Is The Arab World Really Rallying To Defend Hamas?

According to Haaretz, the Arab reaction to Israel's incursion into Gaza has been muted:

As the death toll in Israel Defense Forces raids against militants firing rockets from Gaza climbed to more than 60 on Saturday, Palestinian Information Minister Riad al-Malki responded by saying: "Hamas gave Israel an excuse to start a war in Gaza."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also responded along these lines by saying that the "operation in Gaza is not just a reaction to the rocket barrage." Both comments can be interpreted as Palestinian backing of the Israel Defense Forces ground incursion in the Strip.

Moreover, the very mild Egyptian reaction and the conspicuous absence of a convicting Arab voice also indicate that the IDF raid is perceived by the Arab world to be first and foremost a war against Hamas, not the "real Holocaust" of the Palestinian people - as Khaled Meshal claimed on Saturday.

The fact that Al Jazeera devoted a whole episode of a popular debate show to the question "Why are the Palestinians keeping silent about the situation in Gaza?" also serves to prove this point.

If so, isn't this an opportune moment to go in and finish the job--destroying the infrastructure of a puppet of Iran, a country that the Arab world is increasingly wary of?

No.

The problem facing Israel at the moment is how to confine the incursion within the limits of Israel's struggle against Hamas and the rocket barrage, and not turn it into a war that seems to be directed against all Palestinians.

The line between these two stages is tricky and dangerous. Therefore the Israeli government should not give up on trying to get Egypt and the rest of the Arab countries to initiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Israel managing the public relations front is doomed to failure to begin with--she cannot win that kind of war, and even if she could--just what could she possibly gain in real terms, other than the sympathy of the West?

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