Oh, dear. I hate to be a nitpicking grammar weenie, but the first paragraph reads:

A leading Israeli think tank predicts that the disengagement is highly likely to lead to an eruption of Arab terrorism in the West Bank and to exasperate political, economic and social chaos among the Palestinians.

Exacerbate, surely.

It's hard to take them seriously when they confuse "exacerbate" for "exasperate."

First, I noticed the exasperate/exacerbate thing. Then I noticed the writer's name: Arieh O'Sullivan? Seems there's a lot of confusion here.

Wait a second, TallDave and S. Weasel: isn't "exasperate" and "exacerbate" basically the same thing?

I looked on the Princeton website for the definitions and they seem to be the same.

Except that "exasperate" is only appropriately applied DIRECTLY sentient (human, really) beings, whereas "exacerbate" is only appropriately applied to abstract concepts (usually emotions). (i.e. something cannot exacerbate a "war"or a person - those are concrete nouns - but only rather "a situation," or "anger," or "dismay.")

Er...that should read "is only applied DIRECTLY to sentient beings."

First, I would say that exacerbate is the desired term here. My dictionary defines it as "to make more intense or sharp, to aggravate" (as in throwing gas on a fire), while exasperate means "to irritate or annoy, to vex" (as what a child does to his mother).

But enough of the etymological exercises - on to good old-fashioned conspiracy theorizing.

Regarding that bit about sowing chaos among the Palestinians - is it possible that Sharon is just far-thinking enough, and diabolical enough, that this is his real intent here?

There has long been the idea, when faced with a prolonged civil war, of simply building a wall around the affected area, tossing a bunch of weapons over said wall, and letting the factions slaughter each other to their hearts' content. Then all that remains by way of cleanup is to go in and bayonet the wounded.

I admit it's a stretch, but what if .......?

Thanks Jeff and Doug. And to think I was and English major!!!

The fortified city is back.

I can just imagine the "Oh shit!" reaction so many Israel-haters must have had to the first reports of Israel's pulling out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I think the demands for Israeli withdrawal were meant to make their nonwithdrawal a casus belli and therefore a pretext for driving the Jews into the sea.

But this must also be seen as part of the divine plan by another contingent of the Israel-haters. I wonder if they'll use the relative privacy afforded them now to engage in a military build-up and escalation that will provide Israel with the casus belli , allowing them to attack at the time of their choosing, giving them cover to attack much more harshly, given their enemy's status as unoccupied and self-"governed," and therefore morally more responsible and liable for their actions.

No expert am I, but I also speculate that if Israel turns around and wages war against the Palestinian Authority or against Hamas, they'll attack Gaza and make it an example for the people on the West Bank. From Gaza, the populace of the West Bank will have their last opportunity to learn how to conduct themselves before Israel rains fire from the sky.

But to hell with the Palestinians. What I really want to know is how much longer Iran is going to be allowed to fester.

I think Bush did a little saber-rattling today or yesterday...lemme see if I can find it.

Bingo:

Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, was asked in the interview broadcast on Saturday whether possible options included the use of force.

"As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country," he told state-owned Israel Channel One television.

I wonder if truly all options are on the table, since there are kinds and degrees of warfare. By now, we have such a long history of administering and rebuilding every nation we conquer, that some people must think we don't know how to make war any other way. I wonder if the Chinese reason, "We're too big to be administered and rebuilt. The U.S. won't fight us because they know they can't afford the post-war cleanup their moralism demands." So close on the heels of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a war against Iran would be a good occasion to make the point that we consider liberality toward conquered enemies entirely optional.

I think we need to let the euros play their ineptitude out on Iran...and even THEN, do nothing in particular other than casually observe with a sneering look.

I think there is a lesson here for the euros.

I'm utterly baffled by this. Sharon has truly lost his mind. They might as well build the terrorist training camps for the splodeydopes.

This is utter, suicidal insanity.

Craig - there has to be more here than meets the eye.

I seriously doubt Sharon has suddenly taken to channeling Ghandi or anything of that sort. I suspect this is just a trap for Johnny Jihad.

When they take the bait and continue their attacks, this will be the political cover Israel needs to roll through/over Hamas and their ilk in a MASSIVE way.

You have to wonder if anything could ever provide Israel with any sort of political cover. 30 years of splodeydopes didn't do it. I can't see Europe not criticizing Israel no matter how horrible the provocation and no matter how restrained the response.

I agree, Megan. It's likely that they don't give a shit about cover or what the Euroweenies think.

Ace and the gang, I'm not one to go around linking to my own take on this situation, but I'm just too lazy to go into it here. I wrote last week that while this does look like ultimate folly on Sharon's part, he could be setting up his own fly-paper territory here. After all, the two-state solution always posed the MOST danger to regular Palestinians, because once they're an ACTUAL state, ACTUAL war can be declared and Israel can tell the International Community, "Hey, we tried. You saw how we tried" and then they can carpet bomb the whole place.

http://acepilots.com/mt/2005/08/08/as-flies-to-the-wanton-boys/
(I was guest posting at Commissar's house)

And one other thing: "Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

I was listening to Gordon Liddy when he was broadcasting from Gaza a couple weeks ago, and the Israeli hard-right is claiming Sharon is being blackmailed into this because of some massive bribery scandal or some other horrible thing. The joes in the IDF are having a small mutiny problem, the PR sucks, so if they have a deep plan I hope it works and it's not just the Israeli left winning.

Well, allowing an otherwise roving enemy to set up a clearly defined home base of operations is tactically a good thing, when you have all other military advantages.
This may be a 'fish in a barrel' type setup.

It appears from news reports that the land grab is a bone of contention between two terrorist groups, not average Pali families.

So let them get entrenched.