Fear and loathing and Hamas

[pscot]

After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. That, in turn, may have contributed to the failure of the antagonists to reach a negotiated cease-fire even after more than three weeks of bloodshed.


“The Arab states’ loathing and fear of political Islam is so strong that it outweighs their allergy to Benjamin Netanyahu,” the prime minister of Israel, said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington and a former Middle East negotiator under several presidents.

Click through for more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/world/middleeast/fighting-political-islam-arab-states-find-themselves-allied-with-israel.html?action=click&contentCollection=Sunday%20Book%20Review&module=MostEmailed&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

[swilton]

1. Given the debacle

we're now witnessing in the Gaza Strip, I think the notion that defines Hamas as in control of the Gaza Strip should be questioned.

[pscot]

2. The idea that anyone is actually in control anywhere

is open to question.