Gaza

Israel went and did it.

Yglesias has me pretty thoroughly convinced that the political rationale for the invasion is to bolster the electoral prospects of the Labor / Kadima coalition. On those grounds the invasion has to be counted a success, I guess.

The nominal justification is that it became necessary because of the those rocket attacks. Could be, but what Israel really seems interested in doing is degrading Hamas' capabilities across the board. In other words, they seem to have launched a preventative war -- which is to say, a Bush Doctrine war -- while claiming that it is a straightforward defensive war.

But even so much as acknowledging Israel's nominal justifications seems to me to risk misunderstanding the situation. Israel has found an accommodation it can live with, and that accommodation is the status quo. To pay attention to the justification for this or that incursion is to treat the incursion as if it were a departure from the normal way of things. It isn't. Keeping the Palestenians down means knocking them down from time to time.