Defining Victory

The history of Middle East wars is one in which military superiority or victory more often than not, does not translate into political success. The Israel Hamas war seems at this point of the fighting to be no different.

Despite Israel's overwhelming firepower, Israel and Hamas seem delicately balanced in the complex, multi-layered efforts to achieve a ceasefire. Both sides appear to be internally divided between those who see political and military mileage in continuing the fighting at the expense of ordinary Palestinians and those who feel the time has come for a silencing of the guns.

Hamas, riding on the waves of shock at the pictures of carnage dominating television around clock, is claiming its ability to survive the onslaught as a victory. Assuming Hamas continues to survive, both Israel and Hamas will have to justify their rival claims to victory with the terms of the ceasefire that ultimately will be agreed. Increasingly, the bare knuckles of an Israel Hamas agreement are clear: the opening of Gaza's border crossings in exchange for an end to rocket attacks on Israel. Packaging that so that both sides can claim victory and agreeing on the terms of that arrangement is what is prolonging the suffering in Gaza.

For Hamas, victory has to involve an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, full opening of the border crossings into the strip and the ability to maintain the mantle of resistance as long as some long-term arrangement in the form of a multi-year truce that allows for the emergence of a viable, sovereign, independent Palestinian state is not agreed. Israel needs the assurance that Hamas will no longer be able to smuggle military materiel into the strip through direct or indirect control of the Rafah border crossing, the one passage into Gaza that does not link the strip to Israel, and a halt to rocket attacks on southern Israel to argue that its offensive achieved its goal.

Ironically, the roles in demanding a long-term truce may have been reversed. Hamas has been calling for several years already for a 10-year truce; Israel consistently refused to negotiate with Hamas and kept pushing for a definitive Israeli Palestinian peace agreement negotiated with the Palestine Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas.

However, with Israel so far unable to destroy Hamas' military capability and the pictures of the carnage in Gaza fueling pressure to end the fighting, Hamas is now seeking an immediate end to the violence on terms it can project as constituting a victory while Israel needs to ensure that Hamas rockets will no longer pose a threat to Israeli's in southern Israel. "Hamas retains most of its combatants and substantial reserves of rockets. While Israel seeks to compel Hamas to accept an end to violence for the long term, Hamas has yet to clearly accept that as necessary," says Jeffrey White, a Washington Institute for Near Policy fellow focusing on military and security affairs.

Hamas suffered Thursday a significant blow with Israel's killing of Saeed Siyam, the third most important Hamas leader in the strip. Known as a hardliner within the Islamist group, Siyam was Hamas' interior minister in charge of internal security. Hamas prided itself on its ability maintain security in Gaza since it took over power there in 2007. Siyam is second senior internal security to have been killed in the war. Hamas police chief Tawfiq Jaber was killed in the very first days of the Israeli offensive.

Egypt say it is making progress in attempting to secure an end to the fighting based on its proposal that calls for an immediate ceasefire followed by a long-term truce and the opening of all border crossings policed by an international force or monitors. Hamas negotiator in Cairo Salah Bardawil, asserting on Al Jazeera that his group was achieving its goals, said "the Egyptian initiative is the only initiative that has been put forward to us and we continue to coordinate with the Egyptians," the negotiator said. Hamas as of this writing is reported to be willing to accept a one-year ceasefire provided Israel withdraws from Gaza within a week. Speaking in Jerusalem, United Nation Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said it could take several days to finalize technical details of the ceasefire.

While foreign governments, parties to the conflict, journalists and pundits will pour over the fine print of any ceasefire agreement to determine who emerged from the Gaza war on top, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues that the winner may only emerge over time. He advocates Israel following its strategy in the war with Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006 where it was seeking to "educate," a euphemism for pummeling the Shiite militia into submission, rather than eradicate the Shiite militia. "Israel's military was not focused on the morning after the war in Lebanon - when Hezbollah declared victory and the Israeli press declared defeat. It was focused on the morning after the morning after, when all the real business happens in the Middle East. That's when Lebanese civilians said to Hezbollah: "What were you thinking? Look what destruction you have visited on your own community! For what?

"Here's what Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, said the morning after the morning after about his decision to start that war by abducting two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006: 'We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.' That was the education of Hezbollah. Has Israel seen its last conflict with Hezbollah? I doubt it. But Hezbollah, which has done nothing for Hamas (in Gaza), will think three times next time. That is probably all Israel can achieve with a non-state actor, … If (Israel) is out to destroy Hamas, casualties will be horrific and the aftermath could be Somalia-like chaos. If it is out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims" Friedman says.

Friedman analysis involving the need to establish a near monopoly on forces parallels that of Asher Susser, a director of Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle Eastern and African Studies. "Israel cannot accept the rocketry of Iran's surrogates, which sends hundreds of thousands of its citizens scurrying for the shelters at any time of their choosing, as a way of life. All Israel's neighbors must be deterred from following Gaza's example by the recognition that the price to be paid for such provocation will be unbearable. If Israel demonstrates a lack of resolve and an unwillingness to fight it will prove itself to be incapable of delivering such a message to the neighborhood and its long term survival will be in serious doubt. … When Israel elected not to retaliate to the rocket attacks from Gaza it was understood by Hamas not as an act of restraint, but of weakness and lack of resolve. This produced the Hamas miscalculation of the Israeli response and the trigger for all out war…," Susser writes on the website of the Royal United Services Institute.

Among those who believe there is no peace negotiation possible with Hamas, Friedman is an optimist. Hizbollah's refusal to be drawn into renewed confrontation with Israel in support of Gaza bolsters Friedman's argument. Acceptance by Hamas of a long-term truce with Israel would further strengthen Friedman's perspective.

Pro-Israeli skeptics however doubt there is any prospect of achieving peace with Hamas. Basing himself on conversations in 2006 with Nizar Rayyan, the hard line Hamas leader favoring suicide bombings and father of Hamas' usage of civilians as human shields who was killed by Israel in the early days of the offensive together with his wives and children, Jeffrey Goldberg, an Israeli Army prison ward-turned reporter, argues that the approach represented by Friedman is at best a temporary fix. He refers to Rayyan's deep-seated, virulent anti-Semitism and his belief that Allah turned some of the ancestors of the Jews, a "cursed people," into pigs and apes. "There is a fixed idea among some Israeli leaders that Hamas can be bombed into moderation. This is a false and dangerous notion. Hamas can be deterred militarily for a time, but tanks cannot defeat deeply felt belief. The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness," Goldberg says.

Rather than focusing on Hamas, Goldberg suggests that preparing a Palestine Authority governed West Bank for "real freedom," a term he does not define in terms of the status of the West Bank and its territorial integrity, may over time lead Gazans to see the light and shove Hamas aside. Goldberg seems to disregard the further loss of credibility Abbas has suffered as a result of the Gaza carnage and the fact that he in the wake of the war will not be able to afford to move ahead with a settlement that does not include Gaza – a move that would paint him even more in the corner of being portrayed as an Israeli and American lackey. Almost half of Kuwait's parliament voted in favor of a resolution objection to Abbas' expected visit next week to the oil-rich emirate to attend an Arab economic summit because his opposition to the “Zionist aggression” was weak.

As the Arab world splinters, incapable 20 days into the war of even agreeing on a venue or in what constellation Arab leaders should meet, Friedman's argument that Hizbollah was successfully "educated" in 2006 and that Iran's other major non-state ally in the ally, Hamas, needs to go through the same learning process presupposes that the Iranian relationship with the Shiite Muslim group is comparable to its ties to the Palestinians. Beyond the fact that Iran and Hizbollah share common religious and cultural roots while Hamas comes from a Palestinian and Islamist tradition that has always had an uneasy relationship with Tehran, it also assumes that Iran can only benefit from deepening divisions among Arab governments and between governments and public sentiment in their countries. Until the moment that public opinion is no longer emotionally swayed by theatrics and rhetoric rather than deeds, Iran indeed can capitalize on Arab inaction and mounting public frustration and anger.

Those short term gains however may not justify the risk the Gaza war poses to the possibility of opening a new chapter in Iranian US relations as President-elect Barack Obama takes office. "This conflict is the last thing Tehran would have wished for in the last few weeks of the Bush administration. It increases the risk of a US-Iran confrontation now, and reduces the prospects for US-Iran diplomacy once President elect Obama takes over - neither of which is in Iran's national interest. Rather than benefiting from the instability following the slaughter in Gaza, Iran stands to lose much from the rise in tensions. … If the fighting in Gaza goes on for too long, the spillover effects will be felt in increased Arab-Iranian tensions at a time when Tehran is more interested in soothing ties with the Arabs in order to minimize Arab disruption to any potential US-Iran opening," says Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance - The Secret dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States and president of the National Iranian American Council in The Huffington Post.

In an interview published on the website of the Council for Foreign Relations, Martin Indyk, director of the Brooking Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, former US ambassador to Israel and a candidate for a senior position in Obama's Middle East team, said the new president to resolve the Gaza crisis would have to embed efforts to achieve a ceasefire in a broad brush approach that would also engage Iran and revive Israeli Syrian peace talks. Taken together, Indyk said, these initiatives would "generate some positive synergies."

Indyk, acknowledging that a ceasefire in Gaza might not be achieved in the five days before Obama takes office, suggested that one way to circumvent Egyptian sensitivities about the stationing of an international force to police the Egyptian Gaza border in a bid to prevent the smuggling of arms to Islamists in the strip, would be to involve the Multilateral Force of Observers (MFO) that has been stationed in the Sinai for the past 30 years to monitor the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. "The American-based force that exists in the Sinai could be augmented and some of its parts moved to the border without changing anything actually. So I'm hopeful that can be solved and serve as a lever for the Israelis to wind down the conflict," Indyk said.

In remarks that are likely to further fuel speculation that Obama may authorize some kind of US contact with Hamas, Indyk was careful not to rule out categorically talking to the Islamists. "Overall, there is a belief among Obama and his advisers that not talking to enemies is a mistake. And he's made it clear that he tends to try to talk to the Iranians about their nuclear program in particular. But in the case of Hamas, his focus has got to be a cease-fire first and then a new initiative to make peace. But Hamas is not interested in making peace. So, it's hard to see how you'd construct a peace process with Hamas. On the other hand, given the division in Palestinian politics for the moment--Hamas controls Gaza and Fatah and the Palestinian Authority rule in the West Bank--it's also difficult to see how you can achieve movement in this process without some closing of ranks on the Palestinian side. The way that he should approach it is to leave this task to the Arabs and the Turks--they also have influence with Hamas--who have intense interest in trying to promote unification amongst Palestinians. If they got to a situation where Hamas and Fatah reconcile, where Hamas observes a cease-fire, where Hamas agrees that the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas should negotiate with Israel, then I could imagine Obama allowing some low-level engagement with Hamas. … If Hamas gets the trophy of American recognition before anything is changed, especially in the context of the provocation of this crisis and the launching of these rockets onto Israeli civilians, then Obama will be starting off on the very wrong foot. Rather than the United States playing a positive role in terms of trying to end this conflict, he'll end up in a whole political conflict of his own," Indyk said.

Arabs and Iran Battle for Hearts and Minds

As Arab leaders prepare for an emergency summit on Friday, their inability to achieve an end to the Israeli offensive is defeating the very offset some Arab leaders had hoped would emerge from a cutting down to size of Hamas. To key Arab leaders, including those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Palestine Authority, a short and surgical Israeli operation would have contributed to putting Islamists across the region on the defensive and countering Iranian efforts to exploit widespread public discontent.

Instead, Iran, despite spewing primarily theatrics and rhetoric rather than real support for the Palestinians, is benefiting from the prolonged horror of the carnage in Gaza and the perceived Arab inability to have an impact on international efforts to silence the guns. Its imagery strikes an emotional chord with an angry and frustrated Arab public, something Arab governments have so far been unable to achieve. The stature of the summit has further been undermined by the decision by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tunisia and Egypt not to attend.

Egypt, which is in the lead of Arab efforts to end the fighting, is seeking to reverse the credibility gap stemming from its refusal to fully open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza in a bid to alleviate Palestinian suffering and its desire to prevent the country's main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood of which Hamas is an offshoot, from capitalizing on the crisis. Public anger and frustration with Arab impotence plays into Iran's hand even if Sunni Islamists like the brotherhood are standoffish towards Iran at best. For his part, Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is fighting a legitimacy battle of his own. His term expired five days ago, yet the war in Gaza makes a Palestinian election not only physically but also politically impossible. Israel, the United States and conservative Arabs fear that Hamas would win an election with another landslide as it did in 2006.

In describing the gap between Arab governments and Arab public opinion, Karma Nabulsi, a former Palestinian representative to the United Nations, noted on Al Jazeera that Latin American nations like Venezuela and Bolivia had taken steps against Israeli like breaking off diplomatic relations while Arabs have yet to act. "The protests make it clear that Arab leaders will have to move or will be left out of the process," Nabulsi said.

In the battle for Arab public opinion, Iran and assorted Islamists, many with no links to Iran appears to be winning on points. Iranian statements and paper tiger moves like signing up volunteers for the fighting in Gaza who don't have a hope in hell of making their way to the strip or establishing a court to try Israelis for war crimes, capture the headlines. Arab backroom diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire play less well in the media. "IIran's political success from this episode, even if it proves to be only short term, could prove to be a political embarrassment for the Arab regimes in the long term and may possibly bring wider and more dangerous political repercussions and domestic instability," warns Leila Nadir in an analysis published by The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research.

In a bid to stir the pot, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in early January that Gazans were justified in their belief that some Arab countries had "betrayed" them. While Arab leaders have little to show for their efforts beyond a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire that has been ignored by both Israel and Hamas, Iran does not have the clout to push a substantial diplomatic initiative of any kind. Its call for an Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) summit has been ignored. It can together with Syria, however, influence whether the conflict spreads to other parts of the Middle East, particularly Lebanon through its ally, Hizbollah. Yet, there it like Arab governments has been careful to ensure that the fighting is restricted to Gaza.

Some analysts warn that Iran's strategy is not without risk on the eve of President-elect Obama Barack taking office. "…the criticism (Iran) is leveling at the Arab world will prove to be a setback to the diplomatic links Iran has been working hard to cultivate in the face of US pressure on the Arab world to keep Iran in isolation," Nadir says. Iranian and Hizbollah attacks on Egypt's refusal to open the Rafah crossing wipe out a cautious improvement of relations Iran had achieved in the course of the last year. Iran's vocal support for Hamas will also not play well in any Obama effort to engage Iran in a bid to realign its posture and policies through diplomacy rather than confrontation.

For pro-American Arab governments battling Iran for the hearts and minds of the Muslim Middle East, the tone the Obama administration strikes from day one is of crucial importance. A US engagement that strikes a note more sensitive to Arab sentiment while maintaining support for Israeli security would help vindicate their position. Media in pro-Western nations responded positively to Hillary Clinton's initial statements in Congressional hearings on Tuesday to confirm her as Secretary of State. In stark contrast to the Bush administration, Clinton while stressing Israel's right to self-defense expressed concern about the "tragic humanitarian costs" of the conflict not only for Israelis but also Palestinians and the price being paid by civilians on both side of the divide. "Gone was the tone of confrontation and ideological rhetoric that characterized the foreign policy of the United States during the past 8 years," said the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper.

As pundits debate whether Israel will want the war in Gaza to still be ongoing when Obama takes office, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Hamas, despite the Israeli pummeling, is not willing to settle for a ceasefire at any price. Hamas does not need to defeat Israeli troops to emerge victorious from the fighting. The longer it holds out and the longer it is perceived by Palestinians and Arabs as acquitting itself well, the bigger the chance that the war will allow it to strengthen its claim to Palestinian leadership and strengthen opposition to Arab governments seen as having failed the people of Gaza.

So far that strategy may be succeeding. Israeli intelligence officials briefing journalists according to The New York Times said they had damaged Hamas' military wing “to a certain extent” but that the group’s military capability was still intact. However, the officials suggested that the offensive so far had been more successful in undermining Hamas’ political cohesion and that cracks were appearing in the group’s political leadership.

That could ultimately result in a for Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza even messier situation in which the military wing enjoys greater autonomy. The intelligence officials noted that the leadership in Gaza was more eager to reach agreement on a ceasefire than their colleagues in exile in Damascus. The New York Times, apparently corroborating the Israeli assertion, quoted Egyptian officials as saying that Hamas representative had openly disagreed with one another during ceasefire negotiations in Cairo. Tariq Alhomayed in Asharq Al-Awsat says Damascus-based Hamas Political Bureau chief Khalid Mashaal rejects a permanent truce and negotiations with Israel as well a proposed agreement to reopen the border crossings to Gaza based on a 2005 agreement between Israel and the Palestine Authority because that would prevent the movement from procuring arms in Gaza. By contrast, Alhomayed quotes Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniya as arguing in favor of a ceasefire, saying that “we will work positively with any initiative that aims to bring [Israeli] aggression to an end, to bring about withdrawal, to end the siege and to open the crossings.” While Mashaal was calling for an uprising in the Arab world, Haniya refused to criticize Arab governments, Alhomayed said.

In figuring out who won what in the Gaza war once the guns falls silent, the devil is likely to be in the details. Washington Institute for Near East Policy fellow Martin Kramer predicts that Israel will likely have to concede to lift the siege of Gaza as part of ceasefire agreement. "After the military campaign is over, Israel's control of Gaza's economy will be its principal lever for translating its military achievements into political gains—above all, the continued degradation of Hamas control. Gaza will be desperate for all material things. Whoever controls their distribution will effectively control many aspects of daily life in Gaza. This is a card Israel must be careful not to trade, either for a cease-fire or for international anti-smuggling cooperation on the Egypt-Gaza border. ... Israel should be willing to ease sanctions only if an international consortium for reconstruction is established, which has the legitimate Palestinian Authority as its sole agent within Gaza. In any cease-fire agreement, Israel should agree to open the crossings only to emergency food and medical aid—as it has during the fighting itself," Kramer says.

Writing in the Boston Globe, Kramer’s colleague at the Washington Institute, David Schenker, argues that the key to achieving that control lies in Egypt’s ability and willingness to shut down the underground tunnels linking Egypt with Gaza. The tunnels have been a major target of the Israeli air force in the offensive. Israel asserts that Hamas uses the tunnels to replenish its military stockpiles. “As pressure mounts for a cease-fire, the disposition of these tunnels -- and specifically, what actions Cairo is prepared to take to close them -- seems likely to prove the difference between war and peace,” Schenker says. He says that Hamas had smuggled “some 80 tons of weapons from Egypt, including longer-range Iranian-made rockets that brought 10 percent of the Israeli population within striking distance" during the six months of the Israel Hamas ceasefire that ended last month. Egypt has asserted it could not properly police the border because it was hamstrung in its efforts as a result of restrictions imposed by the Israeli Egyptian peace treaty on its ability to deploy troops in the Sinai desert. Some Israelis charge that corrupt Egyptian civilian and military officials benefit from the lucrative trade through the tunnels; Schenker says Egypt may have turned a blind eye to demonstrate support for the Palestinians and build goodwill with Hamas.

Despite political infighting notwithstanding within Hamas, among the Palestinians and in the Arab world at large, Palestinians may be winning a key battle. "Palestinians are winning the legitimacy war and that might be more important than winning the military war. That's what defeated the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan… it is also what defeated apartheid in South Africa ," United Nations Special Human Rights Rapporteur Prof. Richard Falk told Al Jazeera earlier this week.

The anti-Israel demonstrations in Western capitals, anecdotal evidence and opinion polls in the United States suggest that Palestinians may not only be winning the legitimacy battle in their own backyard but in the West too. Author Geoffrey Wheatcroft writing in the International Herald Tribune recounts a story recounted by historian Tony Judt several years ago. Judt was discussing with his class at New York University the emotional resonance of the Spanish Civil War the fact that Franco's had long remained "a land of shame that people boycotted for its crimes and repression." Judt told the class he could not think of a contemporary equivalent of a country so disliked and despised. To which a young woman responded: "What about Israel?" To the surprise of Judt, who grew up supporting Israel and has since become a critic of the Jewish state, most of the class including many Jews nodded in approval.

"Those college kids were the next generation of adult American citizens, and we can now see the times a-changing in polls. A majority of Americans still endorse the Israeli action in Gaza, over those who don't and think Israel should have pursued a diplomatic path - but only by 44 to 41 percent, a much slimmer margin of support than Israel enjoyed quite recently. More to the point, Democratic voters oppose the Israeli attack by a margin of 22 percent, and a Democrat is, after all, about to be inaugurated as president... For more than 60 years Israel has shown that it can win every battle by military might. But there is also what the Declaration of Independence calls "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," and the battle for opinion cannot be won by brute force alone," Wheatcroft says.

Steve Rosen, writing on Obama Mideast Monitor agrees with Wheatcroft’s 44 percent of Americans supporting Israel’s use of force, but quotes a McClatchy/Ipsos poll that found that only 18 percent considered Hamas' use of force appropriate; 57 percent thought that Hamas was using excessive force, while only 36 percent said Israel was.

Arab Summit: What Emergency?

When Arab leaders gather on Friday in Doha to discuss Gaza in what they describe as an emergency summit, Palestinians will have the region's empathy while Hamas is likely to discover that it is more disliked than ever.

It is hard to see how the summit is going to immediately bridge the credibility gap that has widened after virtually daily mass demonstrations in Arab capitals demanding Arab action to call a halt to the suffering in Gaza. Many Arabs like the Palestinians will take the urgency Arab leaders ascribe to their summit at best with a grain of salt. After all, the summit will be convening one day short of three weeks after Israel launched its offensive.

For many Arab leaders, particularly those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the urgency lies in the fact that their hopes that the Israeli offensive would produce a clean and swift defeat have turned into a nightmare with some of the worst civilian carnage that the Arab Israeli conflict has witnessed. In fact, it threatens to produce exactly what it was designed to prevent: the strengthening of the Islamists and the emergence of even more militant forces than Hamas.

As a result, Arab leaders more than ever are likely to look for speedy involvement by President-elect Barack Obama. That involvement will have to be literally from the day he takes office on Jan. 20 if no Israel Hamas ceasefire has been agreed and implement by then and immediately thereafter will have to involve efforts to revive peace efforts. Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestine Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas need to show their Arab constituency that their pro-American policies can produce results for the Palestinians. This would not only lend legitimacy to their opposition to Hamas but also help them undermine the opportunity the Gaza conflict presents to Islamists of all stripes, moderate and Jihadi.

The level of anger the Israeli offensive has generated in Arab public opinion and among Arab leaders who have seen Hamas ride roughshod over their political calculations was expressed by Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence and ambassador to Britain and the United States, when he last week told the 6th Gulf Forum on January 6th: "The Bush administration has left (the United States with) a disgusting legacy and a reckless position towards the massacres and bloodshed of innocents in Gaza…Enough is enough, today we are all Palestinians and we seek martyrdom for God and for Palestine, following those who died in Gaza."

Hamas is unlikely to benefit at the Arab summit from the emotion expressed by Prince Turki. It seems to be banking more on the capital it has garnered in Arab public opinion for its resistance to the Israel and less inclined to exploit that to build bridges to conservative Arab governments and seek their support in the current crisis. Hamas this week criticized Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa's successful efforts to achieve a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Hamas' criticism did not focus on the fact that the UN does not have the teeth to enforce its resolution but on the Arab failure to consult with Hamas on the terms of the resolution.

"I have no doubt whatsoever that Hamas's attack on Saudi Arabia will cause it to lose all of its support since the Saudis endured the political recklessness of some Hamas leaders who have foreign ties in order to avoid any dispute with them. These peripheral battles that come at a time when Hamas is in need of everybody's support demonstrate the extent of the crisis of leadership and the lack of a commander to take final decisions … It is odd that the Hamas leadership is calling for an end to the crimes being committed by the Israeli killing machine and the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, and is condemning the Security Council's procrastination. Yet when an Arab delegation together with a number of Arab ministers worked continuously for days in New York, pushing for a resolution that called for an immediate ceasefire, a number of Hamas officials attacked these people," said Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, general manager of Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television, writing in Al Sharq Al Awsat. Al-Rashed was referring to Iran when he spoke about Hamas' foreign ties.

Anger and frustration in Arab official circles appears to translate itself in turning a blind eye to a revival of some of the worst racist anti-Jewish rhetoric the Arab world has seen. Following last week's denial of the Holocaust in the Gulf News, this week Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi, head of the Department of Islamic Studies at Saud University, declared on Hamas' Al Aqsa television: "Allah! Allahm count the Jews and kill them to the last one and don't leave even one."

Allowing the venting of frustration by racist Jihadis constitutes for Arab leaders a double edged the sword. In the same speech Al-Rashudi denounced pro-American Arab governments as traitors. "We believe in Almighty Allah and you believe in America and Israel. We believe that Allah sent His soldiers against America in many places in the world."

As Islamists capitalize on public Arab outrage at the continuing carnage in Gaza and Israel pushes ahead with its military campaign, Egypt and the direction it will take in the post-Mubarak era is the political battleground for Hamas and Israel. The more brutal the Israeli offensive becomes – Gaza is reported to have last night witnessed one of its worst nights since the attack began – the greater Mubarak's predicament becomes. Critics charge Mubarak's ability to relieve Palestinian suffering by fully opening the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt is restricted by the US and Israel. Conceding to Islamist demands would strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition to the regime, and would risk thousands of Palestinians pouring across the border, something many Egyptians don't want to see.

Most immediately, the battle for Egypt involves Hamas and Arab public pressure on Egypt to fully open the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, control of the passage once a ceasefire has been agreed and Israel seeking to force Egypt to seriously crackdown on smuggling. Israeli officials argue that the underground tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza through which Palestinians smuggle badly needed basic goods in a bid to break the Israeli siege of the strip as well as arms continue to function because corrupt Egyptian officials benefit from a booming business. Egypt has denied the Israeli allegation. In addition to this, Mubarak wants to prevent an Islamic republic arising on its border.

The Gaza crisis poses a dilemma and creates an opportunity for Egypt. Sudarsan Raghavan notes in The Washington Post that rarely has an Arab leader been attacked for supporting Israel against the Palestinians as has Mubarak. Emotions have been fueled by the government's refusal to adhere to a court decision on Tuesday upholding an earlier ruling banning the sale of Egyptian gas to Israel. The government has appealed the decision. Raghavan describes demonstrators on Friday in Cairo as chanting:

"O Hamas, O Hamas, you are for all the people. We are behind you," the protesters chanted. Then they went after Mubarak.

"O Mubarak, Mubarak, make a decision. Open the crossing. Remove the siege," they chanted. "O Mubarak, Mubarak. Are you with us or against us?"

On the diplomatic and geopolitical front, Egypt's key role as a mediator between Israel, Hamas and the Palestine Authority allows it to reclaim to a degree its leadership in the Arab world, lost when former President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem in 1977 and subsequently signed the Arab world's first peace treaty with the Jewish state. It would also allow it to improve relations strained over human rights and other issues with US as a new administration takes office in Washington.

In a bid to counter the at times vicious criticism and position Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation straddling its Asian and African constituent elements, this week launched a public relations counter-offensive. A 16- page document entitled, "Egypt's position on the situation in Gaza and the Rafah border", addresses Egypt's policy on Rafah and touts its recent efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

An Arab or Iranian US Negotiator for the Middle East?

US President-elect Barack Obama appears to be missing a unique opportunity to demonstrate that his efforts to bring peace and stability to the Middle East will differ from substantially those of his predecessor. That would be to include an Arab-American and possibly an Iranian-American in his line-up of Middle East negotiators – a move that would largely break with tradition which hitherto involved almost exclusively negotiators with a Jewish or Christian background.

Granted, such a move would immediately set off alarm bells in Jerusalem and probably in The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington, already uncertain of what the Obama administration means for US Middle East policy, but it would send a signal to the Arab and Muslim world at a moment that unconditional US support for Israel's Gaza offensive has fueled public anger at a United States that is fighting an uphill battle to win hearts and minds.

International Herald Tribune columnist Roger Cohen jokes that he has the scoop on Obama's line-up: Shibley Telhami, Vali Nasr, Fawaz Gerges, Fouad Moughrabi and James Zogby, all widely respected, prominent Arab and Iranian Americans whose views on the Middle East may not be pro-Israel but are certainly moderate and even-handed. "…forget the above, I've let my imagination run away with me. Barack Obama has no plans for this line-up on the Israeli-Palestinian problem and Iran. In fact, the people likely to play significant roles on the Middle East in the Obama administration read rather differently," Cohen writes.

In fact, Obama's line-up as described by Cohen and others, including, Steve Rosen, a controversial former AIPAC official and driving force behind the lobby who was indicted on charges of passing classified information to Israel. Rosen monitors the shaping of Obama's Middle East team and policy on his blog, Obama Mideast Monitor. Obama's team is likely to include Dennis Ross, a veteran Middle East peace negotiator for past Democratic and Republican administrations and a consultant to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, University of Texas Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs dean James (Jim) B. Steinberg, former US ambassador to Egypt and Israel Daniel C. Kurtzer, long time Obama aide Dan Shapiro and former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk.

"Now, I have nothing against smart, driven, liberal, Jewish (or half-Jewish) males; I've looked in the mirror…. They're knowledgeable, broad-minded and determined. Still, on the diversity front they fall short. On the change-you-can-believe-in front, they also leave something to be desired," Cohen says, focusing on the fact that Ross has little success to show for years of attempting to mediate peace between Israelis and Arabs. "I don't feel encouraged - not by the putative Ross-redux team, nor by the nonbinding resolutions passed last week in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The former offered 'unwavering commitment' to Israel. The latter recognized 'Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza.' Neither criticized Israel."

To be sure, Obama has had to stress his support for Israel during the election campaign to overcome widespread doubts and questions in the Jewish as well as the non- Jewish pro-Israel community in the United States. There is no doubt about his support, particularly on the fundamental issues: Israel's right to exist within secure borders. Yet, Obama seemed to signal a break with the Bush administration's policies when during the campaign he said: "I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress."

To the degree that Obama intends to change US policy in the Middle East, he will have to contend with a US public that is overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel as evidenced in the resolutions Cohen mentions that were passed by the US Congress. Critics and opponents of Israel like to blame that on the power of AIPAC. No doubt AIPAC sways significant influence. That it is able to do so is in part a testimony to its success but equally a testimony to the dismal failure of Arabs and Palestinians to do what it takes to create a credible voice of their own in Washington.

That is beginning to change and the track record of Cohen's suggested names of Arab and Iranian Americans who could be included in Obama's Mideast team bears witness to that. But changing deeply ingrained public perceptions and sentiments does not occur overnight. For too long, and even today if one looks at the torturous and convoluted language of the likes of Hamas that is similar to the process of change of concept and terminology Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) went through, Arabs and Palestinians refused to express themselves in clear and unambiguous language. Too often, they were unwilling to spell out or think through in public convoluted and veiled messages they were sending, wrongly hoping that by moving a millimeter someone would send them the life raft they would need to reach land. They were too afraid of giving away the store before having an assurance that the pay off would be acceptable and too frightened of reaction in their domestic constituencies to a policy that would lead to recognition or at least acceptance of Israel's existence.

The value of having an Arab or Iranian American on the team is illustrated in Cohen's quoting of "Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East" written by Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky. The book describes the problems that arose at Clinton's Camp David peace negotiations encountered by US negotiators because they lacked the expertise on Islam and an Arab perspective. To bridge that gap, negotiators had to call in the State Department's top Arabic translator because "the lack of cross-cultural negotiating skills was so acute."

The Gaza war may not have tipped the balance but the daily reporting from inside the strip and the images of the carnage and suffering of innocent men, women and children is casting doubt on the proportionality of the Israeli response to Hamas' rocket attacks and undermining the moral benefit of the doubt that Israel has long enjoyed in the West. The cost benefit analysis of the damage the war has done to Israel's image versus what it ultimately will have achieved on the ground has yet to be done. That may make it easier for Obama should he really wish to change US policy. "The fact remains … that the growing human tragedy in Gaza is steadily raising more serious questions as to whether the kind of tactical gains that Israel now reports are worth the suffering involved," says the Center for International and Strategic Studies' Anthony H. Cordesman.

Changing US policy involves addressing issues that Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs and many Americans passionately care about. It will involve taking into account the aspirations and needs of all the parties to the conflict rather than looking at the region through the post-9/11 prism of the war on terror, the fate of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Israel's policy of seeking to destroy or silence Palestinian voices more sensitive to Palestinian national aspirations than Israel's perception of its security needs and an effort to bring in through reconciliation with the Palestine Authority representative groups like Hamas which shares with many, if not most, Israeli and Palestinian politicians a heritage involving the use of politically motivated violence. That is no mean fete and one that demands delicate maneuvering. Including an Arab or Iranian American in Obama's team would be noticed in the Arab and Muslim world and would send a signal that would make waves but not immediately rock the boat.

Pushing for a speedy reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestine Authority could shield Gaza’s battered civilian population from renewed internecine violence once the guns in the Israel Hamas war fall silent. Fatah, the political faction headed by Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, hopes that the Israeli offensive will provide an opportunity to regain control of Gaza lost to Hamas in 2007. In addition, the Israeli offensive bolsters more radical forces in Gaza and on the West Bank, including supporters of Al Qaeda. In seeking to regain control of Gaza in the absence of reconciliation with Hamas, Fatah will have to tread carefully so that it is not seen as riding in on the wings of Israeli tanks. It has already suffered significant damage to its credibility because of its apparent siding with Israel in the first days of the offensive with Abbas holding Hamas responsible for the assault, his inability to effectively aid the Palestinians in Gaza and his failure prior to the war to produce tangible results in talks with Israel. Meanwhile, Palestinians in both Gaza and on the West Bank are likely not to emerge from the crisis broken in spirit as Israel had hoped but even more resolved to achieve statehood at whatever cost. “There will be disappointment if Fatah stops being a resistance movement after this war. Hamas will be more and more strong and this atmosphere will give Al Qaeda a real chance to start strongly in Palestine,” Hassan Qader, a long standing Fatah member on the West Bank told Al Jazeera International.

In an analysis on the website of the Brookings Institution, Martin Indyk, director of the institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a candidate for Obama's Middle East team, spells out his view of what the terms for an Israel Hamas ceasefire should be. The terms indicate what the Obama administration probably will look for in a Hamas Palestine Authority reconciliation. "The terms of a new truce will need to include: no rocket fire on Israeli civilians, no offensive Israeli operations, an international mechanism for enforcing a ban on smuggling offensive weapons, Palestinian Authority (PA) involvement in the control of open passages, and large-scale humanitarian and reconstruction assistance funneled through the PA rather than via Hamas," Indyk says. Indyk reference to Palestine Authority involvement rather than control of the border crossings, a reference primarily to the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt appears to leave open the possibility that Hamas would not be excluded from policing the passage.

Indyk notes that achieving a ceasefire along those lines is urgent because "Islamic extremists--from al-Qaeda to Hizbollah to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--have gained great advantage from the anti-American anger in the Arab and Muslim world that the Gaza crisis has brought to a boil. They had feared that Obama, with his appealing narrative and middle name, would calm the waters and so dilute their influence. They now see an opportunity in the Gaza crisis to brand Obama as no different from Bush. A commitment to resolve the Palestinian problem also takes on new urgency because the potential Arab partners in this effort--from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia--need to demonstrate to their irate populations that pro-American moderation and reconciliation can actually provide a better future for the Palestinians."

If Hamas Palestine Authority reconciliation is urgent, so is tackling the settlement issue on the West Bank. The settlers' growth spells out the urgency. In 1993, when the Oslo process began, 116,000 Israelis lived in the Gaza Strip. By 2003 that number, according to the Israeli Interior Ministry, had increased to 236,000. A year after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the evacuation of all settlers from the strip, the settler population on the west Bank numbered 253,000. By last year their numbers had jumped to 290,000, living alongside 2.2 million Palestinians. Another 187,000 Israelis live in annexed East Jerusalem next to 247,000 Palestinians.

"To a large degree, the Israeli and Palestinian publics have accepted the need for a two-state solution. But time, and the construction crews, are working against it. No one knows exactly where the point of no return is—when so many Israelis will have moved into so many homes beyond the pre-1967 border that there is no going back. But each passing day brings that tipping point nearer. If a solution is not achieved quickly, it might soon be out of reach," writes Gershom Gorenberg in this month's Foreign Policy magazine.

"The settlers’ growing power makes it harder for any Israeli leader to act. The head of the Shin Bet security agency recently described “very high willingness” among settlers “to use violence—not just stones, but live weapons—in order to prevent or halt a diplomatic process.” He was articulating a country’s half-spoken fears: Withdrawal involves more than the social and financial costs of moving hundreds of thousands of people. It poses the danger of civil conflict, of battles pitting Jews against Jews. The more settlers, the greater the danger. The longer the wait, the more settlers. The more settlers, the more hesitant politicians are to talk about evacuating them, much less do anything else about them. It’s anybody’s guess where the point of no return lies.... So, time is in short supply. As U.S. President Barack Obama enters office, he might be tempted to put off dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But delay may mean finding the road to a solution closed," Gorenberg says.

The Death of Peace?

The Israeli offensive in Gaza may have produced the very result that hardliners on both sides of the Israeli Palestinian divide prefer: the death, at least temporarily, of efforts to resolve the conflict once and for all. As cynical as this may sound, that may enhance President-elect Barack Obama's chances of restoring some semblance of stability to the region, not by achieving definitive peace but by securing a long-lasting ceasefire based on the principle of live and let live.

That would certainly be in line with the call for a 10-year truce by Hamas, which 16 days into the Israeli offensive appears to be emerging politically stronger albeit militarily weaker. "In Hamas' diplomatic body language...a long-term truce means that it would no longer fight Israel militarily, which would open the door for credible negotiators on both sides to explore opportunities for a negotiated permanent coexistence or formal peace. Hamas has also stated that any negotiated peace accord should be ratified by a referendum of the Palestinian people - the mirror image of Israelis submitting their peace agreements with the Arabs to the Knesset," says prominent Arab journalist Rami G. Khouri in a column in Lebanon's The Daily Star.

It also reflects a growing sentiment in Israel that is losing faith in the possibility of peace and affected by the daily pictures of civilian suffering beginning to wonder whether it is not time to stop the offensive, an implicit admission that there is no military solution to the conflict.

Damascus-based Hamas Political Bureau Chief Khaled Mashaal this weekend adopted a hard line towards negotiations with Israel and ending the war in Gaza. "The time for talking is over... “(Hamas) will not accept any negotiations for a cease-fire while we are under fire. Let Israel withdraw first and our people live rightfully without a siege and with open (border)crossings,” Mashaal said.

Writing in The Washington Post, prominent Israeli journalist and writer Tom Segev says: "I belong to a generation of Israelis who grew up believing in peace. At the end of the Six-Day War of 1967, I was 23, and I had no doubt that 40 years later, the Israeli-Arab war would be over. Today, my son, who is 28, no longer believes in peace. Most Israelis don't. They know that Israel may not survive without peace, but from war to war, they have lost their optimism. So have I."

Instead of conflict solution, Segev says, the way forward is better conflict management. That would include Israel talking to Hamas, which he recognizes as genuine, popular national and religious movement that "cannot be simply bombed away… . Rather than design another fictitious 'road map' for peace, the Obama administration may be more useful and successful by trying merely to manage the conflict, aiming at a more limited yet urgently needed goal: to make life more livable for both Israelis and Palestinians," Segev says.

One reason Segev has lost faith in the possibility of a solution is the fact that Israelis and Palestinians are battling about much more than security, land or water: they are fighting over a national identity in which "both the Israelis and the Palestinians define themselves by the Holy Land -- all of it. Any territorial compromise would compel both sides to relinquish part of their identity. In recent years, with the rise of Hamas and the increasing militance of some Jewish settlers, this precariously irrational conflict has also assumed a more religious character -- and thereby become even more difficult to solve. Islamic fundamentalists, as well as Jewish ones, have made control of the land part of their faith, and that faith is dearer to them than human life," Segev says. "So I find myself among the new majority of Israelis who no longer believe in peace with the Palestinians. The positions are simply too far apart at this time."

While Khouri does express the same degree of pessimism that Segev does, his analysis is not all that fundamentally different. "Israel has used such barbaric tactics against Hamas and the civilians of Gaza because it wants to wipe out forever any Palestinian insistence on dealing with the core national and human issues that emerged from the 1948 war and the creation of Israel. Hamas is a troubling reminder for Israel that the state of the Jewish people was created on the ashes of the indigenous Palestinian Arab community - the community that is now the refugee population of Gaza and other regions in the Arab world. Israel is not just bombing Hamas facilities; it is trying to bomb into oblivion the idea that any Palestinian man, woman or child can stand up and demand the end of their national dismemberment and exile," Khouri says.

The Israeli government may well too have given up on the notion of a definitive peace. Its actions in recent years appear to contradict its pronouncements in favor of a final settlement. Israel is turning itself into a ghetto with a high-tech security fence built to separate itself from the West Bank and siege of Gaza. These "are in the end attempts to shut out reality. Palestinians have become a vague abstraction to the vast bulk of Israelis not within the range of Hamas rockets: out of sight, out of mind," says columnist Roger Cohen in the International Herald Tribune. "Israel has the right to hit back at Hamas when attacked - but not to blow Gaza to pieces. What it does not have the right to do is delude its people into thinking that peace is achievable without coming to terms with the deeply entrenched Middle Eastern realities that are Hamas and Hezbollah. Those realities have been strengthened by (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert's last fling, the reckless foray of a failed leader."

Aaron Mannes, who interprets computer modeling of terrorist group behavior at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics, suggests some of the thinking probably underlies the Israeli offensive in Gaza and would strengthen the belief of those that a definite resolution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict is not possible, at least not while Hamas sways major influence. Writing on TheTerrorWonk blog, he says: “ Strategic decisions to reduce violence were not in evidence (with Hamas(. The key driver appeared to be capability. .. It could be argued that the 2006 war in Lebanon was a relative success – Hizbollah has kept that border quiet since. The likelihood of a similar modus vivendi with Hamas is Gaza seems less likely based on the model and also based on Hamas rhetoric. In an interview given just days before Hamas began launching rockets in November that helped end the ceasefire with Israel, the deputy chief of Hamas’ Damascus wing (Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzouk) stated: Your 'question implies that the Tahdiah [truce] is a central issue behind [our] decisions, consultations, and mediation attempts. However, the opposite is true… [for us,] resistance is the main [element] in the relations between the Palestinian people and the Zionist occupation.'"

Iran: A Different Perspective

One probably shouldn't hold one's breath, but the dawn of the Obama administration offers an opportunity to revisit the question whether confrontation or dialogue is most likely to produce an understanding with Iran that would alleviate Western, Israeli and Arab fears. Engaging Iran in a constructive dialogue would help reduce tension and the potential for violence in the Middle East. Obama has said he intends to engage Iran more actively.

The Israeli offensive in Gaza highlights the threat to stability in the Middle East that confrontation with Iran poses. If Hamas rockets were the immediate driver of the Israeli offensive, tacit support by conservative Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, effectively gave it at least initial diplomatic cover and support. Underlying Israeli and conservative pro-Western Arab calculations, is a deep-seated fear of Iranian ambitions in the region that through Hamas cuts across the Sunni-Shiite divide.

Reading between the lines of statements by militant forces in the Middle East often is an exercise comparable with Kreminology in the days of the Soviet Union or second guessing succession in Saud Arabia. Messages designed to open the door to dialogue, settlement of differences and even rapprochement or at least intended to test the waters, are usually buried in a torrent of militant phraseology, war-mongering rhetoric and blood-stalling verbage and often contained in what a radical state or group does or does not do. Iran is no exception.

Iranian leaders from across the country's political spectrum have been signaling a desire to engage in a dialogue with the United States that could define the Islamic republic's role in the region provided that takes into account Iran's size, resources and regional clout. Some fear that engaging Iran on those terms could shift the balance of power in the Gulf. "US-Iranian detente would sacrifice GCC interests. There is a fear that … a grand bargain would marginalize the GCC states," Mahmoud Monshipouri, a political scientist at San Francisco State University, said in a recent speech in Abu Dhabi. He said such a détente would harm Dubai, which has benefitted considerably from the embargo on Iran. UAE exports and re-exports to Iran amounted to $6.57 billion in 2007, according to figures from the UAE Federal Customs Authority. However, a lifting of the embargo may have less of an impact on Dubai than meets the eye. The Washington Post, quoting reports by the US Justice Department and the Institute for Science and International Security, reports that Iran has shifted the axis of its smuggling of components for its nuclear program from Dubai to Malaysia.

Some US intelligence officials believe that Iran is already capable of building one nuclear bomb every eight months and that Obama will have no choice but to engage Iran and embed it in a broader regional security arrangement. The New York Times reports that President Bush last year rejected an Israeli request for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted to drop on Iran’s main nuclear complex and had also refused Israel permission fly over Iraq to reach the facility. Instead, Bush, according to the Times quoting US and non-US officials, advised Israel that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort. Some US intelligence officials however argue that the covert operation, if the past is any indication, will at best delay but not derail the Iranian nuclear program.

Iran most recently signaled its interest in playing a constructive role and engaging in dialogue through its response to the Gaza crisis – a combination of theatrics and some diplomacy. Iran has ruled out military support for Hamas, witness the refusal of Hizbollah to attempt to alleviate Hamas, by opening a second front against Israel on its northern border. Beyond not wanting to jeopardize Hizbollah's ability to perform well in Lebanese elections scheduled for later this year, Iran believes that Israel has created a situation that will cost it dearly, if not in military terms, certainly in political and diplomatic ones. Reason for Mohammed Ali Jafari, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) to say this weekend: "Gazan resistance does not need other countries' military help."

No doubt, an advertisement last week offering a reward of $1 million to anyone who would assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for betraying the Palestinians placed by the Basij, a volunteer-based paramilitary force subordinate to the revolutionary guards, hardly points to a desire for dialogue. It does however fit into the category of tasteless, counterproductive and provocative theatrics. It is unlikely that Iran is about to dispatch a team of assassins. More probable is that Iran would like to stir the pot in Egypt, witness the call by Iran's Lebanese ally, Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on Egyptians to protest their government's refusal to fully open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. Hizbollah does "not like to target Israeli civilians during election years – and Lebanon has parliamentary elections coming up in April. Hezbollah even kept their rocket attacks down for 1998’s local elections... Extrapolating, this trend indicates how highly Hezbollah values its legal and political standing in Lebanon and its recognition that this standing is damaged when it is held responsible for provoking Israeli strikes," says Aaron Mannes, who works on models of terrorist group behavior at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics on the TheTerrorWonk blog.

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has a particular pension for setting himself up as the boogeyman, denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel's demise. Yet, his predictions that Israel with be destroyed or simply wither away from the pages of history reflect a belief that Israel is digging it own grave and will self-destruct as a result of its own contradictions and policies. Critics of Israel in the west may too argue as they watch the carnage in Gaza continue that Israel's is its own worst enemy. Moreover, Iran's real targets are the conservative Arab governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, Israel is a tool towards that goal.

Iran sees political mileage in the mass demonstrations across the Arab world not only denouncing Israel but also Arab government failure to bring an end to the crisis. That political capital is all the more important in a period of transition in which it has yet to emerge whether US President-elect Barack Obama will break with the Bush administration's policy of seeking to force Iran to make concessions before engaging in constructive dialogue.

Iran limiting itself to theatrics and rhetoric in Gaza contains another message: compare Iran's response to Gaza to its response to issues about which it is really concerned: Iraq and Afghanistan where Iran's hand in the resistance against the presence of US troops is clearly visible.

Nonetheless, theatrics and rhetoric contain pitfalls. Iranian leaders encouraged Iranians to pour into the streets to protest the Israeli offensive and to volunteer to fight in Gaza. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei declared that "true believers" were "duty-bound to defend" the Palestinians promised anyone who died for the cause of Gaza that he would be a martyr. Demonstrators took things in their own hands and attacked foreign embassies, including those of Britain and Jordan. They had to be cautioned to maintain public order.

Some 200 volunteers of the 70,000 who reportedly signed up to fight in Gaza held an angry sit in at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, demanding that they be sent to the strip. Ahmadinejad's brother, Dawoud Ahmadinejad, was sent to the airport to advise them that they would not be travelling to Gaza any time soon while IRGC commander Jafari asked them to end the demonstration and called for a "mental and political jihad" against the enemy.

US Media: Rising from the Ashes

Is the current economic crisis sparking the demise of print media as we know it? Some 28,000 journalism jobs in the United States were lost last year; the Tribune Co., publisher of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, has filed for bankruptcy, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will close or will follow in the footsteps of The Christian Science Monitor and The Detroit Free Press and go digital-only if no buyer for the 145-year-old title is found within 60 days.

Concern is now focusing on the future of The New York Times. "…as the industry gears up for an even worse year, even the New York Times has become the subject of panicked speculation," reports Paul Harris in today's The Observer. Like the rest of the US media, The New York Times suffers from reduced advertising and competition from the Internet at a time that the United States is weathering a deep recession. Writing in The Atlantic, Michael Hirshorn wonders whether the Times and journalism as such can survive the death of newsprint. He warns that America's paper of record may default on $400 billion in debt this May.

Crisis produces opportunity and that is true for the news business too. The struggle for survival is likely to be the catalyst for the media to do what it should have done 10 years ago: adapt to the paradigm shift produced by technological advance. In an industry in which print and distribution often accounts for 50% of total cost, going digital only makes perfect sense. It allows print media to reach out to a much broader local and global audience and to move to the forefront of technological advance and the change in reader preference involved. It would also fuel hardware manufacturers to advance screen technology as Amazon did with the Kindle and could force them to develop more affordable A3 printers for readers who would like to print the paper at home or in the office. In effect, the cost of print and distribution is shifted to the reader.

The print media have been slow to adapt to technology. With the exception of The Wall Street Journal, which successfully refused from the beginning to offer its content for free online, most newspapers initially thought all they needed to was put what is in the newspaper online for free and garner revenue from advertisement. The model failed. Like with the switch that many papers made from broadsheet to tabloid, newspapers failed to recognize that form dictates content. In addition, readers grew used to demanding free content, foiling attempts to move away from an advertisement-driven model to one in which readers pay for content. The current media industry crisis may enable papers to finally make that switch.

It may also force them to think creatively and come up with new models, products and market segmentation. A fountain of ideas is being developed by The Nieman Foundation's Nieman Reports. "Today's obsession with saving newspapers has meant that, for the most part, media companies have failed to plan adequately for tomorrow's digital future. The economic downturn has added to the urgent need for a change of direction," says Edward Roussel, digital editor of the Telegraph Media Group (TMG), in a Nieman Report entitled To Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present, in which he suggests 10 ways the media can make the paradigm shift, including: invest in premium content rather than trying to be everything to everyone, build alliances and networks to provide coverage of areas in which one's own capability is weak, adopt the 24/7 model instead of old media deadlines and have the guts to experiment.

Predicting that The New York Times if it goes digital only, may have to initially lay off 80 percent of its staff, many of whom would leave journalism, Hirshorn argues that there is a silver lining. "…over the long run, a world in which journalism is no longer weighed down by the need to fold an omnibus news product into a larger lifestyle-tastic package might turn out to be one in which actual reportage could make the case for why it matters, and why it might even be worth paying for. The best journalists will survive, and eventually thrive. Some will be snapped up by an expanding HuffPo (which is raising millions while its print competitors tank) and by the inevitable competitors that will spring up to imitate its business model, or even by smaller outlets, like Talking Points Memo, which have found that keeping their overhead low allows them to profit from high-quality journalism. And some will succeed as independent operators. Figures like Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, and Andrew Ross Sorkin (the editor of the DealBook business blog, which has been a cash cow for The Times) would be worth a great deal on the open market. For them and others, the bracing experience of becoming 'brands of one' could prove intoxicating, and perhaps more profitable than fighting as part of a union for an extra percentage-point raise in their next contract,@ Hirshorn writes.

For now, its uncharted waters. It all makes sense at first glance. Peter Preston, also writing in The Observer, points to the success of the four-year old Huffington Post: Eight million unique users, a 448% annual growth rate and awards showering down, a valuation of $100m. “Here's one sort of journalism that can shrug off recession, surely? Tina Brown with her ultra-competitive, somewhat derivative, Daily Beast is already turning a wheeze into a formula. And that formula - from Arianna Huffington to Lady Harry Evans - seems suitably promising. No more tons of newsprint and heavy lorries; no more futile costs. Here's the web standing proud and unencumbered, giving you the basic news you need in a neat, edited package that moves swiftly into blogged opinion. Huffington calls this her search for truth. Jaundiced readers of American newspapers would call it a long overdue reaction to too many po-faced balancing acts in monopoly papers afraid to express any opinion,” Preston says.

Yet, the picture is not all that rosy. The underlying figures do not support the perception of success? “A TNS Media Intelligence analysis quoted in Advertising Age last week puts Huffington Post revenue between January and August last year at a mere $302,000 or so. It's no secret that, at best, Huffington's enterprise was only occasionally profitable, in an election year during which US liberals flocked to the site,” Preston says, arguing that digital only news and opinion providers confront the same dilemma as traditional media: they can't turn what they have into worthwhile money.

A closer look at what the backbone is of the Huffington Post or The Daily Beast’s source list, which includes an impressive roll call of bloggers, remains far more conventionally: some 40 traditional mainstream newspapers and broadcasting stations. “Dig a little deeper among individual strands, moreover, and you wonder how on earth either Huff or Beast could get by without the Associated Press and New York Times. And there's the rub. The Huffington Post has around 50 staff, most of them technical and production hands. It would like more reporters of its own, of course, but (unlike Brown's Beast) doesn't attempt to pay its big bloggers a cent. Honor and glory stand in for a check. As CP Scott never said (in schoolboy parody): Comment is free, but facts are expensive,” Preston writes.