Mum on the Mideast?

Kos takes note of the Drum posting, and offers his own take on why punditry matters little:

"Me? I grew up in a war zone. And there was one clear lesson I learned -- there will never be peace unless both sides get tired of the fighting and start seeking an alternative.

"It's clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting. They have centuries of grudges to resolve, and will continue fighting until they can get over them. And considering that they obviously have no interest in 'getting over them,' we're stuck with a war that will not end in any foreseeable future. It doesn't matter what we bloggers say. It doesn't matter what the President of the United States says. Or the United Nations. Or the usual bloviating gasbag pundits.

"When two sides are this dead-set on killing each other, very little can get in the way."

That drew a ruler across the Kos knuckles from Matthew Yglesias at TPM Cafe:

"I don't really think this is a viable position for people to take.

"For one thing, like it or not the United States is involved. We give an awful lot of money to Israel, and we also give a nice chunk of change to Egypt to help underwrite the Egypt-Israel peace accords. Our policy to Jordan is also linked to Jordan's relatively favorable attitude toward Israel. Conversely, the two countries in the region with whom we have the most hostile relationships -- Syria and Iran -- are not coincidentally the two countries that support rejectionist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.Israel issues, in other words, aren't just Israel issues. They link up with the other topics in the key region of the 'war on terror.'"

Drum feels compelled to respond as well:

"It's one thing for an individual blogger to feel inadequate to the task of commenting on any particular subject, but I don't think that means it's OK to throw in the towel entirely and give everyone else a pass at the same time. As past officeholders have shown, it does matter what the president of the United States says (and does), and it does matter what the UN and other international actors say (and do). After all, even if they can't pull lasting peace and harmony out of their back pockets, they always retain the possibility of making things worse."

See, even when bloggers say they don't have much to say, they've got plenty to say.

In a similar vein, the Nation's Ari Berman says:

"I almost never write about Israel. Someone who supports the Jewish state but opposes the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, as I do, generally gets flack from all sides. Too many on the left are reflexively anti-Israel. But too many in the so-called American mainstream are too quick to back whatever military excursion Israel undertakes--no matter how unproductive or misguided.