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Most of that article is pretty good really. Legolas Send a noteboard - 03/08/2014 06:56:15 PM

View original postVery interesting read. Looks like Israel is gaining some friends in the Middle East.

Please tell me that this time you actually read the full article before posting it? Including the last two paragraphs? If you haven't, or if you have but can't remember what the last paragraph was, I'd suggest you go read it again now. And then think about the ramifications of what is mentioned there.

But the quote from the American Enterprise Institute lady was idiotic and also unintentionally hilarious:

"It's no longer the Muslims against the Jews. Now it's the extremists -- the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their backers Iran, Qatar and Turkey -- against Israel and the more moderate Muslims including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia."

It's so good it bears repeating: "the more moderate Muslims including Saudi Arabia". As opposed, apparently, to the "extremists" in Turkey. I think anyone with the slightest notion of what those two countries are like can see the humour in that. I have to say, each time that I read about the Saudi government's fear of an Islamist insurgency, I ask myself, how is it that the most fundamentalist country in the entire Muslim world (okay, unless you count ISIS' proto-state), the only one which doesn't even allow women to drive, much less do anything else, is the one that apparently has the most to fear from Islamist insurgents?

And then I need to point out that the AEI's claim of the Middle East being split into two camps is completely wrong to begin with - let's not forget that Turkey and Qatar are providing strong support for the rebels in the Syrian conflict, by far the biggest in the Middle East at the moment, along with Saudi Arabia and the United States, while their supposed "allies" Hezbollah and Iran are firmly on the other side of that war. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood would also be rather unlikely to side with Hezbollah, Iran and Assad against the Sunni opposition in Syria. And that's without even mentioning the position of ISIS - probably the most extremist group in the whole region, and one which is at war with just about all other actors at the same time.

It's a bizarrely stupid statement, honestly, especially because it completely ignores an important factor in the current Israel-Hamas conflict, which is that Hamas has lost not only its Egyptian friends of the Muslim Brotherhood, but also its Shi'ite supporters in Hezbollah and Iran - perhaps not permanently, but certainly as long as the Syrian war rages.

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Well - 03/08/2014 11:48:25 AM 677 Views
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as said by many observers: you can't kill a concept - 04/08/2014 08:33:43 PM 567 Views
Most of that article is pretty good really. - 03/08/2014 06:56:15 PM 579 Views
The Middle East Is A Strange Place - 03/08/2014 09:30:17 PM 632 Views
I agree on the "moderate" part. - 04/08/2014 10:27:15 PM 538 Views

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