Monday, October 8, 2012

'Keeping Hamas & Hezbollah Out of a War with Iran'

" ... Operating according to the ‘‘Dahiyeh Doctrine,’’ named after the devastation the IDF meted out in 2006 upon the neighborhood in south Beirut that is Hezbollah’s stronghold, senior IDF officials describe a strategy based on reacting ‘‘sharper, harder, and in some ways very violent,’’ to use the words of Brig. Gen. Herzi Halevy, commander of the IDF’s 91st Division. Despite the warnings, if Khamenei orders Hezbollah to join the fight, it will. The same cannot be said of Hamas...... 
... This is an extraordinarily rare moment of political alignment between Israel, the United States, and the Sunni Muslim world. No Arab or Muslim government, save perhaps Syria, wants Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. This has led to unprecedented cooperation between the likes of Israel and Saudi Arabia, even if it is mostly out of the public eye.
Reaching a deal now with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which could produce five years of quiet, might go a long way toward de´tente between Israel and Sunni Muslim states, the latter of which are in
the process of rewriting their political playbooks. It would provide cover for the American-aligned governments of the region to cooperate with Jerusalem and Washington against Teheran more overtly. And it would give millions of people in the Arab world that are, by and large, extremely hostile to Israel the opportunity to see the Jewish state in a different light."

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