On Saturday, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat claimed that Israel, with backing from the United States, had given Syria 72 hours to pressure Hezbollah into releasing the two captured Israeli soldiers and stopping their cross-border attacks into northern Israel.  Washington has neither confirmed nor denied the report.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says, "The escalation in Gaza reflects the failure of Israeli unilateralism, the failure of the Quartet-backed 'Roadmap,' the failure of the US-orchestrated exclusion of the UN, the failure of the international community to end the occupation, and the failure of the UN to intervene and provide international protection in the meantime."

The real tragedy from Israel's recent aggression in Gaza is that it threatens to dismantle negotiations for an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.  The Hamas-Fatah "prisoners' statement" would confine armed resistance to the Israeli occupation to the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, not inside Israel.

The US corporate media is a mouthpiece for Israeli foreign policy.  For example, Fox News Correspondent Bill Hemmer, stationed in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, near the Golan Heights the other day, might as well have been working for Israeli television.  He reported, "We took more rockets here," referring to the primitive Katyushas launched by Hezbollah.

George W. Bush, the champion of democracy, is playing with fire.  If he continues his uncritical support for Israeli aggression, and follows his "Bring 'em on!" strategy in Iraq with Iran and Syria, he may just unleash the Armageddon he yearns for.

=====================

Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to MWC News Magazine , is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

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