Commentaries, Opinions, And Editorials -- July 31, 2014

Israel Tells Hamas: You Can Keep Your Rockets -- Eli Lake & Josh Rogin, Daily Beast

Israel's prime minister accuses them of being as bad as al Qaeda, but he isn’t trying to run the group out of Gaza. There’s a good reason why.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his military will not stop until it dismantles a labyrinth of tunnels often burrowed under private homes and even beneath Gaza’s mosques. But Netanyahu has not called for destroying the organization that built those tunnels: Hamas—and he won’t, multiple Israeli officials told The Daily Beast. Which raises the question: Why are Israeli forces in Gaza—at the cost of more than 1,300 lives and a rising tide of global condemnation—in the first place?

Read more ....

Commentaries, Opinions, And Editorials -- July 31, 2014

Collective Punishment in Gaza -- Rashid Khalidi, New Yorker

Did China Steal Iron Dome From Israel? -- Michael Peck, War Is Boring

As Iraq crisis deepens, veterans wonder: Was it worth it? -- Damiel B. Wood, CSM

The End of the Arab State -- Christopher Hill, Project Syndicate

Libya May Not Be A Case Study in Intervention After All -- Conor Friedersdorf, Defense One

Xi Jinping: The Putin of Asia -- Gordon G. Chang, World Affairs

Beware the Great Clash in Asia: China vs. America Is Getting Dangerous -- Robert Manning, National Interest

The Specter of North Korean ICBMs -- Clint Richards, The Diplomat

What’s going wrong with rebuilding Afghanistan? Inspector general has a list. -- Anna Mulrine, CSM

The United States Has Outspent the Marshall Plan to Rebuild Afghanistan -- Elias Groll, Foreign Policy

Ukraine’s War of Independence: Vladimir Putin has unleashed for -- Lucian Kim, Slate

The Kremlin Floats An Exit Strategy -- Brian Whitmore, Radio Free Europe

The West must prepare for a wounded Putin to become even more aggressive -- Washington Post editorial

We must end this collusion with terror in Colombia -- Seumas Milne, The Guardian

‘The Next 9/11 Kind of Event’ Could Be a Cyberattack -- Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

Argentina defaults - but isn't using the 'd-word' -- Irene Caselli, CSM

Call Him ‘Poprah’: Pope Francis’s 10 Commandments for a Happy Life -- Asawin Suebsaeng, Daily Beast