Life Itself Documentary Superior to Memoir

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LIFE ITSELF (2014)

Directed by Steve James

Magnolia Pictures, 116 minutes, R (language, brief nudity)

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Life Itself is a documentary film based on the memoir of film critic Roger Ebert (1942-2013), a man who did much to bridge the gap between serious criticism, fun, and mainstream tastes. To his detractors, Ebert and longtime TV partner Gene Siskel were showboats who pandered to the public and dumbed down the movies, but that’s not the way Ebert’s champions see it. Among those who credit Ebert with lifting them from obscurity are Ramin Bahrani, Werner Hertzog, Errol Morris, and Martin Scorsese. Indeed, such is the critic's greatest power. The hoi polloi is predisposed to view any manner of pap and crap if it has a boffo box office star or big-money advertising hype behind it. What a good critic can do is alert the public of treasures lingering in obscurity.

Roger Ebert was a very, very good critic. As the film reveals, his talent emerged early. The opening of a piece Ebert wrote on the 1964 death of civil rights workers in Mississippi for the University of Illinois student paper is the most eloquent I’ve ever heard on this American tragedy. In 1975, Ebert was awarded the very first Pulitzer Prize ever given to a film critic and with good reason–few have ever written about nuanced things with Ebert’s approachable grace.  It also came easy; Ebert could knock off a publishable review in less than a half hour.

Director Steve James–perhaps best known for Hoop Dreams–gives us a warts-and-all look at Ebert, whom we first meet shortly before his death from complications related to the thyroid cancer from which he suffered the last decade of his life. Ebert wanted his demise to be documented, in part because of the secrecy with which Siskel masked his own cancer struggles before passing away in 1999. Watching Ebert isn’t for the squeamish. He had no jaw, as in none. In his final years, his unsupported bottom lip drooped down about four inches and one could see straight through his mouth to his neck. He could neither eat nor drink by mouth and needed to be suctioned several times per day, a grueling process also shown on film.

Ebert was a great writer, but blog readers will recall that I did not think his memoir was a great book. Its structure was uneven, the chronology was disjointed, and there were few logical connections in the book. James’ script upstages the memoir by revealing many of the missing links. It’s also a needed corrective to the near deification of Ebert that emerged in his later years. James fashioned order from Ebert’s hodgepodge memories and gives us enough chronological narrative to give those vignettes context. What emerges is a portrait of a complex man, at once mercurial and brilliant. Like other Chicago icons–Mike Ditka, Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel–he wasn’t a native, rather a Champagne-Urbana lad who landed in the city determined to reinvent himself. And so he did, but in bad ways as well as good. James spent considerable time (with Ebert’s full cooperation) plumbing Ebert’s struggles with alcoholism.

He also shows a few of Ebert’s other unflattering traits, such as his obsession with large female breasts and his equally outsized ego. Ebert’s one movie script was for a Russ Meyer boobaganza film and Ebert stubbornly defended the brilliance of both the script and Meyer until his death–judgments hardly anyone else shares. His prickliness also led to epic battles with rival and TV co-host (from 1975-1990) Gene Siskel, who was one of the few who could match Ebert’s ego and fierce intellect. Eventually the two titans became close friends, though their relationship was never easy, as Siskel’s widow Marlene reveals.

The most likable character in this documentary is Ebert’s widow, Chaz, the African-American lawyer he married in 1992. (Ebert also briefly dated Oprah Winfrey.) Chaz was the love of his life, his partner in numerous ventures, and his literal voice for the last few years of his life. She has been active in maintaining the film festival Ebert started (which is oddly omitted from the film).

Documentaries about complicated people inevitably leave us wanting. We learn far more of Ebert’s quarrels with Siskel than of their reconciliation and friendship. The dispute that led both to bolt from Sneak Previews to Disney in 1982 flies by too fast and and Ebert’s blended family–especially granddaughter Raven– is so delightful we wish James had lingered on it for a bit longer. We find out what other critics think of Ebert, but not what he thought of them. Then we remember: Ebert was complex and there’s just so much that can be said in a few hours. A hearty thumbs-up to Life Itself.  –Rob Weir

Spies to Cuba: The Real Obama Scandal

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He said it, but he sure as hell didn't mean it!

Still have stars in your eyes for Barack Obama? If so, get thee to an ophthalmologist. Forget the crazy-as-a-loon stuff: Obama's birth certificate, the Obama-is-a-Muslim madness, the Benghazi bullshit… Here's one you can and should pin on him: beginning in 2009, Obama authorized (not so) covert activities in Cuba. Using the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a front, Obama sent poorly trained young folks from Costa Rica, Peru, and Venezuela into Cuba to spy, foment rebellion, and set up propaganda arms (like a Cuban Twitter account).

Of course it all unraveled. You don't sent boys to do the jobs of trained spooks. Must I say it again? The Castro/Communism/Cuba paranoia is way past its sell-by date. Everything about the USAID scandal reeks of ineptitude of the highest magnitude. When I voted for Obama in 2008, I had high hopes that an intelligent man would take the Oval Office. Guess I was wrong.

Forget impeachment–no U.S. laws were violated–but I wonder how Obama could keep a straight face when collecting his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. That one's going to go into the books as the biggest Nobel farce since Henry Kissinger's.

Let's not sugarcoat this–the Cuba spy operation is very, very bad. In 1961, President Kennedy authorized the Bay of Pigs operation–a complete fiasco in which sixty-eight erstwhile liberators of Cuba died. It too was stupid and Kenney should have never green-lighted it. He at least had the excuse that it made some 'sense' in the Cold War era and it was plan he inherited from Eisenhower. Obama has no such excuse, and there may well be loss of life associated with Obama's arrogance. Now that the lid has been blown off a plan involving USAID, every Western humanitarian worker, exchange student, missionary, and foreign-based scholar is at risk. He's made the "spy" tag plausible for every thug looking to seize Western hostages. Congratulations, Mr. President, you've just placed Doctors without Borders physicians, Fulbright scholars, Peace Corps volunteers, legitimate USAID workers, Red Cross personnel, Oxfam activists, and religious charity staff in jeopardy.

Obama's damage to US ideals isn't the worst in recent memory, but his humanitarian credentials have been shredded. Here's my list of the six worst presidential misadventures since 1960 in order of egregiousness:

            1. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964): President Johnson withheld critical information from Congress, which never asked for the details. This marked America's entry into Vietnam combat operations, which did not end until 1973. It cost 58,000 American lives and untold numbers in Vietnam.

            2. Invented Weapons of Mass Destruction (2001-present): George W. Bush's inept reading (or lie–take your pick) of what Saddam Hussein did not hold. This led to the Gulf War in 2003, Saddam Hussein's removal from power, and Iraq's descent into hell. We are still paying for this war, literally and metaphorically. 4,489 Americans have died there and the current price tag is over $1.57 trillion dollars. Iraq's costs are incalculable. Bush should have been impeached.

            3. Watergate (1972-74): Nixon's attempt to trash the U.S. Constitution resulted in two years of national angst–at a time in which nothing could get done to head off hyperinflation, deindustrialization, or the energy crisis. Nixon was rightly impeached.

            4. Iran Contra (1985-87): What a tin soldier and colossal liar Reagan was! As Oliver North later revealed, Reagan was just playing dumb during the hearings–he knew all along about the illegal funding of the Nicaraguan Contras and personally authorized weapons' sales to Iran. Between Reagan and Bush II, the US effectively made arch-enemy Iran the region's superpower. It's a minor injustice that Bush wasn't impeached; it's a major miscarriage of justice that Reagan wasn't. His contempt for the rule of law matched Nixon's.

            5. Obama's Cuban spying.

            6. Bay of Pigs. This one ranks under Obama's scam/scheme because at least those involved knew they were being placed in harm's way.

            Dishonorable Mention: Nixon's "secret bombing" of Cambodia (1969-70); the CIA's involvement in overthrowing Allende (1973—Nixon again); Gulf War I (1990-91–George H. Bush's attempt to make the world safe for monarchy); deregulation under Reagan/Bush (1981-93–giving America's wealth to pirates). Special Blockhead Awards: US Congress for trying to impeach Clinton in 1998 and Clinton for being such an ass he encouraged it.

So if you look at the above list, Obama's only the fifth biggest idiot in the past fifty years. Is that what you thought you were getting in 2008? The Democrats are headed for a major fall in November and odds are against them for holding the White House in 2016. Say goodbye to what's left of the Great Society after that. Guess whose fault that will be? Thanks for nothing, Barack.  

Crazies Offended by Being Called Crazy: Can't Take It? Don't Dish It.

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Tea Partiers, anti-tax zealots, and assorted other Troglodytes are shocked–shocked I tell you–by reports that former Internal revenue Service official Lois Lerner didn't like them. But wait–it gets worse. She called them names!!!! Awwwwww–poor babies.

And not just any names; Lerner called the Tea Party Republicans "crazies" and the people who troll on right-wing radio "assholes." I'm not seeing the problem here–sounds like straightforward description to me. Nonetheless, Rep. David Camp of Michigan said Lerner demonstrated "disgust with conservatives." Funny, I thought the First Amendment gave her the right to hold such views, but we'll come back to that. Others, of course, claim she "targeted" conservative groups to audit because of her politics. We'll come back to that as well.

First, how about some context? The IRS was under intense attack by the Tea Party, including many that wanted it shut down. If you were Lerner, might you too have thought a bunch of "crazies" were at the gates? Her comments stemmed from hearing a rightwing woman rave that "America was going down the tubes." She emailed a colleague about it, who told her that the standard line on rightwing talk radio was that "The US is through; too many foreigners sucking the teat; time to hunker down; buy ammo and food, and prepare for the end." Lerner's in context response was, "Great. Maybe we are through if there that many assholes." When told that the callers were more rabid still Lerner remarked, "So we don't need to worry about alien terrorists. It's our own crazies that will take us down." I couldn't agree more, but let's move on.

If the right is going to whine when it's called names, maybe it should STFU. Dear old Rush Limbaugh has called pro-choice advocates, "extremists" and the Surgeon General "obese" (said the fat man!), claimed that Democrats opposed voter ID because they want to preserve "cheating," castigated young people for having "a romantic attachment to civil rights and "emancipating people from oppression," liberally (pun intended) drops the term "feminazi," and lampooned liberals as "champions of ignorance." He's lame compared to Ann Coulter, who counsels we should "invade other countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," calls swing voters "idiots," says that soccer moms are "as likely to receive anthrax in the mail as they are to develop linear thinking," calls for a return to poll taxes, and accuses liberals and Democrats of treason. Give me a buck for every time the Tea Party uses the N-word to describe Barack Obama–and its members tend to misspell it on signs!–and I'll buy Fox News and fire these assholes.

The Crazy Right did this.

Do you want crazy? Trent Franks (MS) called President Obama "an enemy of humanity," Glen Urquhart (Tea Party candidate DE) thinks those wanting church/state separation are Nazis, Carl Paladino (governor candidate NY) thinks urban kids want to go to prison for their excellent facilities, and the NRA put a target on a map showing Gabby Giffords' home before she was nearly assassinated. Eight Planned Parenthood workers have been murdered since 1993 and there have been bombs at 41 clinics and arsons at 173. Anti-Semitism is on the rise, schools are like NRA firing ranges, and far-right ideologues have killed 34 people for political reasons since 9/11. Does anyone remember the bloodiest attack on US soil before 9/11? That would be Timothy McVeigh at Oklahoma City in 1995, a man who thought himself right–Far Right. So yeah, there are a whole lot of assholes out there and they're probably a bigger threat than Al Qaida.

Is anyone over the age (chronological or mental) of twelve surprised that the IRS (and FBI, ATF, DEA, etc.) is sometimes politically motivated? Google COINTELPRO and get back to me. Or is it okay if it's the left that's targeted? In my view, all agencies and (especially) banks and businesses ought to be scrutinized by the IRS, but you have to be a crazy not to think this stuff hasn't been politicized for decades. And the answer is always the same–have nothing to hide. Imagine the gall of the IRS to check on whether or not an organization was cheating on its taxes! Let's say it again: Awwwww! Poor babies! 

A Cafe for People, not Laptops

Yesterday's mail brought my new issue of Vermont Life. Sure–it's a glossy mix of nostalgia and propaganda, but I always relish it. I also happen to think that Vermont is one of the few islands of sanity left in what's left of the United States.  

One small story caught my eye: August First, a small café in Burlington's south end decided to turn off the WiFi and ban laptops. Imagine the radicalism of such a move. Why the unmitigated gall of owners Jodi Whalen and Phil Merrick–expecting people to use their tables to consume food and converse instead as their own personal office space.

It was a risk in today's it's-all-about-me-and-it-should-be-free society. A risk, but a calculated one. How often have you walked out a café or restaurant in which there were no tables because about 75% of them were filled by a single pretentious hipster with a laptop and one cup of tepid coffee he had been nursing for the past three hours? It happened too often for Whalen and Merrick, a husband-wife team who actually have to make a living selling cups of Joe, pastries, and sandwiches. And guess what? When August First turned off the wireless, its sales went up by a whopping 20% in the first year. I've not been there, so maybe that's because they make really good muffins, but I think it had a lot to do with reclaiming the café as a public space instead of a private wombs for the wired and selfish.

I applaud August First and I sincerely hope this is the beginning of a trend. Many's the time I've walked out of a local favorite, Woodstar Café, upon seeing a laptopper per table. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to scream, "Get a room, ya' cheapskate @$#&*%^s." 

You can bet that I'll be at August First my next trip to Burlington. For those living nearby, please support Whalen and Merrick. August First is located at 149 South Champlain Street, open Monday to Friday from 7:30 am to 5 pm and Saturday from 8 am to 3 pm. Here's the menu: 

Hooray for August First! Cafés of the world unite; you've only your freeloaders to lose.

Five Takeaways from Canada

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There's nothing like a little travel to make you reflect upon your normal routine–including those daily interactions that make up the cultural air that one breathes. We've just recently returned from a trip through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and brought back five things that Canadians do that could improve life here in the US of A. This isn't to say that Canada is utopia by any means, but we'd happily teach the Canadians a few things about marketing and public relations–subjects about which Canadians in the Maritimes are clueless–if they send a few coaches across the border to teach Americans the following:

1. Courteous driving: The Trans-Canada and other roads have numerous climbing lanes for trucks and slow vehicles. These, of course, eventually come to an end. The American way is to gun your engine for all it's worth to make certain you pass as many cars as possible, even if you have to squeeze a few drivers off the road. The Canadian way is to gauge your speed and that of the car ahead of you and politely drop back and wait for the next passing zone if you can't comfortably overtake that car. Lesson: Drive nicely.

2. Waiting in general: Driving habits are indicative of an overall patience commodity that's in short supply in the USA. One sees it everywhere. Pedestrians routinely wait for walk signals, even if traffic is light; bicyclists use hand signals and follow traffic laws. No one jostles in supermarket lines or makes a mad dash whenever a new lane opens. I saw exactly one child take a tantrum. He was tucked into the back of a car with Maryland plates. Lessons: What's the hurry? And it's not all about you.

3. No penny for your thoughts. Canadians have pretty much phased out pennies and no one stands around moaning about getting cheated. They simply round up or down to the nearest nickle and figure that sometimes they'll make out by a penny or two or will pay a few cents more. Either way, it's been centuries since old Ben Franklin's adage "A penny saved is a penny earned" was close to being true. Pennies cost more to produce than they're worth and they simply make routine exchanges cumbersome. As one clerk at a store said when I asked about pennies said, "It's just a penny. What's the point?" Lesson: There is no point to pennies.

4. Modicum of national pride: Nova Scotians are as far from Ottawa as a lot of Americans are from Washington, DC. Like folks here, Canadians complain about Ottawa and politicians in general. What they don't do in the Maritimes (or even in wide swaths of Quebec these days) is confuse the good of their nation with the worst of her politicians. Never thought I'd say this, but Canadians  have much more pride in their country than Americans do. Lesson: Rooting for American soldiers is not the same as loving your country.

5. Being nice: It comes up all the time. The first thing that pops into most people's mind when they think of Canadians is the word "nice." I've met a disagreeable Canadian or two, but it's generally true. They go out of their way to be helpful or strike up conversations. Some people would say that Canadians are too wholesome and, hence, are on the boring side. I say, "Smite me with such boredom." Lesson: I'll quote my good friend Steve,"You might as well be a mensch."

Mapping the Middle East: Palestine?

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Assyrian Empire

My recent post on Israel and Hamas has prompted commentary–quite a bit of it ahistorical. Among the ahistorical claims is that Palestinians somehow possess a greater claim to lands in the region than Jews. It's ahistorical first of all because soverign nation states are largely a late 18th/early 19th century invention. Any people's claim to sovereignty by some sort of "ancient" claim is at best sentiment, and at worst an attempt to mask expansionist dreams in what E. J. Hobsbawm called "invented tradition."

The idea of a nation state is old, but the reality emerged out of revolutions such as those that convulsed the American colonies and France in the late 18th century, and which led to the creation of unified Germany and Italy in the 19th. Prior to then people lived in city-states, kingdoms, empires, principalities and such, but not in nation states. The idea of drawing lines on a map and labeling those living within that dotted enclosure a "people" or a "nationality" is, at root, a fiction to which most of the earth's peoples have acceded over the past two hundred plus years.

Enter the idea of a Palestinian nation. One hears that Palestinians lived in the Middle East before the Jews. That's dodgy history and even worse anthropology. We toss around terms such as "Arab," "Palestinian," and "Jew" as if they are races rather than cultural and religious preferences or simply the movement of armies. DNA evidence shows that 72% of all Israelis and 82% of all Palestinians are ancestrally related–that is to say that the entire region is a hodgepodge of older peoples whose cultures are now extinct (Phoenicians, Moabites, Canaanites, etc.), who mingled with newer cultural traditions: Muslim, Christian, and Jew. Indeed, some anthropologists argue that there is, biologically speaking, no such thing as a "Palestinian."

It's for certain that there was no such thing as Palestinian nationalism until the 20th century. It emerged as an analog to Zionism and has no less legitimacy, but no more either. Check out Wikipedia's entry on ancient Palestine. Pay close attention to the maps–especially what's not there. With the exception of a loose confederation known as Palestina in the 5th century AD, there has been no kingdom, empire, or other political entity known as Palestine. There had been two Jewish  kingdoms (Israel and Judea) in the area long before "Palestina."

Palestine historically referenced only a region. Those who today claim any "historical" right to region are deluded. If there is a Palestinian "race," its ancestors were Assyrians, Egyptians, Macedonians, Romans, the peoples of various caliphates, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks–not autonomous Palestinians.  They were also pagans, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Muslims.

Here's a map of the region before World War One. From 1516 to 1917, "Palestine" was simply a far-flung province of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Turks fought with Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War One–the losing side.

 Enter the great nationalist map-drawers: England and France. The Middle East was a (word play intended) turkey to be carved after the war. Notice below that lines have been cavalierly drawn. These had little to do with ethnic groups, tribes, or historical affinity; they were a deal between the winning powers. The next map shows the region in 1930. See any state called "Palestine?" Nope. It's a "mandate," a word meaning that Britain administered the region by right of conquest. 

Of course, the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Vichy (Nazi) France) tried to do the same thing during World War II. The Brits retained nominal control during the war, but had the 1942 Battle of El Alamein gone the other way, Germans would have controlled the area. The war signaled the end of Europe's age of imperialism and its subjects learned a few things from their years of domination, including the concept of nationalism. 

1947

Look at the map of the region in 1947 and you'll see that new "nations" have emerged–that is, new fictions of dotted lines enclosing various peoples. Palestine isn't one of them, nor is an autonomous Israel; they are part of "Syria."

In 1948, the United Nations–in response to the Holocaust, but also to centuries of vicious anti-Antisemitism–acknowledged lines on a map and declared it "Israel." They drew some others and called it "Palestine," but those claiming to be Palestinian didn't accept the first set of lines and repudiated the second. Various newly created Arab nations declared war on Israel and were surprised when Israel defeated them.

Here's what the region looked like in 1949, after the peace treaty. I call your attention to the fact that Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan claimed the West Bank (aka/Palestine). This is where we've been since 1949, with various wars–none preemptively launched by Israel–shifting the lines here and there quite a few times.

The entire debate over the "right" to this land or that is political, not historical. We talk about "nations" because that's how we think at this moment in time. We also think that boundary disputes are supposed to be adjudicated by bodies such as the United Nations, the body that declared Israel's existence and its right to exist. It has also upheld the idea of an independent Palestine, a situation that has yet to occur because those living there accept neither Israel's right to exist or any of the lines drawn on maps. This is the rule of the jungle, not law. It ought to invite the label pariah, not victim. 

For the Misplaced Love of Hamas!

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The people who did this aren't worth your tears.

Someone hand me a bucket and mop–I need to wipe up the crocodile tears from bleeding hearts bemoaning Israel's assault on Gaza. I too lament the loss of all life and want this to stop. But let's place the blame where it belongs: on Hamas.

There's an old adage in need up of a comma update: he lives by the sword shall die by the sword, and a lot of innocent people die with him. Hamas is getting pounded and that's a good thing; the sooner Hamas is neutralized, the better the chances for peace in the Middle East. Most Westerners, though, are fixated on the disproportionate loss of life and collateral damage such as Israel's accidental bombing of a UN school.

In the first case all this really means is that Israel is better armed than Hamas, so stop making it into white keffiyehs against black yarmulkes. It's really a classic example of Israel being pushed to its limits. Can we stop pretending that Hamas is the legitimate voice of anything except hatred? Hamas are terrorist anti-Semites sworn to Israel's destruction. If Hamas had Israel's weaponry, it would have used it years ago, the cost in human lives be damned. As it is, 4,800 missiles–yes 4,800–have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel since 2001, nearly 4,000 of them after Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005. Who's the aggressor here, folks? Granted, Israeli loss of life from those attacks has been "light" (a term you wouldn't want to use around those who lost loved ones), but this is a measure of Hamas's inexactitude, not its determination.

About inexactitude, let's parse the school bombing a bit. It's only in movies and video games that rockets always hit their targets. The majority are not high-tech "smart bombs," and even then, smart bombs are often pretty dumb–as much as 60% of the time. Check out Paul Walker's excellent column subtitled "The Myth of Surgical Bombing in the Gulf War" (http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-myth.htm) Oh, excuse me for mentioning that the United States does the same things for which so many Americans are willing to condemn Israel for doing. Should I also mention that Israel was actually attacked by Hamas, as opposed to the manufactured reasons for U.S. involvement in both Gulf Wars? 

Is this the time to note the hypocrisy of Americans criticizing Israel for things we'd never tolerate? I've used this analogy before, but it remains apt. How long would it take to send in the Marines if Mexico shelled San Diego or El Paso daily? What if Russians routinely smuggled suicide bombers into Alaska? There were 164 suicide bombings inside Israel between 1989 and 2008 resulting in 804 deaths. Since 2008, both bombings and attempts have increased. Still want to talk about all the innocent lives lost in the Israeli assault? As a friend of mine once asked, "Bombs from above, bombs from below…what's the difference?" It's incredible that Israel has put up with Hamas as long as it has.

There are a few other things that baffle me over the sudden Western love for Palestinian terrorists. Has everyone forgotten the Palestinian gangs that danced in the streets when the Twin Towers fell? I haven't. Do we really think that a Palestine consisting of Gaza and the West Bank is viable? It's probably the worst idea since East and West Pakistan (with India dividing them). That one went really well–East Pakistan rebelled and formed Bangladesh in 1971, now one of the world's poorest nations. An independent Palestine would give it a run for its non-money.

The rational solution would be that Jordan absorb the West Bank and Egypt reassert claim over Gaza. The rub is that neither country wants any part of the factionalism, poverty, and violence of Gaza or the West Bank. So is this the time to remind you that it was Israel that gave Gaza its right to self-determination in 1994, that Jordan repudiated its desire to reclaim the West Bank in 1988, and that Israel agreed to the 1993 Oslo Accords by which some measure of autonomy was given to the West Bank? (Yes, there were strings attached.)

I won't deny that Israel isn't always a good neighbor and that West Bank settlements are a bad idea. Yet it remains the case that only Israel has traded land for peace and that Israel has never engaged in terrorism or launched an unprovoked war. We can cry many crocodile tears, but there will be no peace in the region until Palestinians silence Hamas (and Islamic Jihad) and recognize Israel's right to exist. Secretary of State John Kerry should set this as a precondition for any further U.S. discussion of Palestinian statehood and stay out of the region until it occurs.

One final thing. That school bombing shouldn't have happened. Kerry forged a ceasefire two days earlier. Guess who broke it? That would be Hamas.