(updated below)

World concern over, and opposition to, the Israeli war in Gaza is rapidly mounting:

International pressure intensified sharply on Israel on Thursday, the 13th day of its Gaza assault, after the United Nations suspended food aid deliveries, the International Committee of the Red Cross accused the Israelis of knowingly blocking assistance to the injured, and a top Vatican official defended comments in which he compared Gaza to a concentration camp.

The Israelis have deliberately made it impossible to know the full extent of the carnage and humanitarian disasters because they continue to prevent journalists from entering Gaza even in the face of a now week-old Israeli Supreme Court order compelling them to do so.  According to Palestinian sources, there are now 700 dead Palestinians -- at least 200 of them children -- and well over 1,000 wounded.  Those numbers are not seriously doubted by anyone.  By comparison, a total of 10 Israelis have died -- 10 -- almost all of them by "friendly fire."  The unusually worded Red Cross condemnation of Israel was prompted by its discovery, after finally being allowed into Gaza, of starving Palestinian children laying next to corpses, with ambulances blocked for days by the IDF.  Even with the relative "restraint" Israel is excercising (the damage it could cause is obviously much greater), this is not so much of a war as it is a completely one-sided massacre.

As a result, much of the world is urging an end to the war and acting to forge a cease-fire -- except the United States.  Here, blind and unequivocal support for the Israeli attack is actually increasing almost as fast as the Palestinian body count piles up.  Apparently, it isn't enough that we supply the very bombs being dropped on the Palestinians and use our U.N. veto power to prevent any U.N. action to stop the war or even to urge its cessation.  The U.S. Congress wants to involve the U.S. further still in Israel's war.

This afternoon, the Democratic-led U.S. Senate did just that by enacting -- via a cowardly voice vote -- a completely one-sided, non-binding resolution that expresses unequivocal support for the Israeli war, and heaps all the blame for the conflict on Hamas and none of it on Israel.  Harry Reid -- who jointly sponsored the Resolution with GOP Leader Mitch McConnell -- proudly proclaimed: "When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel."  On its website, AIPAC is already patting the U.S. Senate on its head for "for conveying America's unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel's right to self-defense."

The Senate resolution is here (.pdf).  The very similar House version that was circulated earlier today was drafted by Israel-centric House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.).  It is here (.pdf), and is expected to pass early next week -- undoubtedly with overwhelming bipartisan support.   ThinkProgess noted yesterday that Democrats took the lead in drafting the Resolution because they did not want to be "out-hawked by the Republicans," though it's hardly unusual for Democrats to march in lockstep with Republicans on Israel more than any other issue.

It's hard to overstate how one-sided this resolution is.  It "expresses vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders."  Why should the U.S. maintain an "unwavering commitment to the welfare" of a foreign country?  It "lays blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas."  It repeatedly mentions the various sins of Hamas -- from rockets to suicide attacks -- but does not mention a single syllable of criticism for Israel.  In the world of the U.S. Congress, neither the 4-decade occupation of Palestinian land nor the devastating blockade of Gaza nor the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements even exist.  That may not be mentioned.

The Resolution demands that Hamas take multiple steps towards peaceful resolution but demands that Israel do absolutely nothing.  It purports to call for a cease-fire in which the Palestinians make all the concessions and Israel makes none.  Worst of all -- in light of the Red Cross condemnation, yesterday's slaughter at the U.N. school, and other similar incidents -- the Resolution disgustingly praises Israel's conduct of the war, claiming that "Israel has facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza with hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian assistance and numerous ambulances entering the Gaza Strip since the current round of fighting began on December 27, 2008."

This one-sided, ostensibly "pro-Israel" bipartisan inflaming of tensions by the U.S. is nothing new.  Long-time Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller, in Newsweek, earlier this week made one of the most startling revelations in some time -- that in all the time the U.S. has supposedly been attempting to forge a Middle East peace agreement over the past 25 years, it never once, in any meaningful way, raised with Israeli leaders the damage that comes from Israeli settlements.  Specifically, said Miller:  "I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity — including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions — does to the peacemaking process."

Miller emphasized that by being so blindly supportive even of misguided Israeli actions, "the United States has allowed that special bond to become exclusive in ways that undermine America's, and Israel's, national interests."  The only way the U.S. can play a constructive role in the Middle East, he argues, is if it is even-handed and, most importantly, willing to criticize Israeli actions when they harm American interests (and their own) and pressure them to stop.  Matt Yglesias, in a new piece up at The American Prospect, makes much the same point.

Yet here we have, yet again, exactly the opposite behavior -- equally from both parties.  At exactly the time that worldwide horror over this war is at its peak, the Democratic-led Congress steps up to announce to the world:  "this is our war, too; we support whatever Israel does absolutely and without reservations."  We thus make Israel's wars our wars; its enemies our enemies; its intractable disputes our disputes; and the hostility and anger it generates our own.  And we embolden Israel to continue further. 

Given that we endlessly hear from our political establishment that the first and most important obligation of our leaders is to "keep us safe" -- that's the justification for everything from torture to presidential lawbreaking -- what possible legitimate rationale is there for the U.S. Congress to act in unison to involve itself in Israel's war so emphatically, and to thereby re-direct the anger over Israeli actions even further towards the U.S. and American citizens?  How are U.S. interests even remotely advanced by insinuating ourselves this way?  As Juan Cole recounted this week:

In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news [graphic]. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. As soon as operation Grapes of Wrath had begun the week before, he had written out a martyrdom will, indicating his willingness to die avenging the victims, killed in that operation--with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center. . . .

On Tuesday, the Israeli military shelled a United Nations school to which terrified Gazans had fled for refuge, killing at least 42 persons and wounding 55, virtually all of them civilians, and many of them children. The Palestinian death toll rose to 660.

You wonder if someone somewhere is writing out a will today.

The U.S. does enough on its own to make itself the target of worldwide anger.  Why must it take on Israel's battles as well?

The fact that this is a non-binding resolution makes it worse, not better.  It achieves nothing other than rubbing in the world's face -- including the Muslim world -- that this is not just an Israeli attack on Palestinians but an American attack as well.  As BooMan put it in explaining that virtually no mainstream U.S. politician would dare oppose this Resolution:  "This, then, creates the false impression that there is near unanimity of support for whatever it is that Israel wants to do. And let me frank about this . . . sending such a message does more to put Americans at risk than it does it protect Israelis."

TPM's Elana Schor today wrote:  "We're looking into whether any senator was bold enough to decline to co-sponsor the measure."  It will be a surprise if there were any.  Many members of Congress -- with some noble exceptions -- still remain pitifully afraid that the likes of David "Axis of Evil" Frum will accuse them of being anti-Semitic if they dare oppose Israeli actions, even in the name of U.S. interests, while others continue to be supportive of any war or proposed war waged on Muslims or Arabs -- regardless of the rationale for the war or its severity. 

Whatever the motives, for America to blindly support Israel's self-destructive and unjustified behavior does not serve Israeli interests and -- most importantly -- does not serve America's.  Blind support isn't "friendship," nor is enabling someone else's destructive behavior.  It's subservience.  And few things are as harmful or as unjust as the cowardly, lockstep behavior of both major American political parties when it comes to Israel.

UPDATE:  Since the Israeli attack on Gaza began, the advocacy of J Street -- the new Jewish-American organization designed to break AIPAC's monopoly on speaking for American Jews -- has been superb.  They have gone much further than any Jewish group that is taken seriously by the establishment, continuously expressing opposition to the Israeli offensive and infuriating those who want to maintain a neoconservative stranglehold over speaking for American Jews.  Earlier today, I asked them for their position on the Senate Resolution and, just now, this is what they sent me:

Since the first days of the crisis in Gaza, J Street has consistently called for strong American leadership to reach a ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed at Israel, institutes an effective mechanism to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza, and lifts the blockade of Gaza. Since J Street's founding, we have consistently advocated for active American diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We support Congressional action that endorses these aims.

That statement -- by design, I would guess -- is unclear in the extreme.  It seems intended to imply -- without actually stating -- support for the Congressional Resolutions.  They say they "support Congressional action that endorses these aims," but -- conspicuously -- they don't actually say whether the Resolution passed by the Senate and to be passed by the House does so.  It's hard to see how either of the two Resolutions could be deemed to do so, given that neither even mentions, for instance, a lifting of the blockade of Gaza.  But that's the statement J Street issued.

On a related note, MediaBloodHound has the details on the very interesting story of how AP caused to vanish into thin air the tough questioning by its reporter of the U.S. State Department regarding Gaza.

(updated below - Update II)

Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, 1950:

Principle I

Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.

Principle II

The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III

The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945:

Section II, Article 8:  "The fact that the Defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that justice so requires."

Robert Jackson, U.S. Attorney General and Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg, Closing Address:

One of the chief reasons the defendants say there was no conspiracy is the argument that conspiracy was impossible with a dictator. The argument runs that they all had to obey Hitler's orders, which had the force of law in the German State, and hence obedience could not be made the basis of an original charge. In this way it is explained that while there have been wholesale killings, there have been no murderers.

This argument is an effort to evade Article 8 of the Charter, which provides that the order of the Government or of a superior shall not free a defendant from responsibility but can only be considered in mitigation.

Mort Kondracke, Editor of Roll Call, yesterday:

I think one of the most important statements that Barack Obama has got to make right soon is that there will be no punishments or purges or witch hunts of people in the intelligence community for what was done during the Bush administration.

As Charles [Krauthammer] said, the country was kept safe ever since 9/11. There has not been an attack. These people did what they did under orders and with patriotism. And Obama should make it clear that none of them is going to be held to account for what they did.

That the U.S. doesn't consider itself bound by the principles which we advocate and impose on the rest of the world isn't news.  And I personally consider it far more important to pursue the criminality of the top political officials who authorized war crimes than it is to pursue lower-level intelligence officials who carried it out.

Still, it's striking to see someone so explicitly repudiate one of the defining Nuremberg principles, which subsequently became the cornerstone of international law, by arguing that intelligence officials who tortured people should have the Leader immediately bestow full immunity on them.  Why?  Not because what they did was legal or justified, but because "these people did what they did under orders and with patriotism."  As Salon notes today, human rights groups have documented that close to 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody (.pdf) as part of the "war on terror," while "at least three dozen people believed to have been held in secret remain unaccounted for, their fate and whereabouts unknown."  Yet "following orders" and "did-it-with-patriotism" are sufficient to render them immune.

That's all part-and-parcel of the broader trend whereby we now believe that the U.S. President is empowered to do anything and order anything -- from declaring someone an "enemy combatant" to proclaiming torture techniques to be legal -- and that the mere fact that he does so makes it legal.  It's the classic Nuremberg defense -- though now (at least for ourselves) we expressly embrace it rather than emphatically reject it.

The most notable aspect of the December 31 letter sent by the DOJ's Criminal Division to NSA whistle-blower Tom Tamm (.pdf) was the DOJ's declaration, in the very first sentence, that it was still investigating disclosures regarding what it officiously called "the Presidentially-authorized NSA program" -- as though the mere fact that the President ordered it has some sort of legal significance, that the fact that it was "Presidentially-authorized" made it proper, even though a 25-year-old law said that what the President ordered was a felony offense.  

That same mentality -- that if the President orders it, then it's deemed legal, even if it's a crime -- was also the basis for the sole "concern" expressed by Nancy Pelosi when told that the NSA was spying on Americans without the warrants required by law:  "I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting."  And that same "just-following-orders" defense was the prime basis for immunizing lawbreaking telecoms who "did what they were told" by The Leader.  This was Sen. Kit Bond's perfectly illustrative rendition of this mentality when explaining why telecom immunity was justified:

I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do.

A more collective explicit embrace of the "just-following-orders" defense is hard to imagine.  If the President orders it, you do it, and it's legal and right.

Then again, if you examine virtually any of the various arguments made by our political and media elites as to why investigations and prosecutions of Bush officials should not be pursued, you'll find an explicit repudiation of at least one -- and probably more than one -- of the four above-listed core international law principles that were universally adopted in the wake of Nuremberg.  There's probably something healthy about that.  A nation is defined not just by its actions but also by the principles it affirms and rejects.  And the only way to argue that Bush officials shouldn't be held accountable for the crimes they ordered and authorized is to make clear that one does not actually subscribe to these core principles of Western justice.  There's value in having our political establishment be forced to declare that so openly.

UPDATE:  Time's Joe Klein, who, back in 2002 -- when Bush was overwhelmingly popular and powerful -- viciously mocked those who were objecting to the treatment of Guantanamo detainees and vehemently denied that the U.S. was torturing anyone, has now -- with a disgraced and powerless George Bush on his way out the door -- changed his mind completely and decided that the Bush administration's torture of detainees was its "most despicable act."  That's the modern American journalist for you:  reverence for politically powerful officials and criticism only for those perceived as powerless.

In any event, Klein reports:

There is, I'm told, absolutely no interest on the part of the incoming Obama Administration to pursue indictments against its predecessors. "We're focused on the future," said one of the President-elect's legal advisers. Fidell and others say it is possible, though highly unlikely, that Bush et al. could be arrested overseas — one imagines the Vice President pinched midstream on a fly-fishing trip to Norway — just as Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, was indicted in Spain and arrested in London for his crimes.

Whether Bush officials will be investigated and prosecuted is a decision that, at least in theory, will be made by the DOJ and Eric Holder.  But there are obviously close Obama advisers offering the same excuses, based on the same warped mentality, as Mort Kondrake. "We're focused on the future."  So does that mean that the Obama administration won't prosecute any criminals for crimes they committed "in the past" -- or is it only high-level political criminals who will receive this "focused-on-the-future" amnesty?

UPDATE II:  Joe Klein responds here.  He accuses me of being "monomaniacal on the subject of civil liberties."  He once before called me a "civil liberties extremist."  I'm not sure why he thinks those are insults.  I actually consider them compliments, and even incorporated the latter phrase -- "civil liberties extremist" -- into every speech and presentation I've given since then (always credited to Klein), to explain how one is perceived these days if one opposes torture, believes in the warrant requirement, and thinks that high political officials should be actually bound by our laws and punished when they violate them.  

In any event, Klein makes other arguments in his defense -- including his proud citation to an article he wrote in 2004 condemning Abu Ghraib (courageous!) -- which I'll leave to readers to evaluate [note that, contrary to Klein's claim, the OLC opinion asserting that Geneva protections do not apply to Guantanamo detainees, Alberto Gonzales' memo dismissing Geneva protections as"quaint," and Bush's formal decision declaring Geneva protections inapplicable to Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees occurred before -- not after -- Klein's February 4, 2002 Guardian article mocking those who thought there was something to be concerned about with regard to treatment of detainees. Moreover, worldwide horror concerning Guantanamo was common when Klein wrote that article (indeed, it was that horror which he was deriding).  Klein's attempt to depict himself as some sort of crusader for proper treatment of detainees is a bit difficult in light of those facts, and given that he wrote:  "I would actually prefer [Guantanamo detainees] be dressed in pink tutus"].

(updated below - Update II)

There are few viewpoints, if there are any, which trigger more fervent agreement across the political and media establishment than the view that George Bush, Dick Cheney and other top officials should not be criminally investigated, let alone prosecuted, for the various laws they have broken over the last eight years.  Conversely, in the Beltway world, few things will render you "Unserious" as quickly and irrevocably as arguing that Bush officials should be held accountable under the rule of law for their multiple violations of criminal statutes.  Everyone from Cass Sunstein and Ruth Marcus to David Broder and Stuart Taylor valiantly stands up and defends the President and his top aides against the terribly uncouth and disruptive suggestion that their crimes merit investigation and prosecution.

But those who are outside of -- below -- those lofty levels of Beltway political power enjoy no similar protections.  The "we-must-look-forward-not-to-the-past" excuse is only for high political officials, not lowly no-names.

Thomas Tamm is the mid-level, career Justice Department lawyer who, in 2004, blew the whistle on Bush's illegal NSA spying program by alerting The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau to the fact that Bush was eavesdropping on Americans without the warrants required by law.  He then watched his life be virtually destroyed by the FBI's ensuing -- and still ongoing -- criminal investigation into this disclosure.  Last month, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff wrote a detailed account of what Tamm did and why, and how his life has unraveled as a result.  I had been exchanging emails with Tamm for several months prior to that and the extent to which his life has been shattered as a result of his heroic whistle-blowing is truly amazing.

More amazing still is that even as the Bush administration is on its way out the door, the DOJ continues to pursue its criminal investigation of Tamm -- the very same Bush DOJ that has sanctioned multiple forms of high-level lawbreaking and, with Michael Mukasey at the helm, has blocked one investigation after the next into Bush criminality.  Tamm's lawyer, Paul Kemp of the Venable law firm (who also represented accused anthrax attacker Bruce Ivinis) just received a letter, sent on December 31, from Steven Tyrrell, the Chief of the Fraud Section in the DOJ's Criminal Division.  The full text of the letter is here (.pdf).

The letter begins by announcing that the DOJ and FBI are "presently investigating the unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding the Presidentially-authorized NSA program . . . (hereinafter, 'The Terrorist Surveillance Program')."  It then references the Newsweek article and "ask[s] whether [Tamm] is willing to reconsider his prior refusal to speak with agents of the FBI and/or to testify before the Grand Jury regarding his knowledge of and/or participation in the disclosure of TSP-related information to [James] Risen, Mr. Lichtblau and others."  It demands an answer from Tamm by January 7 -- just under two weeks before Obama is to be inaugurated -- and then threateningly warns:  "if I do not hear from you by that date, I will assume that Mr. Tamm is not interested in submitting to a voluntary interview or testifying before the Grand Jury":   an obvious threat that he may be subpoenaed and compelled to do so.

Contrast Tamm's heroic behavior with the complicity and cowardice of people like Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman.  It is not in dispute that those Democratic Congressional leaders were told -- repeatedly, over the course of years -- that the Bush administration was eavesdropping on Americans without the warrants required by FISA.  They had the obligation to use their considerable power to put a stop to illegal intelligence activities when they learned of them; that is, after all, the whole point of why the law requires that Congressional leaders be briefed on intelligence activities.   Indeed, that's the core function of the Congressional Intelligence Committees, the reason why they were created in the first place in the wake of the Church Commission.  As the Senate Committee's Charter itself says, the Committee is "to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Yet these Democratic Congressional leaders did absolutely nothing to impede Bush's illegal surveillance.  They did the opposite.  Pelosi's "concern" was that the NSA ensure it had obtained "specific presidential authorization" for the illegal program -- i.e. she merely wanted to be assured that the President had personally ordered this illegal spying.  Jay Rockefeller meekly sent a pitiful handwritten letter to Dick Cheney (.pdf) that Rockefeller then impotently and harmlessly placed in his little drawer, and never did anything else to object.  And Jane Harman, upon learning in 2004 that the NYT knew about the NSA program, replicated Bush's efforts to bully Lichtblau out of writing the story.  Then -- once the NYT finally wrote about it -- she went on Fox News and vigorously defended "the program" as "both legal and necessary," and then went on Meet the Press and disgustingly suggested she'd even be open to the idea that the New York Times -- but not the Bush administration -- should be prosecuted ("I think it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers").

What those Democratic leaders did was, at the very best, a total abdication of their responsibilities.  More accurately, they actively and culpably enabled the illegal spying.  None of them -- for obvious reasons -- has called for any investigation or prosecution of Bush officials for having broken the law.  All three of them -- for equally obvious reasons -- voted for the FISA bill last August which immunized lawbreaking telecoms and all but ensured a total end to any real public disclosure of what happened here.  Harman and Rockefeller both attended the giddy White House signing party where they joined Bush, Cheney, Orrin Hatch, John Boehner, Joe Lieberman and other luminaries in celebrating the harmless end to the NSA scandal in which they both played such an important role.  

Meanwhile, the only person to pay any price from this rampant lawbreaking -- Tom Tamm -- is the one with infinitely less power than all of them, the one who risked his job security and even freedom to bring to the nation's attention the fact that our highest government officials were deliberately committing felonies in how they spied on us.  Those who broke the law and those who actively enabled it -- the Cheneys and Haydens and Rockefellers and Pelosis and Harmans -- all protect one another, and have virtually every political and media elite righteously demand that nothing be done to them.  

But there is not a peep of protest over the ongoing, life-destroying persecution of the former DOJ lawyer whose conscience compelled him to do what those cowardly Democratic leaders would not do:  take action to uncover rampant criminality at the highest levels of our government.  Harry Reid is a real tough guy when it comes to the momentous goal of preventing Roland Burris from entering the Senate. Dianne Feinstein is enraged over the grave injustice that she was not told in advance about the new CIA Director.  Is it even possible to envision a Democratic Congressional leader -- many of whom eagerly enabled most of the abuses of the last eight years undertaken by the Bush administration -- objecting to the ongoing persecution of this whistle-blower, someone who did the job they were all either afraid or unwilling to do?

That's America's justice system in a nutshell:  the President who deliberately and knowingly violated our 30-year-old law making it a felony offense to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants has the entire political and media class eagerly defend him against prosecution.  Those who enabled him -- in both parties -- block investigations into what was done.  Ruth Marcus and Cass Sunstein and friends offer one excuse after the next to justify this immunity.  But the powerless and defenseless -- though definitively courageous -- public servant who blew the whistle on this lawbreaking is harassed, investigated, and pursued by the DOJ's Criminal Division to the point of bankruptcy and depression, while the lawbreakers and their enablers stand by mute and satisfied.

UDPATE:  Actually, even when it comes to something as relatively petty (and misguided) as their pledge to exclude Burris from entering the glorious, imperial Senate, Senate Democrats -- "led" by Harry Reid -- can't avoid capitulating completely.  Jane Hamsher has all of the embarrassing details here ("A seventy-one year old dude who hasn't held office for 14 years, appointed by a crook, takes the Senate Majority Leader to the cleaners").  When you look at the people who have led both parties for the last eight years, was there any outcome even theoretically possible for the country other than what we got:  total disaster in every realm?

UPDATE II:  From the comments:

She was close

Jane Harman said "I think it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers."

She meant "culpability."

That's exactly what she meant. 

One of the most inane claims of the last eight years -- and that's obviously saying something -- was the hysterical accusation that national security had been harmed, that our "intelligence capabilities" had been revealed to The Terrorists, all because The New York Times informed the country that the President was eavesdropping without the warrants required by law rather than with them.

(updated below - Update II)

Last night, I was on The Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the Israeli attack on Gaza -- or what The New York Times now actually calls "Israel’s war on the Islamist rulers of Gaza" (apparently, there was no such thing as the U.S. invasion and destruction of Iraq -- it was merely "America's war on the Ba'athist rulers of Iraq").  Here's just a sampling of what, even by the Times' own reporting, "Israel's war on the Islamist rulers of Gaza" caused yesterday (and much of what is going on remains unknown because Israel is still preventing journalists from entering Gaza in defiance of their own Supreme Court's order to allow access):

Israeli troops commandeered high-rise buildings in three eastern districts of Gaza City, expelled residents and shot militants in the streets . . .

At least one school run by the United Nations in Gaza — and closed because of the fighting — was hit by Israeli fire, killing three Palestinians sheltering there. . . .

More Palestinian civilians, including about 12 children, were killed on Monday and fuel and water supplies were severely strained for hundreds of thousands. The humanitarian relief systems functioned poorly because of the inability of suppliers and ambulances to move around despite Israeli efforts to facilitate truck deliveries across the border. . . .

Palestinian medical officials estimated that the death toll during the war reached 550 on Monday. The United Nations estimated that about a quarter of those killed were civilians.

Israel said it had hit some civilian targets because they housed rockets, launchers or militants. It offered limited evidence of its claim. . . .

Inside Gaza City, windows are blown out, electricity is cut and drinking water scarce. . . .

Maxwell Gaylard, United Nations humanitarian affairs coordinator, said at a Jerusalem news briefing that because of the attacks, people could not reach available food.

Children are hungry, cold, without electricity and running water, he said, “and above all, they’re terrified. That by any measure is a humanitarian crisis.”

Haitham Dababish, emergency chief at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said that seven members of the Abu Aeisha family were killed earlier Monday after an Israeli naval shell hit their house in the Beach refugee camp in western Gaza City. The father, mother and five of their children died.

Eleven civilians belonging to an extended family, the Samounis, were also killed when a missile fired by an Israeli warplane struck the relatives’ house in which they had sought shelter in the Zeitoun neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, witnesses and hospital officials said.

Meanwhile, a Hamas rocket, for the first time, reached the most northern point in Israel of any rocket yet, falling in Gadera, situated a mere 20 miles south of Tel Aviv.  One Hamas rocket "crashed into an empty kindergarten in the city of Ashdod, littering the floor with dolls and shrapnel."  Another "slightly injured a three-month-old baby."  As today's unsurprisingly pro-war New York Times Editorial put it -- without any recognition that it might be an argument against the war -- "550 Palestinians and 5 Israelis have died so far."  And:  "The longer the Israeli incursion. . . the more Hamas’s popularity grows among its supporters."

I expected last night's Hewitt interview to be rather confrontational, perhaps to the point of rendering meaningful discussion impossible, but nonetheless decided to do it because I believe that, in general (with some exceptions), it's always better to accept rather than decline opportunities to convey one's views.  I also think people who publicly advance political arguments have an obligation to address objections to their position.

But my expectations were wrong.  Credit where it's due:  the interview was perfectly civil and actually quite substantive.  It was a long interview but they broadcast it in unedited form.  I had ample time to explain my views.  The questions were certainly adversarial, grounded in Hewitt's vehement support for this war and his broader embrace of the standard "War on Terror" pieties.  But that's fine.  All views should be subjected to adversarial scrutiny.

The transcript is here.  For those who prefer to listen to the interview, the first part is here, beginning at roughly the 19:30 mark.  The second and final part is here.

UPDATE:  In addition to the U.N. school referenced above, Israeli shells hit another U.N. school today, this one killing at least 40 civilians:

Israeli tank shells killed at least 40 Palestinians on Tuesday at a U.N. school where civilians had taken shelter, medical officials said, in carnage likely to boost international calls for a halt to Israel's Gaza offensive. . . .

People cut down by shrapnel lay in pools of blood on the street. Witnesses said two Israeli tanks shells exploded outside the school, killing at least 40 civilians -- Palestinians who had taken refuge there and residents of nearby buildings. . . .

The deaths raised to 75 the number of Palestinian civilians killed on Tuesday alone, according to medical officials.

All wars -- even the most just and necessary -- entail civilian deaths, so incidents like this don't, by themselves, prove the war is wrong.  But they are absolutely a vital factor to consider, to put it mildly.  And, as always, it's crucial to underscore that these attacks are partially funded by the American taxpayer, undertaken with U.S. arms provided for this purpose, and enabled by use of the American U.N. veto power to protect Israel in everything it does.  How anyone thinks this is in Israeli or -- especially -- American interests is truly mystifying.

UPDATE II:   James Wolcott is particularly worth reading today, on the "operative  level of the moral intelligence" of Marty Peretz's assistant and other standard American media commentary on Israel/Gaza.

(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI)

The Office of Legal Counsel, inside the Justice Department, is probably the most consequential federal government office that remains relatively obscure.  The legal opinions which it issues become, more or less automatically, the official legal position of the Executive Branch.  It was from that office that John Yoo, Jay Bybee and others did so much damage, issuing now-infamous memoranda that established the regime of lawlessness that has dominated our political institutions over the last eight years.  Other than Attorney General-designate Eric Holder and Obama himself, there is probably no official who will have a more significant role in determining the extent to which the Obama administration really does reverse the lawlessness and legal radicalism of the Bush years.

Today, as The Boston Globe just reported, Barack Obama announced several new appointments to key DOJ posts, including Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC.  Johnsen is a Professor of Law at Indiana University, a former OLC official in the Clinton administration (as well as a former ACLU counsel), and a graduate of Yale Law School.  She's become a true expert on executive power and, specifically, the role and obligation of the OLC in restricting presidential decisions to their lawful scope.

There are several striking pieces of evidence that suggest this appointment may be Obama's best yet, perhaps by far.  Consider, first, this rather emphatic Slate article authored by Johnsen in the wake of the disclosure, last April, of the 81-page John Yoo Memo which declared that the President's power to torture detainees is virtually limitless.  Her article is notable at least as much for its tone as for its substance (emphasis added):

I want to second Dahlia's frustration with those who don't see the newly released Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memo as a big deal. Where is the outrage, the public outcry?! The shockingly flawed content of this memo, the deficient processes that led to its issuance, the horrific acts it encouraged, the fact that it was kept secret for years and that the Bush administration continues to withhold other memos like it--all demand our outrage.

Yes, we've seen much of it before. And yes, we are counting down the remaining months. But we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power. Otherwise, our own deep cynicism, about the possibility for a President and presidential lawyers to respect legal constraints, itself will threaten the rule of law--and not just for the remaining nine months of this administration, but for years and administrations to come.

OLC, the office entrusted with making sure the President obeys the law instead here told the President that in fighting the war on terror, he is not bound by the laws Congress has enacted. That Congress lacks the authority to regulate the interrogation and treatment of enemy combatants. . . .

John Yoo, the memo's author, has the gall to continue to defend the legal reasoning in this memo, in the face even of Bush administration OLC head Jack Goldsmith's harsh criticism--and withdrawal--of the memo. Not only that, Yoo attempts to spin the memo's advice on presidential power as "near boilerplate" . . . 

I know (many of us know) Yoo's statement to be false. And not merely false, but irresponsibly and dangerously false in a way that impugns OLC's integrity over time and threatens to undermine public faith in the possibility that any administration can be expected to adhere to the rule of law.

Far from "near boilerplate," recall that the last President who took the view that "when the President does it that means that it is not illegal" was forced to resign in disgrace. . . .

Is it possible John Yoo alone merits our outrage, as some kind of rogue legal advisor? Of course not.

As Dahlia points out, Bush has not fired anyone responsible for devising the legal arguments that have allowed the Bush administration to act contrary to federal statutes with close to immunity--or for breaking the laws. In fact, the ones at Justice who didn't last are the officials (like Goldsmith) who dared to say "no" to the President-which, by the way, is OLC's core job description. . . .

The correct response to all this? Marty has several good suggestions to start. And outrage. Directed where it belongs: at President Bush, as well as his lawyers.

A couple of weeks before that, she wrote a short piece for Slate lambasting the Bush administration for violating FISA in secret (with the approval of then-OLC head Jack Goldsmith) and for manipulating the New York Times into concealing the story for a full year.  There, she wrote (emphasis added):

I'm afraid we are growing immune to just how outrageous and destructive it is, in a democracy, for the President to violate federal statutes in secret. Remember that much of what we know about the Bush administration's violations of statutes (and yes, I realize they claim not to be violating statutes) came first only because of leaks and news coverage. Incredibly, we still don't know the full extent of our government's illegal surveillance or illegal interrogations (and who knows what else)-despite Congress's failed efforts to get to the bottom of it. Congress instead resorted to enacting new legislation on both issues largely in the dark.

Perhaps most importantly -- and most impressively -- of all, this is what she wrote in Slate on March 18, regarding what the next administration must do about Bush's serial lawbreaking:

I felt the sense of shame and responsibility for my government's behavior especially acutely in the summer of 2004, with the leaking of the infamous and outrageous Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel Torture Memo. . . .

The same question, of what we are to do in the face of national dishonor, also occurred to me a few weeks ago, as I listened to President Bush describe his visit to a Rwandan memorial to the 1994 genocide there. . . .

But President Bush spoke there, too, of the power of the reminder the memorial provides and the need to protect against recurrences there, or elsewhere. That brought to mind that whenever any government or people act lawlessly, on whatever scale, questions of atonement and remedy and prevention must be confronted. And fundamental to any meaningful answer is transparency about the wrong committed. . . .

The question how we restore our nation's honor takes on new urgency and promise as we approach the end of this administration. We must resist Bush administration efforts to hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims that openness will empower terrorists. . . .

Here is a partial answer to my own question of how should we behave, directed especially to the next president and members of his or her administration but also to all of use who will be relieved by the change: We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation's past transgressions and reject Bush's corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation's honor be restored without full disclosure.

I first read these posts of Johnsen's a few weeks ago when a reporter asked me about my reaction to the possibility that she might be appointed to head the OLC.  Beyond these articles, I don't know all that much about her, but anyone who can write this, in this unapologetic, euphemism-free and even impolitic tone, warning that the problem isn't merely John Yoo but Bush himself, repeatedly demanding "outrage," criticizing the Democratic Congress for legalizing Bush's surveillance program, arguing that we cannot merely "move on" if we are to restore our national honor, stating the OLC's "core job description" is to "say 'no' to the President," all while emphasizing that the danger is unchecked power not just for the Bush administration but "for years and administrations to come" -- and to do so in the middle of an election year when she knows she has a good chance to be appointed to a high-level position if the Democratic candidate won and yet nonetheless eschewed standard, obfuscating Beltway politesse about these matters -- is someone whose appointment to such an important post is almost certainly a positive sign.  No praise is due Obama until he actually does things that merit praise, but it's hard not to consider this encouraging. 

UPDATE: Here is an excerpt of Johnsen, in October, 2007, at a panel discussion of the American Constitution Society, discussing what she called the "corrupt" legal advice of the Bush OLC and explaining the proper role of that office, with "independence" as the centerpiece: "OLC and the Attorney General have to be prepared to tell the President 'no'; that's what the law requires" (h/t Jim White):

UPDATE II: A bit more good news today was Obama's announcement of his selection for CIA Director:  former Clinton White House Chief of Staff (and Congressman) Leon Panetta.  I don't have any particular thoughts, one way or the other, about Panetta himself, but -- particularly in the wake of the Brennan controversy -- it does seem clear that the Obama team was serious about avoiding anyone who had any connection at all to the Bush torture, surveillance and detention programs.  Not only did they want to avoid anyone with any formal connection, but also anyone who (like Brennan) advocated or supported those programs, as The New York Times reported today:

Members of Mr. Obama’s transition also raised concerns about other candidates, even some Democratic lawmakers with intelligence experience. Representative Jane Harman of California, formerly the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, had hoped to get the job, but she was ruled out as a candidate in part because of her early support for some Bush administration programs like the domestic eavesdropping program.

Good.  Supporting Bush's illegal NSA program -- as Harman did, repeatedly and explicitly -- should be disqualifying for the position of CIA Director.  Panetta may have many flaws -- who doesn't after years and years in Washington? -- but Obama's apparent determination to avoid anyone "tainted" by the CIA's last eight years is commendable.  Like the Johnsen appointment, it doesn't, standing alone, prove anything -- only actions will do that -- but it's still a positive step. 

UPDATE III: The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau, writing today about the Johnsen appointment, says that OLC "has become controversial because of its legal defense of practices bordering on torture."  Most of the civilized world -- which once included the United States -- has long recognized those "practices" as torture, but it's nice that the Times has cleared this up.  Waterboarding and the like merely "border on torture."  Someone should alert the numerous waterboarding Japanese leaders and soliders whom we convicted of torture in post-World War II war crimes trials -- among many others who were punished for similar offenses -- that what they did merely "bordered on torture." 

UPDATE IV: In comments, a few people have cited the standard excuse offered by Obama loyalists in the past when it came to far worse Obama appointments:  namely, that appointments don't really matter because it's Obama who will make the decisions. Applying that reasoning to the Johnsen appointment, these commenters contend, means there is no reason to consider it a positive sign because Obama is just free to ignore any and all advice she gives.  

But that argument misapprehends the role and power of the OLC.  That office does far more than merely dispense "advice" which Obama is free to disregard at will.  See here for elaboration on why that is. 

UPDATE V: Atrios points to an Op-Ed written by Leon Panetta earlier this year in which he aggressively criticizes the Bush administration for exploiting "fear" to justify torture, illegal eavesdropping and general presidential lawlessness.  Panetta's rhetoric is a bit restrained given the extremism he's condemning -- he's no Dawn Johnsen -- but, as Atrios says:  "not bad for the Village."

UPDATE VI:  Spencer Ackerman reports that Sen. Dianne Feinstein is upset with the selection of Panetta, petulantly complaining that she wasn't consulted in advance and that it would be best to have an "intelligence professional" in that position.  CQ's Tim Starks reports that Sen. Jay Rockefeller is making very similar noises about this selection.  Few things could reflect better on Panetta's selection than the fact that Feinstein and Rockefeller -- two of the most Bush-enabling Senators -- are unhappy with it.

(updated below)

Former McCain-Palin campaign spokesman and current Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb notes that Israel, a couple of days ago, dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a Gazan home which killed a top Hamas leader . . . in addition to 18 others, including his four wives and nine of his children.  About the killing of those innocent civilians, Goldfarb writes (h/t John Cole via email):

The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.

That, of course, is just a slightly less profane version of Marty Peretz's chest-beating proclamation that the great value of the attack on Gaza is to teach those Arabs a lesson:  "do not fuck with the Jews."

There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than "Terrorism," the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term.  But if it means anything, it means exactly the mindset which Goldfarb is expressing:  slaughtering innocent civilians in order to "send a message," to "deter" political actors by making them fear that continuing on the same course will result in the deaths of civilians and -- best of all, from the Terrorist's perspective -- even their own children and other family members.

To the Terrorist, by definition, that innocent civilians and even children are killed isn't a regrettable cost of taking military action.  It's not a cost at all.  It's a benefit.   It has strategic value.  Goldfarb explicitly says this:  "to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause." 

That, of course, is the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes.  It's the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings.  And it's the logic that leads infinitely weak and deranged people like Goldfarb and Peretz to find value in the killing of innocent Palestinians, including -- one might say, at least in Goldfarb's case:  especially -- children.

* * * * *

One should be clear that this sociopathic indifference to (or even celebration over) the deaths of Palestinian civilians isn't representative of all supporters of the Israeli attack on Gaza.  It's unfair to use the Goldfarb/Peretz pathology to impugn all supporters of the Israeli attack.  It's certainly possible to support the Israeli offensive despite the deaths of these civilians, to truly lament the suffering of innocent Palestinians but still find the war, on balance, to be justifiable.

Those who favor the attack on Gaza due to that calculus are certainly misguided about the likely outcome.  And many war supporters who fall into this more benign category are guilty of insufficiently weighing the deaths of Palestinian innocents and, relatedly, of such overwhelming emotional and cultural attachment to Israel and Israelis that they long ago ceased viewing this conflict with any remnant of objectivity.  

I can't express how many emails I've received in the last week from people identifying themselves as "liberals" (and, overwhelmingly, American Jews); telling me that they agree with my views in almost all areas other than Israel; and then self-righteously insisting that I imagine what it's like to live in Southern Israel with incoming rocket fire from Hamas, as though that will change my views on the Israel/Gaza war.  Obviously, it's not difficult to imagine the understandable rage that Israelis feel when learning of another attack on Israeli civilians, in exactly the way that American rage over the 9/11 attacks was understandable.  But just as that American anger didn't justify anything and everything that followed, the fact that there are indefensible attacks on Israeli civilians doesn't render the (far more lethal) attacks on Gaza either wise or just -- as numerous Jewish residents of Sderot themselves are courageously arguing in opposing the Israeli attack. 

More to the point:  for those who insist that others put themselves in the position of a resident of Sderot -- as though that will, by itself, prove the justifiability of the Israeli attack -- the idea literally never occurs to them that they ought to imagine what it's like to live under foreign occupation for 4 decades (and, despite the 2005 "withdrawal from Gaza," Israel continues to occupy and expand its settlements on Palestinian land and to control and severely restrict many key aspects of Gazan life).  No thought is given to what it is like, what emotions it generates, what horrible acts start to appear justifiable, when you have a hostile foreign army control your borders and airspace and internal affairs for 40 years, one which builds walls around you, imposes the most intensely humiliating conditions on your daily life, blockades your land so that you're barred from exiting and prevented from accessing basic nutrition and medical needs for your children to the point where a substantial portion of the underage population suffers from stunted growth. 

So extreme is their emotional identification with one side (Israel) that it literally never occurs to them to give any thought to any of that, to imagine what it's like to live in those circumstances.  Nor does this thought occur to them:

I was trained from an early age to view this group as my group, to identify with them emotionally, culturally, religiously.  Maybe that -- and not an objective assessment of these events -- is why I continuously side with that group and see everything from its perspective and justify whatever it does, why I find the Dick Cheney/Weekly Standard/neoconservative worldview repellent in every situation except when it comes to Israel, when I suddenly find it wise and vigorously embrace it.

Those who defend American actions in every case, or who find justification in attacks on Israeli civilians, or who find simplistic moral clarity in a whole range of other complex and protracted disputes where all sides share infinite blame, are often guilty of the same refusal/inability to at least try to minimize this sort of ingrained tribalistic blindness.

* * * * *

Still, there is a substantial difference between, on the one hand, basically well-intentioned people who are guilty of excessive emotional and cultural identification with one side of the dispute and, on the other, those who adopt the Goldfarb/Peretz psychopathic derangement of belittling rage over widespread civilian deaths as mere "whining" or even something to view as a strategic asset.  The latter group is a subset of war supporters and evinces every defining attribute of the Terrorist.

Those who giddily support not just civilian deaths in Gaza but every actual and proposed attack on Arab/Muslim countries -- from the war in Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the proposed attacks on Iran and Syria and even continued escalation in Afghanistan -- are able to do so because they don't really see the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human.  For obvious reasons, one typically finds this full-scale version of sociopathic indifference -- this perception of brutal war as a blood-pumping and exciting instrument for feeling vicarious sensations of power and strength from a safe distance -- in the society's weakest, most frightened, and most insecure individuals.  

Here's right-wing blogger (and law professor) Glenn Reynolds revealing that wretched mindset for all to see:

“Cycles of violence” continue until one side wins decisively.  Personally, I’d rather that were the Israelis, since they’re civilized people and not barbarians.

Or, as Goldfarb put it:  "it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us."

If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings:  as "barbarians" -- just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats -- then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer.  For people who think that way, arguments about "proportionality" won't even begin to resonate -- such concepts can't even be understood -- because the core premise, that excessive civilian deaths are horrible and should be avoided at all costs, isn't accepted.  Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives?  How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?

So many of these conflicts -- one might say almost all of them -- end up shaped by the same virtually universal deficiency:  excessive tribalistic identification (i.e.:  the group with which I was trained to identify is right and good and just and my group's enemy is bad and wrong and violent), which causes people to view the world only from the perspective of their side, to believe that X is good when they do it and evil when it's done to them.  X can be torture, or the killing of civilians in order to "send a message" (i.e., Terrorism), or invading and occupying other people's land, or using massive lethal force against defenseless populations, or seeing one's own side as composed of real humans and the other side as sub-human, evil barbarians.  As George Orwell wrote in Notes on Nationalism -- with perfect prescience to today's endless conflicts (h/t Hume's Ghost):

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them

For those who evaluate moral questions from that blindingly self-regarding perspective, anything and everything becomes easily justifiable.

UPDATE:  The Israeli Supreme Court several days ago ordered the Government to allow reporters into Gaza, yet Israel continues to block all journalists from entering.  The reason, as casual_observer notes in comments, is clear:

The reason Israel has done this must be that they will do whatever they must--including ignoring their own high court--to limit evidence that Gazans are indeed human beings and that they are suffering the horrors that occur when war is unleashed on densely-packed urban civilians.

Israel knows full well that reporting from Gaza turns Gazans from vague abstractions to suffering human beings. And they will not allow that reality to be communicated to the world.

Especially in the American media, there is a constant focus on the effects on civilians from the rocket attacks on Southern Israelis -- as well there should be, since that is an important part of the debate.  But everyone should also be permitted to view the devastating effects on actual human beings from these Israeli bombing and artillery raids in Gaza.  This truly horrific video -- purportedly of a recent Israeli bombing of a civilian Gazan market -- has been widely cited.  I can't and don't vouch for its authenticity (UPDATE:  there's good reason to believe it's not from an Israeli attack), but it's certainly reflective of the carnage in Gaza.  It's much easier to undervalue the suffering imposed on The Other when you don't have to see it.

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

This Rasmussen Reports poll -- the first to survey American public opinion specifically regarding the Israeli attack on Gaza -- strongly bolsters the severe disconnect I documented the other day between (a) American public opinion on U.S. policy towards Israel and (b) the consensus views expressed by America's political leadership.  Not only does Rasmussen find that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip" (44-41%, with 15% undecided), but Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive -- by a 24-point margin (31-55%).  By stark constrast, Republicans, as one would expect (in light of their history of supporting virtually any proposed attack on Arabs and Muslims), overwhelmingly support the Israeli bombing campaign (62-27%).

It's not at all surprising, then, that Republican leaders -- from Dick Cheney and John Bolton to virtually all appendages of the right-wing noise machine, from talk radio and Fox News to right-wing blogs and neoconservative journals -- are unquestioning supporters of the Israeli attack.  After all, they're expressing the core ideology of the overwhelming majority of their voters and audience. 

Much more notable is the fact that Democratic Party leaders -- including Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi -- are just as lockstep in their blind, uncritical support for the Israeli attack, in their absolute refusal to utter a word of criticism of, or even reservations about, Israeli actions.  While some Democratic politicians who are marginalized by the party's leadership are willing to express the views which Democratic voters overwhelmingly embrace, the suffocating, fully bipartisan orthodoxy which typically predominates in America when it comes to Israel -- thou shalt not speak ill of Israel, thou shalt support all actions it takes -- is in full force with this latest conflict.

Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice?  More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party's voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party's leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)?  Does that happen with any other issue?

Equally noteworthy is that the factional breakdown regarding Israel-Gaza mirrors quite closely the factional alliances that arose with regard to the Iraq War.  Just as was true with Iraq, one finds vigorous pro-war sentiment among the Dick Cheney/National Review/neoconservative/hard-core-GOP crowd, joined (as was true for Iraq) by some American liberals who typically oppose that faction yet eagerly join with them when it comes to Israel.  Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world -- Europe, South America, Asia, the Middle East, the U.N. leadership -- opposes and condemns the attack, all to no avail.  The parties with the superior military might (the U.S. and Israel) dismiss world opinion as essentially irrelevant.  Even the pro-war rhetorical tactics are the same (just as those who opposed the Iraq War were demonized as being "pro-Saddam," those who oppose the Israeli attack on Gaza are now "pro-Hamas").

Substantively, there are certainly meaningful differences between the U.S. attack on Iraq and the Israeli attack on Gaza (most notably the fact that Hamas really does shoot rockets into Israel and has killed Israeli civilians and Israel really is blockading and occupying Palestinian land, whereas Iraq did not attack and could not attack the U.S. as the U.S. was sanctioning them and controlling their airspace).  But the underlying logic of both wars are far more similar than different:  military attacks,  invasions and occupations will end rather than exacerbate terrorism; the Muslim world only understands brute force; the root causes of the disputes are irrelevant; diplomacy and the U.N. are largely worthless.  It's therefore entirely unsurprising that the sides split along the same general lines.  What's actually somewhat remarkable is that there is even more lockstep consensus among America's political leadership supporting the Israeli attack on Gaza than there was supporting the U.S.'s own attack on Iraq (at least a few Democratic Congressional leaders opposed the war on Iraq, unlike for Israel's bombing of Gaza, where they virtually all unequivocally support it).

* * * * *

Ultimately, what is most notable about the "debate" in the U.S. over Israel-Gaza is that virtually all of it occurs from the perspective of Israeli interests but almost none of it is conducted from the perspective of American interests.  There is endless debate over whether Israel's security is enhanced or undermined by the attack on Gaza and whether the 40-year-old Israeli occupation, expanding West Bank settlements and recent devastating blockade or Hamas militancy and attacks on Israeli civilians bear more of the blame.  American opinion-making elites march forward to opine on the historical rights and wrongs of the endless Israeli-Palestinian territorial conflict with such fervor and fixation that it's often easy to forget that the U.S. is not actually a direct party to this dispute. 

Though the ins-and-outs of Israeli grievances and strategic considerations are endlessly examined, there is virtually no debate over whether the U.S. should continue to play such an active, one-sided role in this dispute.  It's the American taxpayer, with their incredibly consequential yet never-debated multi-billion-dollar aid packages to Israel, who are vital in funding this costly Israeli assault on Gaza.  Just as was true for Israel's bombing of Lebanon, it's American bombs that -- with the whole world watching -- are blowing up children and mosques, along with Hamas militants, in Gaza.  And it's the American veto power that, time and again, blocks any U.N. action to stop these wars. 

For those reasons, the pervasive opposition and anger around the world from the Israeli assault on Gaza is not only directed to Israel but -- quite rationally and understandably -- to America as well.  Virtually the entire world, other than large segments of the American public, see Israeli actions as American actions.  The attack on Gaza thus harms not only Israel's reputation and credibility, but America's reputation and credibility as well.

And for what?  Even for those Americans who, for whatever their reasons, want endlessly to fixate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who care deeply and passionately about whether the Israelis or the Palestinians control this or that West Bank hill or village and want to spend the rest of their days arguing about who did what to whom in 1948 and 1967, what possible interests do Americans generally have in any of that, sufficient to involve ourselves so directly and vigorously on one side, and thereby subject ourselves to the significant costs -- financial, reputational, diplomatic and security -- from doing so?

It's one thing to argue that Israel is being both wise and just by bombing the densely populated Gaza Strip.  It's another thing entirely to argue that the U.S. should use all of its resources to support Israel as it does so.  Those are two entirely separate questions.  Arguments insisting that the Gaza attack is good and right for Israel don't mean that they are good and right for the U.S.  Yet unstinting, unquestioning American support for whatever Israel does is just tacitly assumed in most of these discussions. The core assumption is that if it can be established that this is the right thing for Israel to do, then it must be the right thing for the U.S. to support it.  The notion that the two countries may have separate interests -- that this may be good for Israel to do but not for the U.S. to support -- is the one issue that, above all else, may never be examined.

The "change" that many anticipate (or, more accurately, hope) that Obama will bring about is often invoked as a substance-free mantra, a feel-good political slogan.  But to the extent it means anything specific, at the very least it has to entail that there will be a substantial shift in how America is perceived in the world, the role that we in fact play, the civil-liberties-erosions and militarized culture that inevitably arise from endlessly involving ourselves in numerous, hate-fueled military conflicts around the world.  Our blind support for Israel, our eagerness to make all of its disputes our own disputes, our refusal to acknowledge any divergence of interests between us and that other country, our active impeding rather than facilitating of diplomatic resolutions between it and its neighbors are major impediments to any meaningful progress in those areas.

UPDATE:  One related point:  I have little appreciation for those who believe, one way or the other, that they can reliably predict what Obama is going to do -- either on this issue or others.  That requires a clairvoyance which I believe people lack.

Some argue that Obama has filled key positions with politicians who have a history of virtually absolute support for Israeli actions -- Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel -- because Obama intends to continue, more or less, the Bush policy of blind support for Israel.  Others argue the opposite:  that those appointments are necessary to vest the Obama administration with the credibility to take a more active role in pushing the Israelis to a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, and that in particular, Clinton would not have left her Senate seat unless she believed she could finish Bill Clinton's work and obtain for herself the legacy-building accomplishment of forging an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians (this morning's NYT hints at that scenario).

I personally find the latter theory marginally more persuasive, but there is simply no way to know until Obama is inaugurated.  Whatever else is true, the more domestic political pressure is exerted demanding that the U.S. play a more even-handed and constructive role in facilitating a diplomatic resolution, the more likely it is that this will happen.

UPDATE II:  Donna Edwards, the newly elected, netroots-supported Democratic Congresswoman from Maryland, who removed the standard establishment Democratic incumbent Al Wynn from office this year, has the following to say about Israel/Gaza:

I am deeply disturbed by this week's escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip, as I have been by the ongoing rocket fire into southern Israel. To support Israel and to ease the humanitarian crisis facing the people of Gaza, the United States must work actively for an immediate ceasefire that ends the violence, stops the rockets, and removes the blockade of Gaza.

That's much further than most national Democrats have been willing to go.  And it illustrates that primary challenges can -- slowly but meaningfully -- change the face of the Democratic Party.

UPDATE III:  An abridged version of this post was published in today's Chicago Sun-Times, here.