OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam acknowledged in a briefing at Northern Command headquarters in Safed on Sunday afternoon that the commander of the IDF's civil administration unit had already begun preparations toward the possibility of instituting a military administration in areas captured by the IDF over the last week.

According to Adam, "certain units who will give us breathing space have been called up, including the commander of that unit." The unit's activation, however, would only take place following comprehensive consultations, he said.

1) the extraoardinary lengths of circumlocution to which Cohen will go in order to avoid the reality that this is interventionism. Craig Murray, who has sat across a table from Cohen once or twice in the past, writes that British diplomats are working overtime to prevent a ceasefire - they are intervening, in other words, to ensure Israel's destruction of Lebanon continues;

2) the pungent racism involved, in which imperialist states must, instead of ceasing to engage in imperialism, instead of ceasing to prop up local bullies and thugs as extensions of their power, 'intervene' to suppress the inherent barbarism of the Middle East. Cohen reminds us of the multinational force that was driven out of Lebanon by Hezbollah and bemoans the fact that few international forces would want to go in and face that again, but the thought of what those forces did and why the Lebanese did not wish to be occupied by a multilateral mission force simply doesn't occur to him;

3) the deep trauma of Iraq in Cohen's conscience. Evidently at some loss to say something good about the occupation, he babbles about Iraqi democrats (by which he means the occupation's supporters), and avers that the reason no one will 'intervene' here is because of Iraq, and the awful stigma of mass murder, torture, rape, US death squads and so on that antiwar protesters have conferred on it. In Cohen's imagination, "Generals" resile from combat if Al Qaeda are involved, while "liberals" are insufficiently apprised of the threat of "barbarism" and too much apprised of the threat of Bushism. To put it another way, Generals are too soft to like smacking foreigners around any more, because they're too scared of Al Qaeda, and liberals are too soft to smack them around because they're too scared of Bush. If only the military men weren't so chicken shit and the antiwar protesters weren't so, well, antiwar, then all would be well in Palestine.

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Speaking of racism, have a look at this BBC story:

The children's father paces the hospital corridor. His dress, language, beard and the fact that he was "elsewhere" when the attack occurred, all indicate he may be a member of Hezbollah.

This describes a father whose family has been attacked by Israeli fire in Rmeich, a Christian village where they had fled to in the hope of finding safety. They decided to travel back to Tyre by car when they found Rmeich being targeted as well - and the car was blown up. The odious insinuation of that quote, that the family was targeted because the father "may be" a member of Hezbollah - because he has a fucking beard and looks religious - is galling enough. But the other insinuation is that the father's absence is indicative of guilt, that being away from one's children for a period of time is unusual and must suggest that he is a fighter and - what? - that he stayed away from the car and let his kids cop it? What's next? "The man's bad bwoy looks, bling bling, ethnic mannerisms and the fact that he was 'elsewhere' when the police shot his family up suggested that he may be a yardie"?