The New York Times has taken note of a phenomenon I had been planning to talk about soon anyway, so I'll use their piece as a takeoff point for my own comments: "Arab Leaders Silent, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel."
As Israel's current operation in Gaza grows into something much longer and deadlier than Cast Lead six years ago, there has been much international condemnation, from Europe, the UN, and human rights groups. The US is less critical and the US Congress openly supportive (and the US is resupplying Israel with munitions in the midst of the operation), but there has been considerable criticism in the media and academia.
But two sources of pressure that helped bring previous Gaza interventions to a ceasefire are absent here. First, domestic support in Israel is higher than in some previous interventions, with polls showing overwhelming support among Israeli Jews, and Israeli peace activists increasingly facing confrontations with supporters of the war.
But even more striking is the fact that, while there has been much sympathy expressed toward Gaza in the Arab "street," the Arab regimes have been mostly silent. Egypt did make a ceasefire proposal early on, which Israel accepted (and which some suspect was negotiated beforehand) and Hamas rejected. But after the Hamas rejection, Egypt essentially washed its hands of the situation. And Egypt, of course, shares a border with Gaza, and by keeping the Rafah crossing closed, is complicit, at the very least, with maintaining the siege of Gaza. It allows humanitarian supplies in, but ...
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