Some Interesting Articles on the Web (July 14, 2014)

Israel, Palestinians, Gaza:

“A Damaging Distance: For Israelis and Palestinians, Separation Is Dehumanizing” by Ethan Browner in The New York Times.

“John Kerry's First Peace Effort in Israel and Palestine Failed, But Now He Needs to Try Again”  by John P. Judis in the New Republic. This is a pessimistic article about Israel and the Palestinians.It also has an interesting discussion of the events that precipitated the current violence.

“Asymmetric Warfare in Gaza” by Paul Pillar. A former CIA official blames Israel: “…before all this started Hamas was giving no indication that it was looking for an armed conflict. Besides reaching the unity deal under which it would support Mahmoud Abbas's negotiating approach toward resolving the conflict with Israel, Hamas was observing a cease-fire. Until the Israeli government's forceful moves after the kidnapping/murders last month, Hamas had not fired any rockets into Israel since that cease-fire was reached in November 2012, despite several earlier Israeli provocations that Hamas considered to be violations of the cease-fire. Hamas even tried to restrain other groups from firing rockets after Israel had begun its wholesale incarcerations in the West Bank.”

“Gaza war seen rather differently in US, UK newspapers” by Ilan Ben Zion in The Times of  Israel.

“Netanyahu finally speaks his mind” by David Horowitz in The Times of Israel. The author writes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu indicated at a press conference that he is not for full sovereignty of the Palestinians in their own state.

Spying and the Press:

“NSA Given Advance Notice Of UK Attack On The Guardian.” AP article by Jack Gillum.

The Affordable Care Act:

“Fox Falsely Blames Administration's Tweaks For Ending CBO's Obamacare Scoring” at the Media Matters website. Media Matters criticizes a report on Fox News which says that CBO’s failure to update its estimates of the total costs of the Affordable Care Act is due to actions the Administration has taken in its implementation of the law. Fox News is not alone in making this claim, which, as this article demonstrates, is easily debunked. However, as far as I can tell, the claim is made in websites, publications, and radio and television shows that are paid attention to mainly by those who already oppose the ACA. Their arguments on this point, after an initial flurry in the press when a CBO report came out, are not getting much traction.