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Gaza hides a war over the Arabs' future
Thursday, January 1, 2009 : Amid the carnage in Gaza, it's not immediately obvious that what is taking place has less to do with Israelis versus Palestinians than with Arabs versus Arabs, principally to define the future of the Middle East. The Gaza conflict has become part of an ongoing confrontation between regimes emerging from the Arab state system established over six decades ago, and, with one exception, new regional players vying to take their place.
Whether it is Hamas, or some groups in Hamas, that sought out this latest battle with Israel; whether it is the Israelis who picked a fight in a pre-election period; or whether it is some combination of both, the outcome of what is happening in Gaza today is not difficult to guess: Israel is helping Hamas undermine any peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which will only guarantee a condition of long-term war.
What we see developing in the Middle East is an accelerating counterattack by non-state actors such as Hamas, Hizbullah and the Islamic Jihad, all backed by a rising Iran, against the majority of Arab states committed to a negotiated peace with Israel
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For more information:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?ed...
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An enraged Arab street is seeking an immediate end to the death and destruction, but Arab governments have been slow to react in the face of the Israeli offensive.
While public anger at Israel, and its staunchest ally the United States, reaches boiling point, protesters at demonstrations being held across the world are attacking Arab governments for apparently failing to act.
"The problem is Hamas' Islamist ideology. Their success has been deeply troubling for some Arab states," says Robert Lowe, a research fellow at the UK-based think-tank Chatham House.
"It [the 2006 election that brought Hamas to power] was a democratic election and one of the fairest and freest elections ever to take place in the Arab world, that's troubling for Arab states in itself."
Lowe goes further, saying many suspect some Arab states are "quietly content that Hamas has taken a beating, but there's a massive problem in how to square that with public opinion".
Nadim Shehadi, another research fellow at Chatham House, says the crisis puts Arab leaders in "a tight spot".
"They [many Arab states] are opposed to Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, they are opposed to the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah, this [the Israeli attacks] forces them to join them or do nothing, so it is embarrassing," he says.
Arab divisions
While Hamas presents Arab states with what Lowe describes as an “interesting paradox", others point to divisions within the Arab world as hindering Arab ability to act.
Amr Hamzawy, a Lebanon-based political scientist and senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the Arab world is broadly split into two camps: the "so-called moderates", including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and some Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries, and the "resistance camp, composed of the Syrian and Iranian regimes and two non-state actors – Hamas and Hezbollah".
Others describe the split in more blunt terms, with the moderate camp aligned to the United States and the "resistance camp" as those isolated by both Israel and America.
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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200913201515640692.html