{"id":5245,"date":"2008-12-29T12:17:47","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T17:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=5245"},"modified":"2008-12-29T12:19:20","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T17:19:20","slug":"osamah-khalil-the-dogs-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=5245","title":{"rendered":"Osamah Khalil: The dogs of war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Osamah Khalil, The Electronic Intifada<\/em>, 29 December 2008<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A man fights a fire at a medicine storehouse after an Israeli air strike on the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. Photograph: AP<\/p><\/div>Almost eight years ago, George W. Bush entered office in the early months of the second Palestinian intifada. Rather than resuming the negotiations facilitated by the Clinton Administration, he chose instead to “pull out” and allow Ariel Sharon, who was favored to win the upcoming Israeli elections, a free hand to end the intifada. According to former US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Bush asserted that “sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things.” [1<\/a>] President Bush now leaves office with historically low approval ratings and an economy in shambles. As a consequence of his foreign policy misadventures, Bush also leaves the Middle East in flames and America’s reputation in tatters. Yet, one thing has remained constant for the aloof president: deference to an Israeli “show of strength” rather than diplomacy. Only a year ago, Bush hosted the Annapolis conference that “relaunched” the “peace process” and then predictably stood by as it stalled out. Unable to launch a war against Iran, capture Osama bin Laden, pacify Afghanistan or Iraq, or broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace, rather than ride into the sunset in the waning days of his presidency, Bush is determined to leave in a final blaze of malicious incompetence. As it has been so often over the past eight years, the site of his enmity is Gaza.<\/p>\n

[Read the article<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Osamah Khalil, The Electronic Intifada, 29 December 2008 Almost eight years ago, George W. Bush entered office in the early months of the second Palestinian intifada. Rather than resuming the negotiations facilitated by the Clinton Administration, he chose instead to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-1mB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5245"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5252,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5245\/revisions\/5252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}