Today's Boston Globe staff-ed thinks talk of military action as Gaza spirals out of control is a product of domestic Israeli politics:
But the rockets are falling in the run-up to elections scheduled for Feb. 10. At such a time, most politicians find it particularly hard to resist the temptation of playing to popular passions.
Popular passions? That's easy for the Globe to say. Their newsroom isn't A) within a 30 km radius of Gaza, B) in any cities just wired this week into the code red alert system, C) coming off a rattling day of 80 rockets.
But one Israeli party is learning a lesson from a different Massachusetts institution, the legendary Tip O'Neill, who is associated with the maxim, "All politics is local."
Meretz, a party the Globe wouldn't consider "hawkish" by any stretch, and which has members living within Qassam range, seems to have caught up in the "popular passions" too. They're also calling for military action.
