Area bloggers bored by Israel/Palestine

I haven't had much time to blog, but I've been waiting for others to mention the whole thing with Israel deciding to deport families of bombing suspects, and later backing down. That's a pretty blatant violation of human rights, so I expected it to generate a bit of commentary. (Note: no, suicide bombing isn't exactly nice, but enlightened societies aren't supposed to discard human rights no matter what the barbarians do. That's what why they're enlightened, and why those who don't act that way are barbarians.)

I won't bother ranting against it since the Israelis have backed down, it just struck me as odd it didn't come up in the blogs, and that people like Ken Layne could say on Friday that bsolutely nothing of interest [is] going on.

And hey, speaking of the suicide bombings, Hamas' spiritual leader (there's a job to be proud of) says that if Israel unilaterally ends the occupation, Hamas will "study" stopping its campaign of suicide bombing. Isn't that a relief, the war is as good as over!

Elections, well, maybe, but I'd rather not

PM Ecevit is saying he'd really prefer not to have new elections, which is giving "the markets" jitters (but then, what doesn't give the Turkish markets jitters?) But his coalition no longer has a majority, so he'd have to put together a new one, and nobody has enough confidence in his leadership to make any such new arrangement stable.

Parliament met today, but not enough members showed up for a quorum. Apparently this was due to disagreement over when the new elections should be scheduled, although I don't quite get what refusing to showing up to argue and vote about it is supposed to accomplish.

The Economist has an excellent summary of the Turkish situation, but unfortunately it's pay only. If you're not a subscriber but are interested in the topic, including it's ramifications for the War on Terror, run out and grab a copy, or better yet, subscribe.