Hunker Down With History  —  The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake.  It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims …

Israeli General Says Lebanon Offensive Will Last Weeks  —  JERUSALEM, July 18 — A top Israeli general said today that Israel's offensive in Lebanon would last another few weeks, and he said that the use of large numbers of ground forces had not been ruled out.

Bush Gropes Germany's Merkel  —  updated below—  President Bush took time out from the G-8 Summit to grope German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  I'm not kidding.  It boggles the mind.  —  Via Mash (by the way, great get!), we get photos via a friend of his in Germany.

NYT to cut paper size and close plant  —Text+NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times Co. (NYT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) plans to narrow the size of its flagship newspaper and close a printing plant, resulting in the loss of 250 jobs, the company said in a story posted on its Web site late on Monday.

Why the Left Is Furious at Lieberman  —  A blogger's blast at the embattled Connecticut senator.  Hint: It's not just Iraq.  —  SOME TIME AFTER having lunch in Iraq with the junior senator from Connecticut, Time magazine Baghdad bureau chief Michael Ware told an interviewer …

Transformation's Toll  —  "Grotesque" was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's characterization of the charge that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was responsible for the current Middle East conflagration.  She is correct, up to a point.  This point: Hezbollah and Hamas were alive and toxic long before March 2003.

G.O.P. Senator Resisting Bush Over Detainees  —  WASHINGTON, July 17 — Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina often plays the contrarian, the conservative Republican willing to poke a stick in the eye of the White House.  —  Now Mr. Graham is playing an even higher-profile variant of that role …

U.S. citizens remain in dark about evacuation  —  Official: Operation costs more than available resources; 64 have left so far  —  A French toddler is carried over a fence by relatives as they wait Monday with hundreds of other French citizens near their embassy in Beirut to be evacuated from Lebanon.

The Democrats' message dilemma  —  WASHINGTON — It was a bit startling the other morning to hear Sen. Charles Schumer of New York — the garrulous poster boy of Democratic liberalism — intone that New Deal Democracy is over.  But also, he added just as surprisingly, so is Reagan Republicanism.

Military-Style Assault Kills Dozens in Iraqi Marketplace  —  BAGHDAD, July 17 — Masked attackers with heavy machine guns mounted on pickup trucks slaughtered at least 40 people in a crowded market area south of Baghdad on Monday, hurling grenades to blow up merchants at their counters …

Where Is The "Netroots Left" On Israel?  —  Missing in action.  —  First a bit of background.  The so-called Netroots Left, led by Markos Moulitsas of the popular Daily Kos, wants to be a player in American politics.  As a test case, the Kossacks are throwing their weight behind political …

IDF needs another week to alleviate Hizbullah threat  —  Forty to fifty percent of Hizbullah's military capability has been destroyed in the six days of the IDF counter-attack following last Wednesday's Hizbullah raid in northern Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.