If there were any lingering doubt that peace between Israelis and the Palestinians is not in the offing in 2009, the recent eruption of war in Gaza has finally erased it.

A lot has already been said about the fighting, and it's all very predictable. Israel's usual critics are critical of the operation; Israel's usual defenders in favor. Dust off the commentary from any number of depressingly similar situations over the past few decades, change the date and the particulars of today's situation, cut, paste and you have yourself yet another debate over who the real terrorists are, who started the fighting, and what constitutes a "proportionate" response to assymetrical warfare.

Frankly, I'm not interested in all that.

One thing I'm struck by is just how little the Israeli government seems to have thought things through. Yes, we know that plans were in the works for something like six months. Yes, Hamas was clearly surprised on a tactical level, but the group must have been expecting to be hit sooner or later.

But what is the exit plan here? Pound Hamas until they cry uncle? And why would Israel be willing to trade some temporary advantages in Gaza for a number of strategic setbacks: the effective end of the Annapolis process, a possible collapse of the peace track with Syria, worldwide opprobrium, a reinvigorated radical camp in Iran, the further undermining of pro-Western regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and a Hamas that may in fact emerge stronger vis-à-vis the ever-shrinking Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction?

Yes, as U.S. President-elect Barack Obama put it last summer during a visit to rocket-plagued Sderot, "If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing." But how you choose to stop the rockets matters a great deal. Revenge is not a strategy for national success.

I watched Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, explain to David Gregory on Meet the Press right after the operation began that its goal was not to achieve some kind of objective for Israel, but simply to send a message that Hamas's rocket attacks won't go unanswered.

Here's the exchange:

MR. GREGORY: What is Israel's goal right now? Is it to re-establish the cease-fire, or is it to invade Gaza and remove Hamas from power?

MS. LIVNI: Our goal is not to reoccupy Gaza Strip. We left Gaza Strip. We took off for the south. We dismantled all the settlements. But since Gaza Strip has been controlled by the extremists and since Gaza Strip has been controlled by Hamas and since Hamas is using Gaza Strip in order to target us, we need to give an answer to this.

MR. GREGORY: Foreign Minister, aren't you making the case for pushing Hamas from power? The cease-fire, according to Israel, simply hasn't worked. It hasn't stopped the bombing of Sderot and Israel in the southern areas. So only the replacement of Hamas by Fatah, by more moderate leaders, appears to be the only answer.

MS. LIVNI: The goal is to give an answer to our citizens, to give them the possibility to live in peace like any other citizen in the world, and Hamas needs to understand it.

Or, as TNR's Marty Peretz put it, the message was nothing more sophisticated than, "Do not fuck with the Jews."

Watch Livni here:

NBC News reports on the status of Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and the point man on U.S. negotiations with North Korea:

Hill said today that he has NOT been asked to stay on in an Obama administration. "I haven't talked to anybody about my future," he said in response to a reporter's question about a possible role in the diplomatic corps of the next president, adding wryly, "I do need to figure out what I'm going to do when I grow up." [...]

[Hill] spoke to reporters today in the wake of bad news for the U.S. in six-party talks, which suffered a major setback last week when North Korean negotiators refused to sign on to guidelines for a "verification protocol" that would open up north Korean nuclear facilities to intrusive inspections, including collecting and removing nuclear samples from the country.

Photo: FILE; FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Ben Smith:

Rep. Xavier Becerra tells the editorial board of La Opinion that he has turned down the job of U.S. trade representative, having concluded -- trade watchers take note -- that trade won't be the first, second, or third priority of the Obama administration.

Seth Mydans profiles Abhisit Vejjajiva, the dapper new prime minister of Thailand. Apparently, he is a Barry Manilow fan:

Critics say Mr. Abhisit is handsome, articulate and well mannered but lacks the hearty touch of successful Thai politicians. They joke that he would need a visa to travel to the rural heartland of the north and the northeast. [...]

But his cultural divide from the heartland may be difficult to breach. Asked last year about his likes and dislikes, he said that his favorite book was "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus and that he was a devotee of the singer Barry Manilow, whose voice is rarely heard in rural Thailand.

Photo: PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images

Al-Baghdadia, the satellite channel that employs Muntather al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush today, is calling for his release in a video posted on its Web site.

Meanwhile, Zaidi is probably on his way to becoming a folk hero in the Arab world. A headline on Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper gives you some of the flavor, "Double Shoe-Strike Almost Hit Bush in His Face: This Is the Iraqis' Farewell Kiss, Dog."

If you haven't yet seen the video of the incident, check it out here:

I'm sure you've heard plenty about the Rod Blagojevich corruption scandal by now. But did you know his father, Radisa Blagojevich, was a Serbian immigrant? Apparently, the story has been getting big play in the old country.

The Chicago Tribune reports that, if Internet comment sections are any indication, there isn't a lot of sympathy in Serbia for the Illinois governor.

But the Associated Press did manage to find some folks who thinks the whole thing is an American plot. "He must have been framed, it's all politics," Rod's (supposed) cousin Dragan told Blic, a Serbian tabloid, in a story that ran under the headline "The Governor Defying Entire America." The AP adds:

Cousin Dragan appeared again in Friday's Blic, saying his famous relative still owns some land in the village so "he can come to Serbia if he cannot take it any more in America."

"He can have a cow or a pig or two, a chicken. ... He is always welcome."

Photo: Brian Kersey/Getty Images News

Die Welt reports from Baghdad:

An Iraqi reporter called visiting U.S. President George W. Bush a "dog" in Arabic on Sunday and threw his shoes at him during a news conference in Baghdad. Iraqi security officers and U.S. secret service agents leapt at the man and dragged him struggling and screaming out of the room where Bush was giving a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

At least Helen Thomas stuck with questions, for the most part.

When asked about the incident shortly after, Bush made light of it. "I didn't feel the least threatened by it," he said.

In Arab culture, hitting someone with a shoe is considered a grave insult.

More photos:

Photos: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Steven Lee Meyers has more:

[Bush's] appearance at a news conference here was interrupted by a man, apparently a journalist, who leaped to his feet and threw one shoe at the president, who ducked and narrowly missed being struck. Chaos ensued. He threw a second shoe, which also narrowly missed Mr. Bush. The man was roughly 12 feet from the lecturn in the center of two rows of chairs, about two feet from a pool of reporters. A scrum of security agents descended on the man and wrestled him, first to the floor and then out of the ornate room where the news conference was taking place. 

Apparently, the full insult was, "This is a farewell kiss, dog." Guess the Iraqi press has a ways to go.

UPDATE: The BBC has the video:

According to McClatchy's Adam Ashton, the man's name is Muthathar al Zaidi and works for an Iraqi satellite television station:

Friends said he covered the U.S. bombing of Baghdad's Sadr City area earlier this year and had been "emotionally influenced" by the destruction he'd seen. They also said he'd been kidnapped in 2007 and held for three days by Shiite Muslim gunmen.

The Sawiris family, which owns Egyptian telecom firm Orascom, has a history of making smart business deals. So maybe they know something the rest of us don't?

An Egyptian company said it will launch 3G mobile telephone service in North Korea on Monday, after winning the contract to build the advanced network in a country where private cell phones are banned. [...]

It was not clear what restrictions, if any, would be imposed on the network, which provides data capabilities as well as phone services. Ordinary North Koreans are forbidden from having cellular phones, and the government maintains strict controls over Internet access.

At a minimum, it's a great opportunity for the world's espionage services.

UPDATE: CrunchGear's Nicholas Deleon comments:

I just find it funny that there's going to be 3G in Pyongyang and I can't so much as get T-Mobile EDGE here in Dutchess County, NY, which is about an hour north of NYC.

Ecuador, surely the first of many countries to do so in the months ahead, is defaulting on its debt. And who does President Rafael Correa blame for this parlous state of affairs? The lenders, whom he calls "monsters" whose loans are "obviously immoral and illegitimate."

Hmm. Too bad Correa has alienated Uncle Sam. Maybe his friend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will help? Surely Iran has the clout to convince lenders to agree to new terms, no?

In any case, here's a possible side effect of Ecuador's default: prices of bananas may go up. Seriously -- Ecuador is literally a banana republic, and agriculture is a business fueled by credit. And after this move by Correa, it's going to be awfully expensive to borrow money in Quito.

UPDATE: Felix Salmon says the default is "idiotic":

In the annals of idiotic political decisions, today's default by Ecuador has to rank pretty high. [...] This debt has already been restructured twice, and there's zero chance that bondholders will agree to it being restructured a third time. They know that Ecuador has the ability to pay, and they don't like being bullied.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

I just noticed that the Jerusalem Post has a top-level link on its Web site called "Iranian Threat":

Kind of unusual for a newspaper, no?

Haaretz, in contrast, plays it straight:

UPDATE: A journo friend in Beirut writes in:

I am loving the Foreign Policy blog as always, but I am curious exactly how Haaretz "plays it straight" with sections titled "Diplomacy" and "Defense"?

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't really notice this myself until I'd been reading Haaretz for months. It's still the best source I've come across for Israel-Palestine related news.

When Nicolas Sarkozy named Bernard Kouchner as France's foreign minister, we all wondered whether the Médicins Sans Frontières founder could reconcile his passion for human rights with the exigencies of raison d'êtat.

Now, it seems, he's admitted he can't:

"I think I was wrong to ask for a ministry of state for human rights. It was a mistake," Dr Kouchner told Le Parisien newspaper. The remarks were particularly shocking, coming from the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and proponent of the "right to intervention" in countries that abuse human rights.

The reason for Dr Kouchner’s regrets? "There is a permanent contradiction between human rights and the foreign policy of a state, even in France," he said.

Photo: ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images

We love our friends upstairs at the Council on Foreign Relations. But I think it's time to use a new word for "challenge":

I suppose "Obama's Middle East Cluster****" wouldn't quite fly, though.

I doubt this is true, but it is funny:

The subdued Ms Merkel, who loathes Mr Sarkozy's bravura, has been watching videos of the late Louis de Funès, a manic comic actor and Gallic institution, for clues to understanding the ever-agitated President. 

Here's a representative sample of M. De Funès's work:

Marc Ambinder reports:

Mark Lippert, a senior national security adviser to Obama during the campaign, will be chief-of-staff at the National Security Council. In that role, he's likely to be a constant presence by Obama's side. Lippert, an intelligence officer who served in the Iraq war, was the first foreign policy adviser that Sen. Obama hired.

Looking for a safe harbor to park your cash? Invest in Korean ramen. Bloomberg:

[South Korea's] economic woes are helping sales of instant noodles called "ramyeon," which typically cost about 68 cents a pot. Sales rose 38 percent in October compared with the same period last year, according to the 24-hour convenience store chain FamilyMart. Shares of Nong Shim, which makes the nation's best-selling brand of ramyeon, gained 17 percent in the past month.

Sales of cigarettes and condoms are up, too.

Speak Japanese? Me neither. According to Japan Probe, though, this video report tells the tale of one Mr. Nakamura, a boxing-gym owner in bicycle-clogged Osaka:

Nakamura acts a volunteer bicycle parking manners enforcer, standing around for hours forcing people to re-park their bicycles in places he decides. All his efforts are ultimately meaningless, as the sheer volume of bicycles means there will always be parking chaos.

Watch the video here:

Sesame Street, the U.S. television show, used to have a segment called "one of these things is not like the others."

Can you spot the anomoly in this list?

• James Schlesinger
• Charles Duncan
• James Edwards
• Donald Hodel
• John Herringon
• James Watkins
• Hazel O'Leary
• Federico Pena
• Bill Richardson
• Spencer Abraham
• Samuel Bodman
• Steven Chu

You guessed it: Steven Chu is the only name on this list that is followed by the letters P, h, and D. He's also the only one with a Nobel Prize, and the only one who has run a major laboratory. Frankly, he is a badass -- and he will be looking to get things done on climate change.

The current U.S. energy secretary, Samuel Bodman, is the only other scientist on the list, but he has an Sc.D degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Basically, it's the same thing as a Ph.D, but Bodman has long since stopped practicing chemical engineering.

Photo: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Any Passport readers out there know how to say "change we can believe in" in the Iraqi dialect? Reuters reports:

Barack Obama's election in the United States has already had an impact in Iraq, inspiring some black Iraqis to run in a forthcoming election in the hope of ending what they call centuries of discrimination.

"Obama's win gave us moral strength," said Jalal Chijeel, secretary of the Free Iraqi Movement.

He said the group would be the first to field black candidates in any Iraqi poll when it joins provincial elections scheduled for January 31.

Jonathan Mummolo reports for the Washington Post:

Customs officials searching the bags of an African man who flew into Dulles International Airport on Friday discovered three charred monkeys in his luggage, as well as pounds of deer meat and dried beef, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said today.

Watch the video from last night's show here: