In the last week, over 120 Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed. The scale of the devastation on the Palestinian side has left me speechless. I only began writing an article on the subject today, which I hope to publish as a commentary here soon. But I feel that this silence must be broken in a brief blog entry now.

Condeleeza Rice is here and she is currently having dinner with Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. She came to denounce the Palestinian rocket fire and call for a resumption of the peace talks, which were suspended by Mahmoud Abbas because of the reaction of the Palestinian street to the scale of the Israeli destruction. Just before she arrived, IDF troops pulled out of Gaza, but continued their aerial strikes, and Palestinians launched about three missiles today in response, down from over 50 per day in the last week.   

As Olmert and Rice were eating dinner together in a fancy Jerusalem restaurant, IDF tanks and troops re-entered Gaza in the south of the Strip between the towns of Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah. They are still there as I write and the results of the incursion so far, which is being fought off by Palestinian militants, has been the killing of a one-month old baby and the wounding of several other civilians and militants.

This incursion cannot be designed to stop the rocket fire, the pretext under which Israel lauched its earlier ground and aerial offensive this week.Qassam and Grad rockets do not have a very long range and cannot be launched into Sderot and Ashkelon from the south of the Strip. (Update: Israeli media is now reporting that the incursion was designed to arrest an Islamic Jihad militant. His son and another militant were arrested and it there are preliminary reports that he may have been killed as well.)

I wonder what Rice hopes to accomplish by coming here. Is she here just to provide moral support for Israel's killing spree? Or just to eat expensive dinners in Jerusalem on a trip funded by American taxpayers, who have also funded the death and destruction sowed by Israel over the last week?

While it would be nice to think that things will change when a new American administration is elected, it doesn't seem very likely,considering Barack Obama's pandering to the Israeli lobby and his recent statements saying he would not negotiate with Hamas. Funny that, considering his vow to talk to anyone and the fact that over 60% ofthe Israeli population itself supports negotations with Hamas. But the technocrats and aspiring technocrats who rule this world don't seem to give a sh-t what we the people think. 

It makes me sick to my stomach and rather disgusted with the state of the world. 

I'm sorry for the bitterness in this post, but I really do hope Olmert and Rice choke on their dinner.