The voluminous media commentary dedicated to President Barack Obama's May 19 speech on the Middle East has overwhelmingly focused on his extremely modest and reasonable demand that a peace settlement must be based on Israel's 1967 (that is to say, legal) borders—and the scandalized Israeli reaction. Nearly lost in all this noise is the first three-quarters of the speech, which speak to why the White House has for the first time in history embraced this minimal demand. The imperative to control the political trajectory of the Arab Spring—which is, as we have argued, what is really driving the Libya intervention—can be detected in every syllable of the transcript...

In what is surely a great moment in bad timing, the killing of Osama bin Laden—and the news that the Navy SEALS had code-named him "Geronimo"—came just days before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee had scheduled a hearing entitled "Stolen Identities: The Impact of Racist Stereotypes on Indigenous People." As Indian Country Today reported, this provided an opportunity for Harlyn Geronimo—great-grandson of the famous Apache warrior—to register his protest to the nation. Rightly calling the use of his forebear's name a "subversion of history" and "unpardonable slander of Native America and its most famous leader in history," he went on to make demands since taken up by other Native American voices:

Persistent rumors that private Israeli security companies are recruiting mercenaries for embattled Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi were given new credence by a May 2 report on the Zurich-based International Relations and Security Network (ISN) website. Although the report itself cites unnamed "reports," it for the first time names a particular Israeli firm which is said to have been contracted by the afflicted Tripoli regime:

Ethnic cleansing by degrees. From Ha'aretz, May 11:

Justice Ministry admits it covertly canceled residency status of 140,000 Palestinians
Israel has used a covert procedure to cancel the residency status of 140,000 West Bank Palestinians between 1967 and 1994, the Justice Ministry admits in a new document obtained by Haaretz. The document was written by the ministry's Judea and Samaria office after the Center for the Defense of the Individual filed a request under the Freedom of Information Law.

This is pretty funny, given that the Taliban stone people to death for getting stoned. But it really appears that Osama bin Laden liked to get bombed as well as to bomb others. Hopefully, this will expose the jihadi fundamentalists as a bunch of hypocrites—like most puritans. From New York magazine's Daily Intel blog:

The lack of reaction to the apparent killing of Osama bin Laden is in some ways more telling than the reaction. For starters, thank goodness, the feds have not issued a terror alert. Politico notes on May 4:

When President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed, there was no color-coded chart in the corner of the TV screen to alert Americans that the government had raised the threat level from yellow to orange.

The White House did make a somewhat equivocal statement implying (not explicitly stating) that an effort had been made to take Osama bin Laden alive. But Radio Netherlands on May 2 assumes the operation was "an extrajudicial killing" and asks if such actions are "allowed under international law." The report notes that the US State Department had offered a reward of up to $25 million for "information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction." The report adds rhetorically: "[B]ut is that a license to kill?"

The Obama administration announced April 27 that CIA director Leon Panetta is to become defense secretary, replacing the retiring Robert Gates (himself a former CIA director), while the new CIA director will be Gen. David Petraeus, currently US commander in Afghanistan and formerly the architect of the Iraq "surge" as chief of Central Command. Analyzes the New York Times: