The ultimate victory for the Mavi Marmara: Israel has decided to ease the blockade of Gaza, shifting its policy closer toward what supporters of the blockade said it was always supposed to accomplish, preventing Hamas from stockpiling weapons. We’ll have to wait to see how much so-called ‘dual use’ material — stuff that could have [...]

Thanassis Cambanis has an absolute must-read in Foreign Affairs from Gaza about how thoroughly Hamas has benefited materially from the now-to-be-loosened Israeli siege. You know, like most ruling cliques subject to the most-often-counterproductive tactic of economic strangulation. (Sigh.) This, however, ought to be explored: Since the 2006 elections, Hamas’ brain trust has been trying to [...]

So reports the Independent: The key, he said, was an agreement to change from a situation in which Israel operates a limited list of permitted goods allowed through border crossings into Gaza, to a prohibited list of goods – weapons and “combat material” – which are not. “After my talks (with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin [...]

Call it the Rorshach Doctrine. Fadi Elsalameen has perhaps the most insightful column on the Gaza Siege written since the inception of this cruel mistake.

You tell me whether this is much of anything for the people of Gaza in the $400 million [Update, June 10: Sorry for the initial orders-of-magnitude error...] aid package President Obama just announced for the Palestinians: The President has described the situation in Gaza as unsustainable, and it demands a significant change of strategy. While [...]

So this is what I was at this morning: Henri Barkey, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Program, had an idea for Israel to turn the diplomatic tables on Hamas for the first time since establishing the Gaza blockade. They can reiterate their call for Hamas to release captured soldier Gilad Shalit; rely [...]

I have little to add to Marc Lynch and Kristin Lord’s excellent post about the flotilla raid as a crisis point for the Obama administration’s outreach to the Muslim world. Just read every word. All that I’d care to add is that it underscores how much wishful thinking is involved in asserting that the Israeli-Palestinian [...]

THE BEACH — So I’m going to break a promise to myself because of the enormity of the Gaza flotilla raid. This Andrew Exum post does a great job of framing several important currents in Israel and the U.S.-Israeli relationship. I want to try to connect them. First is a point about strategy. Since the collapse [...]

I wondered in January if Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a/k/a Abu Dujaanah al-Khorasani, the al-Qaeda double agent who killed seven CIA & Blackwater operatives at FOB Chapman in Khost Province, was tortured by the Jordanians during his crucial moment in their custody in early 2009. According to a new as-Sahab “martyrdom” video of Khorasani — [...]