet Earth

Via Lynch, I see that CFR interviewed Aaron David Miller a few days ago. His take on Gaza:

...right now, the prospects of any sort of conflict-ending agreement between Israelis and Palenstinians are slim to none. Gaza has so many moving parts--antismuggling, opening the crossing points, dealing with securing a longer-term arrangement between Israel and Hamas on the security side, the prisoner issue, which is now higher priority for the Israelis than ever before, and of course, the tricky issue of reconstructing Gaza and providing enough humanitarian relief. All of this is going to prove a very contentious issue for the new administration. These things are going to absorb most of Mitchell's time and become the focal point of the Obama administration's efforts.

Eli Lake chats with Miller here. I will note one thing as rockets once again land in Israel and the carnage of the Gaza offensive alienates critical allies like Turkey: Israel's defenders recently defended the country against the charge of a disproportionate response. Now, Olmert is bragging about disproportion:

After the rocket attacks, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel signaled the Israeli bombing raid with a warning of a “sharp” and “disproportionate” response.

A Western country is in some trouble when it starts advertizing its abandonment of just war principles.