Everybody in this small town in Romania wanted to be a revolutionary … after the tyrant Ceausescu fell—not before.

This is a great little film. All you New Yorkers can check it out at the Film Forum (through June 19).

Gabriel Schoenfeld on what we might expect in Gaza:

When Israel withdrew from the security zone it had established in southern Lebanon in 2000, there were numerous predictions, noted the Israeli analyst Gal Luft in 2003, “that the radical Shiite group Hizballah, whose forces had relentlessly attacked the occupying Israeli troops, would close up military operations and henceforth focus solely on Lebanese domestic affairs.”

But what actually happened? First, wrote Luft, Hizballah declared that its “objective was the liberation of the entire land of Palestine and the destruction of the ‘Zionist entity.” It then seized control of the entire buffer zone that had been occupied by Israel and turned it into “a de facto state within a state.” Hizballahland” was what Luft christened this territory as he pointed to the fact that the terrorist organization had “managed to amass an impressive stockpile of weapons, including 10,000 rockets and missiles capable of hitting a quarter of Israel’s population.”

That was 2003. By 2006, Hizballah had 20,000 rockets and missiles, and its depredations led Israel and Lebanon into a massive and bloody war.

What lies ahead for Hamastan? It is of course conceivable—anything being conceivable—that the newly empowered Hamas leadership will move in the direction of pragmatism; that is what our own pragmatic logic suggests they should do. But perhaps these Islamic radicals operate under a different system of reasoning. The spectacle of the losers of the Gaza power struggle—their fellow Palestinians—being tossed from fifteen-story buildings and shot in the knees before being shot in the head suggests that sometimes it is not only history that goes in cycles, but illusions about history as well …

Haniyeh is feeling the heat, apparently.

Martin Indyk understands why:

The failed state of Gaza that Hamas controls is wedged between Egypt and Israel. Its water, electricity and basic goods are imported from the Jewish state, whose destruction Hamas has declared as its fundamental objective. One more Qassam rocket fired from Gaza into an Israeli village and Israel could threaten to seal the border if Hamas did not stop its attacks. Hamas would then have to reach a meaningful cease-fire with Israel or seek Egypt’s help meeting the basic needs of the 1.5 million Gazans. Hosni Mubarak’s regime turned a blind eye to the importation of weapons and money that helped ensure Hamas’s takeover. But would Egypt allow on its border a failed terrorist state run by an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood with links to Iran and Hezbollah? Or will it insist on the maintenance of certain standards of order in return for its cooperation?

Whatever transpires, Gaza has become Hamas’s problem. It’s a safe bet that the real attitude of Abbas and Fatah is: Let Hamas try to rule Gaza, and good luck.

This turn of events would free Abbas to focus on the much more manageable West Bank, where he can depend on the Israel Defense Forces to suppress challenges from Hamas, and on Jordan and the United States to help rebuild his security forces. As chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas is empowered to negotiate with Israel over the disposition of the West Bank. Once he controls the territory, he could make a peace deal with Israel that establishes a Palestinian state with provisional borders in the West Bank and the Arab suburbs of East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza could compare their fate under Hamas’s rule with the fate of their West Bank cousins under Abbas — which might then force Hamas to come to terms with Israel, making it eventually possible to reunite Gaza and the West Bank as one political entity living in peace with the Jewish state. It’s hard to believe that such a benign outcome could emerge from the growing Palestinian civil war.

Yes, it’s very hard to believe that a benign outcome is possible. Which is why I don’t believe it for a minute.

What’s wrong with this picture? (via TVNewser)

CNN is devoting the 12pm hour of Your World Today to the “new reality in Gaza.”

“Reporting on this situation from the Middle East include Atika Shubert in Jerusalem, Ben Wedeman in the West Bank and Aneesh Raman in Cairo, Egypt,” CNN says. “Offering analysis on and reaction to this political takeover are Christiane Amanpour from London, Elise Labott at the State Department, Kathleen Koch at the White House and Suzanne Malveaux in Crawford, Texas.”

Here’s what’s wrong with this picture: no one at CNN who will be “reporting” about  Gaza is actually in Gaza. No outsiders know what’s happening inside Gaza. Every “report” you hear will be hearsay, speculation, narrative framing, or something equally devoid of hard information.

Just sayin’.

cross-posted at How Infotaining.

I’m still having hosting issues.

I just lost two weeks’ worth of posts.

I’ll try to restore them at my backup site, where you’ll also find me posting after I unravel this mess.

update: if you’re looking for posts you read here in the last two weeks, check out  my feed. Luckily, everything is still there.