(updated with a p.p.s.)

Over at Slate, Shmuel Rosner raises the complicated issues involved in the West’s strong support for the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas (support that now comes also from Israel’s Olmert, as I mentioned earlier today) and the concomitant attempt to squash the radical theocratic Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas (which, inconveniently, was democratically elected in January—oops!).

As the dangerous situation in the Palestinian territories unravels, one question stands out: Who are the good guys? The politicians who are now trying to topple a democratically elected government or the people in power who are trying to pursue their ideology—one that they didn’t hide from the voters who freely chose to elect them? And how come all these world leaders are publicly siding with the revolutionaries?

One word. Ready for it? Realism—as in cynicism and in international relations “realism.”

Whatever you think of the Baker-Hamilton report and its shortcomings, it is realism that is making headway this week in the Palestinian territories. Realism—and a healthy dose of cynicism.

So, the Palestinians who oppose Abbas’ moves will be right when they point to this chain of events as the culmination of Western hypocrisy. But those who support him—in Palestine and around the world—will also be right. Sometimes, hypocrisy is the most basic way to recognize reality.

Hypocrisy: get used to it (although, truth be told, if you’re not used to it by now, you’re living on another plane, not in the plugged-in Globally PC world of the early 21st century).

p.s. I would love to believe that this—plan B, wherein we (Western-style progressive/moderates) lay aside talk of democracy and unite against a common foe (Islamofascist reactionaries)—will work. (I have grave doubts; but there’s always hope.)

As pertains to foreign policy: I think we (liberal hawkish neocon fellow-travelers) should not be wedded to ideology; that we should face the fact that conditions on the ground in Iraq were resistant to the fondest and sincerest hopes of the war planners; that democracy is still a goal but further off from realization in Iraq—and the Middle East, where representative government is stymied by tribalism—than we had hoped; that the chaos in the Middle East can only be (if that) managed (we hope), not solved; that regardless of how we handle Iraq, managing the Middle East would be well served by a concerted effort to make big public gestures to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people (in a way that does not threaten Israeli security any more than it is already threatened); that an improvement in the lot of the Palestinian people is long, long overdue and a good in and of itself; and finally: that a visible improvement in the lot of the Palestinian people would be the biggest PR coup in living memory—and that it would force a change on the region.

But I may be daydreaming. Because that is precisely what our enemies are doing their level best to prevent.

p.p.s. For Rosner, Fatah are the “good guys” and Hamas are the “bad guys.”

For Jimmy Carter, the good guys are the Palestinians and the bad guys are the Israelis: that’s so 20th century.

Angelina Jolie is the fakest of Hollywood narcissist fakers: a heat-seeking missile of celebrity, a fabrication of a human being. She’s smart and ambitious. She wanted more than anything to be a movie star, and became one (she’s a great actress), just like that. That was too easy and she got bored, so she decided she wanted to do something bigger—(like finish high school, go to college, go into one of the helping professions, perhaps? —ed.). She decided she would solve humanity’s problems by traipsing around looking lovely in all the godforsaken corners of the world. And people lap it up. Well…except for the Superficial:

Angelina Jolie went on Good Morning America yesterday and said she and Brad Pitt want more children and would likely adopt to balance their “mixed-race family.” She says:

“I want Mad (Maddox) to know that as our family grew and we all came together, we didn’t just start having children, biological children. Yes, we have Shiloh and it’s been a wonderful experience, but we want to find another brother or sister in the world for our family. I’m on the pill. You know, now the questions are more when you have a mixed-race family, do you balance the races so there’s another African person in the house for Z? So there’s another Asian person in the house for Mad? Shiloh has Brad and I she can look at. What’s best for the children as they grow? … We don’t just want to have different children from different countries. That’s not the point.”

Five years from now Angelina is gonna run out of races to adopt and start turning to leprechauns and Oompa-Loompas. They’re like Pokemon to her. Gotta catch ‘em all!

Just a couple of weeks ago I was saying how much I liked Eat the Press. I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t jinx it or something (although I have noticed one improvement: the pieces are now signed more often than not).

There was a bold, brassy, and bizarre theory floated by Rachel Sklar this morning (which has since been retracted and corrected, sort of), which I found disconcerting (If She Did It, Isn’t It Relevant If She’s Jewish?):

[Judith Regan] was fired for throwing a hissy fit on the phone with a HarperCollins laywer during which she made “comments that were deemed anti-Semitic,” according to the NYT. The NYT declines to specifically relay those comments, but here’s another important detail they don’t mention: Whether Judith Regan is Jewish. ETP couldn’t find written confirmation of that, but based on a number of factors including but not limited to the fact that “Judith” means “Jewess” in Hebrew, let’s assume for argument’s sake that she is.

Does it matter? It sure does. Why? Because anti-Semitic comments from Jew to Jew are different from anti-Semitic comments coming from, say, Mel Gibson.

Huh? Sklar was ripping the Times for not stating all the facts (i.e., not clarifying Regan’s religion in a story about her insulting others based on their religion). Fair enough. The story could have said: “Regan, who is not Jewish, made comments that were deemed anti-Semitic.” However, if I were the editor of a piece with that text, I would have deleted the reference.

It sounds weird, not to mention detached from reality, to imply that Jews go around making anti-Semitic comments to one another and then draw attention to it by creating a public scandal. (”Waaaahhhhh! She called me a dirty Jew! I’m gonna make her pay!”)

It just doesn’t wash, even as a logical proposition. Am I wrong?

But then the problem was compounded by a) Sklar’s bizarre claim that she couldn’t find written evidence of Regan’s religion (even though one assumes that, as a writer about media, she’s familiar with research: googling…at a minimum), followed b) by a leap of “logic” whereby she assumes that Regan could be Jewish because her first name means “Jewess” in Hebrew.

Hmmm. I’ve got my snark hat on, and even so I fail to understand this bizarrely aggressive item from Sklar.

Then there was Sklar’s half-correction later in the day:

Okay, so, mysteries of Judith Regan’s ancestry solved:

She would come home to this Irish-Sicilian Catholic family and just shout out ‘penis’…

Oops. We totally shouldn’t have stopped reading that Vanity Fair article at “golden vagina.” (But can you blame us?) In any case, a few helpful tipsters have cleared us up on the issue of Regan’s ancestry — which, by the way, we never said was Jewish, we just said could have been Jewish, and [that
it] ought [to] have been clarified either way.

Sklar is not weaseling out of this one. No, she didn’t say Regan is Jewish, but everything in the story—from the title to the ridiculous assumption based on the meaning of Regan’s name in Hebrew—strongly implied that Sklar thought she was.

Unfortunately, in the second piece, she keeps digging that hole for herself, by (snarkily) spreading a rumor (which she picked up from what she hints is a disreputable and genuinely anti-Semitic website) that Rupert Murdoch is Jewish.

Is it me, or is this not infotaining?

Haaretz reports:

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday reiterated a call for a long-term truce with Israel and for the formation of a temporary Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.

So far so good (as far as it goes, that is: Israel’s 1967 borders are of course indefensible against the Katyusha and Qassam rockets that Hamas has in its arsenal, not to mention the addition arms it is hoping to secure from Iran).

Of course only two weeks ago in Tehran, Haniyeh was saying something entirely different:

Haniyeh told students at the Tehran University during a visit to Iran two weeks ago that Hamas would never recognize Israel.

“The arrogant of the world and the Zionists… want us to recognize the usurpation of the Palestinian lands and stop jihad and resistance and accept the agreements reached with the Zionist enemies in the past,” he said.

“I’m insisting from this podium that these issues won’t materialize. We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem,” he said. 

Meanwhile, mob warfare between Fatah thugs and Hamas gangsters continues unabated.

The cease-fire between Palestinian factions in Gaza collapsed yesterday evening, less than 24 hours after it was forged. The armed wing of Hamas abducted Sufyan Abu Zaida, a former Fatah cabinet minister and held him for a few hours last night before releasing him. In response, Fatah kidnapped 11 Hamas militants in the Jabalya area, including three senior members of Izz al-Din al-Qassam, and threatened to kill them unless Abu Zaida was released.

A Hamas military spokesman said last night that Abu Zaida’s release was a goodwill gesture on Hamas’ part. Fatah was expected to release the 11 Hamas militants at about midnight as part of a deal between Hamas and Fatah. Fatah militants also abducted Hamas Parliament Member Yousef al-Sharafi last night.

And Tony Blair is in the region to support Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas and Israel’s Olmert:

 The embattled Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas, won crucial support from both Prime Ministers Blair of Britain and Olmert of Israel yesterday as he struggled to head off civil war in the Palestinian Arab territories and push forward peace negotiations.After meeting Mr. Abbas in his presidential compound in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the West Bank, Mr. Blair threw his support behind Mr. Abbas’s plan to hold early elections in the Palestinian Arab territories.

Later, Mr. Olmert said he was preparing to set up a committee with the Palestinian Arabs to discuss the crucial issue of prisoner releases. Both sides have been working through Egyptian mediators on a possible prisoner swap for months, weighing the idea of freeing several hundred Palestinian Arab prisoners in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier being held in Gaza since June.

It’s so obvious that they are all trying to marginalize Hamas—oops! I should have said the glorious resistance—which refuses to play along with the “Let’s Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Problem” game.

Which is played like this:

and this:

But I’m not shy, so I’ll share five things you don’t know about me:

1)  I don’t have perfect pitch, but if there’s something very close to it, that’s what I”ve got. (I don’t mean to make it sound like a condition—I love music!)

2) English is not my native language.

3) I was born a lefty and forced rightward…handedness-wise, that is. (And maybe politics-wise, too, but that’s a subject for another day.)

My parents deny it, but I don’t believe them. In Europe, people believe that left-handedness is sinister, literally: sinistra in Latin means “left.” In France, if you’re a lefty you write with your “gauche” hand. Really! What is wrong with these people!? They are completely irrational on the subject.

Anyway, I do all sorts of things with my left hand—I reach for things with my left hand, turn dorknobs with my left hand, pour with my left hand, etc. I also drive my family crazy by twisting those twist-tie thingies with my left hand, and the righties can never figure out now to un-twist them; instead, they twist them even tighter. Ha!).

4) I would like to live on the Gulf of the Poets, in Lerici, Italy, half the year. Every year.

5) I hate blogging pseudonymously. I do it because it alone guarantees my freedom of speech.

Whether you call them Christians or Christianists, some of his co-religionists love love love Israel:

A leading Evangelical US pastor has announced plans to hold a “night to honor Israel ” in every major American city as part of an Evangelical political campaign.

Pastor John Hagee, a Christian leader from Texas, was given an award by the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus during a ceremony jointly held with the World Jewish Congress Monday night, to “honor our Christian allies.”

Addressing the conference by a satellite-linked screen, Hagee delivered an emphatic speech, declaring: “It’s time for us Christians in America , from coast to coast, to speak up for Israel.”

He added that his organization aimed to hold “every congressman and senator accountable for their position on Israel.”

This is likely to create even more distance between traditional American liberals and Israel, of course. Like me, they’re sure to be way less than comfortable about an alliance between Christians who believe in a divine right of the Jews to the land of Israel and Jews who believe in that same divine right.

But I love to imagine Jimmy Carter squiriming over the fact that his co-religionists didn’t get his “message.”