Jonathan Kay, an editor at Canada’s National Post and a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, observed in an article published Friday that compared to previous wars against Palestinian terrorists since 2002, Israel seem less isolated internationally as it conducts Operation Protective Edge to fight Hamas’ terror infrastructure.
Kay notes that “this time around, the Arab world has been extremely muted in its support for Israel’s battlefield enemies.” To illustrate this phenomenon, Kay cited a recent article in The New York Times.
“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 New York Times reported this week. “The dynamic has inverted all expectations of the Arab Spring uprisings … Instead of becoming more isolated, Israel’s government has emerged for the moment as an unexpected beneficiary of the ensuing tumult, now tacitly supported by the leaders of the resurgent conservative order as an ally in their common fight against political Islam. The diatribes against Hamas by at least one popular pro-government talk show host in Egypt were so extreme that the government of Israel broadcast some of them into Gaza.”
Additionally, Kay writes, “Western observers now typically understand the despicable nature of Hamas’ human-shield tactics, and the manner by which those tactics affect battlefield casualty numbers.”
The combination of the antipathy of much of the Arab world towards Hamas, and the growing awareness of the evil of Hamas’ tactics, has led to a situation where those in the West who are seeking to isolate Israel are “utterly failing.”
A poll released earlier today by The Israel Project, publisher of The Tower, found that nearly two-thirds “of those polled consider Hamas a terrorist group that Israel ‘must stop.’” The kidnapping of officer Hadar Goldin and killing of two other soldiers has prompted criticism of Hamas by both Obama administration and United Nations officials.
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