Folly

The latest flare-up in the Israeli/Palestinian imbroglio has apparently been tamped down - thanks to American and Egyptian efforts.  And this time there were apparently only one hundred plus fatalities on the Palestinian side and three on the Israeli side.  I guess that is progress relative to past eruptions.

Still, one cannot help but marvel over the futility of the exercise. 

As a youngster I was captivated by the romance of the State of Israel.  I read biographies of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan.  They were the good guys (and gals) - a democratic state in a hostile non-democratic region.

Today, I am much more ambivalent about Israel.

Israeli politics are polarized and their current government disgusts me.  Mr. Netanyahu's government depends on the support of extremists who reject the concept of a viable Palestinian state.  His government fails to prosecute radical settlers in the West Bank who lynch, harass, and destroy the crops of Palestinians whose only crime is living in lands coveted by the settlers.

Don't get me wrong.  Israel has every right to defend itself from folks shooting missiles into its territory from Gaza or from anyplace else.

But...Israel also has an obligation to live up to its international obligations. They must stop building illegal settlements.  And they must dismantle those illegal settlements that exist. Period.

I am no friend of Hamas in Gaza or of Hezbollah in Lebanon - or their Iranian patrons.

But I do believe American foreign policy needs to right itself - to get real.  The unquestioning support of an Israeli government that is neither willing to honor existing international obligations nor willing to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians is a recipe for disaster for the United States. 

Indeed, it is folly.

On a more positive note - another pic from the Alaska Coastal series.

That's one sexy Goose.