By Noah Pollak
There has been a dustup between New Republic editor-in-chief Marty Peretz and Atlantic magazine blogger Matthew Yglesias. It is an unimportant tiff over an important question: Why are the Gaza Palestinians killing each other? Peretz blames the situation on the immutably violent characteristics of Palestinian society, whereas Yglesias says the carnage is pretty much the Bush administration's fault.
If I may rephrase Yglesias's argument and add a helpful enumeration to his points, he says that (1) the Fatah party was keeping things under control until (2) the foolish Bush administration pushed the PA to hold elections. These brought Hamas to power, and (3) now the administration is making the problem worse by helping Fatah wage street battles with Hamas. Amazingly, none of these assertions are true. |