re: #21 lawhawk

I don’t totally agree with the FAA ban, as they’ve issued a far less restrictive warning for far more dangerous regions. But Cruz is bat crap crazy if he thinks the order is anti-Israel and ordered by the President when the airlines were voluntarily limiting their flights to and from Israel even before the FAA order - because they didn’t want to put their gear in harms’ way (let alone their pilots or passengers).

I noted yesterday that the FAA order could be read one of two ways - either as giving Hamas a media victory that its missiles couldn’t by essentially closing TLV to traffic from the US, or it could be that the FAA order lets Israel intensify its attacks in Gaza to prevent missiles from ever hitting the airport.

IOW, Israel would use the FAA order as the pretext to continue operations until Hamas is rooted out and they’ve captured and destroyed the missiles capable of hitting the airport vicinity.

Cruz, predictably, took the first option.

The facts, on the other hand, suggest no such motivations. But watch the GOP demand investigations into the FAA handling of the flight stop for flights to TLV.

It’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing” in any case. If there had been an advisory by the FAA and no real action by the airlines then they’d be exploding about Obama not caring about US citizens being put in danger by flying into an airport that is undergoing rocket fire. (Though I expect the actual thing would be no complaining *until* an airliner got hit and damage with or without casualties and then they’d start a full bore freak-out.)