The Baehr Essentials

By Richard Baehr

Peter Beinart has written a dishonest article about how Israel is trying to bring the Gazans to their knees by prohibiting all kinds of basic items from getting in, not just weapons. His argument is that Israel is trying to cause Hamas to fail in the eyes of the people.

If that is Israel's strategy, then I guess it will succeed if the Gazans get so disgusted with their lot, that they change horses, and vote Hamas out at the next election. I will have to check the Rasmussen tracking poll to see if the anti-Hamas candidates are moving up in the polls. Is Beinart really that stupid?

His latest article is pretty clear evidence, I think, that Beinart has now switched from a critic of Israel to working for the other side. Also see below some pictures of all that poverty, starvation, and lack of material goods on Gazan shelves.

Beinart, of course, has not been to Gaza recently (maybe never), and is seemingly unaware that Egypt has allowed so many smuggling tunnels to be built that Gazan markets are full, and that Gazans are doing fine, thank you, certainly as compared to the real humanitarian disasters that exist in much of Africa and Asia that the U.N and other elites simply ignore.

Many more pictures of Gaza abundance here.

Some supporters of Israel are critical of how the operation went down. Caroline Glick and a discussion by some Commentary writers: John Podhoretz, Evelyn Gordon and Max Boot.

Jonathan Schanzer on who these "humanitarian" blockade busters really are.

Melanie Phillips on the terrorists' ambush;

Daniel Gordis

The predictable media malpractice:

Mona Charen;

CAMERA;

Honest Reporting;

Z-Street:

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Two months back, North Korea fired a missile that struck a South Korean ship, killing 46 people. The U.N. Security Council and the U.N Human Rights Commission have not been brought into special session yet to discuss this. But when Muslims get angry (volume XLV of the video series: "Muslims Gone Wild" is now on sale), these bodies meet right away to pass resolutions critical of Israel or Islamophobia .

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George Friedman of Stratfor argues that the anti-Israel forces are now playing their Exodus card. Two more boats are on the way. More problems ahead.

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I met William Galston at a recent conference at Kenyon College. If there were more liberals like Galston, I might still be one. He is that rare figure on the left who actually wants to do the right thing, and is not in the grip of ideology. He thinks deficits matter, and is not so sure that Keynes and Krugman (more stimulus, then more stimulus, then inflation) have the answers to what ails the American economy.

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Crimes that may or may not have been committed in Pennsylvania, do not interest the Justice Department, if they might be politically embarrassing to the Obama Administration. Eric Holder was unconcerned with the harassment and threats to voters in the 2008 election in Philadelphia by the Black Panthers (I guess this falls under community organizing). Now, you can bet they will, conflict of interest aside , accept at face value that nothing of value was offered to Joe Sestak to get him out of the race for U.S. Senator in Pennsylvania.

I am not a big fan of Sestak; he was one of the least supportive Democrats in Congress on issues related to Israel, and his opponent Pat Toomey, had one of the best records In Congress on the U.S, Israel relationship. . Sestak is on the left- a big tax and spend Democrat, and Toomey is a serious deficit cutter. An easy choice, really. But Sestak had that rare moment of political honesty a few months back when he described the bribe attempt to get him out of the race. Now he has adopted the the "Party" line.