However, it is interesting to see that most of the Gulf states (including the Saudis but excluding the Qataris) got rattled when Morsi came to power in Egypt and so have taken a very strong anti-Brotherhood stance that also involves bashing Hamas as allies of the Brotherhood and/or the Shias. This has pushed them closer to the Israeli position. Considering that Israel's other big enemy, Hezbollah, is a Shia group fighting the Sunni rebels they've been financing, they have even more reasons to cooperate.

It has created a tripartite sort of division, because Turkey and Qatar were very strong supporters of the Brotherhood and early on supported the Syrian opposition in a huge way. Qatar seems to have doubled down on Sunni extremists, but Turkey is now faced with the Islamic State on its southern doorstep and can't be happy about that. Although they are almost certainly experiencing a monumental crisis of ideology (not just on their role in Middle Eastern politics, either), they revert to pro-Brotherhood sentiments regarding Israel.

I think the reason Iran, Hezbollah and Assad haven't really said much is because they are too busy fighting on other fronts, and feel that Hamas dumped them far too quickly.

"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.