Converging Upon War

From the Middle East Report Online newsletter:

For many in Israel, and apparently also in the Bush administration, the escalating wars in Lebanon and Gaza are conjoined in a single war against a unified "axis of terror" linking Hizballah and Hamas to Damascus and distant Tehran. By lumping together the different struggles of Hizballah and Hamas, Israel casts resolvable political crises as unfathomable, irrational hatred, in an attempt to justify its massive bombing campaigns.

As Robert Blecher argues, the dual conflicts are indeed linked by more than captive Israeli soldiers -- not by radical Islam, but by Israel's plan to"disengage" unilaterally from much of the West Bank to manage its conflict with the Palestinians. With its two-front war, the Israeli government hasset out to prove to the Israeli public that disengagement is not a mistake.

Blecher's article, "Converging Upon War," is now posted at Middle East Report Online.