I obviously have more important things to do with with my time, BUT

So, Nakba Day, that happened. Round-up of news, yadda yadda yadda.

Andrew Sullivan says this:

The logic of the Arab Spring - self-determination and democracy as a fundamental right - cannot but involve Israel's occupation and continued settlement of the West Bank at some point. Israel is, after all, no longer the only democracy in the Middle East. It is just the only democracy forcibly occupying a foreign land and refusing to give the occupants full civil or political rights.

It gets frustrating and tiring to read things like this and to hear Andrew and others preaching over and over that if Israel just gave over the West Bank in its entirety, then everything would be fine. Does he honestly believe that if the two-state solution were already implemented, things like this would end?

Jeffrey Goldberg is pretty annoyed that Ethan Bronner (see the third "yadda" above) is "accepting the Hamas/Assad/Iran line" and ignoring the bottom line. Andrew Exum rocks it:

This will shock all some none of you, but Arab regimes have often cynically used the Palestinian cause to shift the focus away from their own failures and abuses. The clashes today are the best of news for Bashar al-Asad, and only the Lord knows how many brave Syrians will now be gunned down or thrown into prison in Homs, Douma, Hama, Baniyas, etc. while everyone's eyes are on the Lebanese, Syrian and Gazan borders with Israel. Just yesterday, we were all talking about terrified Syrians fleeing into northern Lebanon. Now Syria and its allies have either engineered or have been presented with the mother of all distractions from their own wretched and criminal behavior.

I think he's missing where Bronner does actually get to that (again, third "yadda"), but it's about halfway down in the article, and it's pretty short:

The chief Israeli military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said on Israel Radio that he saw Iran’s fingerprints in the coordinated confrontations, although he offered no evidence. Syria has a close alliance with Iran, as does Hezbollah, which controls southern Lebanon, and Hamas, which rules in Gaza.

Yoni Ben-Menachem, Israel Radio’s chief Arab affairs analyst, said it seemed likely that President Assad of Syria was seeking to divert attention from his crackdown on the popular uprisings there by allowing confrontations in the Golan Heights for the first time in decades.

“This way Syria makes its contribution to the Nakba Day cause, and Assad wins points by deflecting the media’s attention from what is happening inside Syria,” he added.

But much more importantly, I think, Sullivan and Goldberg both miss one crucial tidbit from the Ynet article covering the Syrian break (second "yadda"), that some Syrian infiltrators were actually attempted to get out of Syria and stay in Israel!:

"I'm tired of living in Syria, we'd rather die than see more bloodshed," one of the Syrian infiltrators into Majdal Shams told Ynet earlier. He called on Israel to grant him asylum, adding: "We've crossed the border in order to stay with our families, away from all the killing in Syria. We ask the powers at be in Israel to help us stay and not send us back."

Other infiltrators told Ynet that "we come in peace," adding that they had decided to cross the border in the aims of living in the Golan Heights – "even if it means risking our lives." Still, others declared "we are here to liberate the Syrian Palestinian land. These people are Palestinian freeman, Allah willing, the Palestinian groups will not give up."

Some of those expressing a wish to remain on the Israeli side of the border, said the uprising against Syrian President Assad is proving more and more dangerous and that many Palestinians now fear for their lives.

Add this news to the recent polling that, if given a choice between a newly-created Palestinian state and Israel, many Arab Israeli residents of East Jerusalem would choose to live in Israel (35% choose Israel, 30% choose a Palestinian state, and 35% are unsure), and a pretty important picture emerges.

Sullivan's Departure from the Atlantic

I've been unable to concentrate on a paper due in a couple of hours because I've been focusing on a fundamental question (for nerds and wonks, that is)- what does Andrew Sullivan's move from The Atlantic to The Daily Beast mean?

Well, it's really not clear. It only happened about 5 hours ago, and most bloggers haven't touched it yet, especially not to talk about anything deep. Ben Smith reported it first, and Jeffrey Goldberg gave a personal recollection about his importance as a blogger, but that's all so far. Everyone has reported it on Twitter (Yglasias, Klein, et al.) but none have details, or have been talking about the implications and larger context.

I have some questions, but nothing too thought out. Bear with me, if this is at all interesting to you. (Thanks to my friend Mikey, who helped me think through most of this and added insights, as always.)

First off, the Atlantic is a reputable magazine with a rich history. And with the journalism field suffering as it has been the past few years, it's one of the few magazine that has managed not only to balance impressive blog and articles, but improve and grow as a magazine. (And without having to charge for internet content, which is obviously important for those of us who are students and/or broke.) The Atlantic has really proven itself to be a premiere magazine in a lot of ways. NYTimes wrote a nice piece a couple of months ago about their business model and how they've used web integration in a way that other magazines should emulate- read it here. Why would Sullivan jump ship from the Atlantic, which is clearly moving upwards and has an incredible reputation, to the Daily Beast? DB just doesn't have the same name as the Atlantic; does Sullivan not care about that? Is he confident enough that his reputation will only boost DB's? In his goodbye post, he writes about how excited he is about the Newsweek and DB merge, and that this experiment in online media and journalism is "just too fascinating and exciting a challenge to pass up," but I'm a bit skeptical.

Second, with that having been said, and with Sullivan's admiration for the Atlantic (and he mentioned in his goodbye post and in many posts in the past), why specifically would he want to leave? Forget about the appeal of experimenting with online media (sheesh, speaking of nerds...), what were problems as the Atlantic that encouraged him to find a better deal? Did he not have enough freedom to write what he pleased, to hire whomever he wanted for the Dish, etc.? It doesn't seem like it, and he's never mentioned having a problem there. But who knows? There are always internal politics at play.

Third, it's clear that the Atlantic will take a hit without the traffic from Andrew's millions of visitors. That saddens me. As a follower of multiple Atlantic blogs (Jeffrey Goldberg and Ta-Nehisi Coates are two of my favorites), what will happen to the blogging world of the Atlantic? How much traffic will they lose? Will great bloggers now aspire to go to the Daily Beast? ...Seriously?

Lastly, and I think, most importantly, Sullivan and the Dish had a huge impact on the Atlantic, and really shaped the direction it has taken in the past few years. What happens now, both for the Atlantic and for DB? Mikey asked, "is this a harbinger of making Newsweek more like the Atlantic, or making Sullivan more like Newsweek?" My guess is that Sullivan will be Sullivan, and that DB and Newsweek will either shape himself to be more like him, or just let him be to do his thing. It's hard to attempt a guess about the shifts the Atlantic might take.

As always, looking for feedback!

(Oh, and seeing this is a post about blogging- mazal tov to me! Last week I finally hit 200 blogs on my RSS feed!)