An excerpt from President-elect Obama’s comments on the Gaza situation, from CNN:

But what I am doing right now is putting together the team so that on January 20, starting on day one, we have the best possible people who are going to be immediately engaged in the Middle East peace process as a whole, that are going to be engaging with all of the actors there, that will work to create a strategic approach that ensures that both Israelis and Palestinians can meet their aspirations

Emphasis mine. Itty bitty, teeny-tiny problem: the Palestinians want the Israelis to die. That’s their “aspiration” – the Palestinian people, in a relatively free election, chose as their leaders a group whose stated purpose is the destruction of Israel. So unless Barack and State Department 2009 can diplomacize the Palestinians away from their bloodlust, or convince Israel that existence is overrated, it’s going to be more American time and money wasted on the same old “strategic approach”es.

And what a euphemism, “Middle East peace process” – it’d be interesting if we could quantify peace in any meaningful way. I suppose life under Saddam was peaceful enough, if you didn’t mind the risk of Ba’athists grabbing you in the night and torturing you until you died. Same for Afghanistan, if you’re down with sharia – which, in the case of women, means you don’t mind being property. It’s a little silly that we have this big responsibility to keep Israel’s hands tied when it comes to Palestine, while whatever terrorist-breeding basket case we kick the doors in on retroactively becomes none of our business.