CHOOSING THE NAZIS OVER THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS:

The Year of Acting Dangerously (Barry Rubin, December 23, 2007, GLORIA)

While 2007 didn't greatly change the Middle East compared to some of its predecessors, here are some of its significant trends which will continue to dominate the year to come.

1. Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. This is the most important single Middle East event of 2007 because it is a clear, probably irreversible, shift in the balance of power. Four decades of a movement dominated by nationalists has come to an end. Given Fatah's continuing weaknesses it is conceivable that Hamas will take over the West Bank within a few years and marginalize its rival. To Islamists, this is a great victory. In fact, it is a disaster for Palestinians and Arabs. It deepens divisions and destroys any real (as opposed to the silly superficial events that take up governments' time and media space) diplomatic option for them. A negotiated resolution of the Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and with it prospects for a Palestinian state, has been set back for decades. Much Western sympathy has been lost. In years to come, struggles between Arab nationalists and Islamists, as well as between Sunnis and Shias, will dwarf the Arab-Israeli conflict. During 2008 we will have to assess whether the Palestinian Authority still ruling the West Bank can meet the Hamas challenge.

Kind of a bizarre notion that the future of Israel and the prosperity of Palestinians would be better secured by a triumph of nationalism/socialism than by Abrahamism, but there's no chance of the PLO defeating Hamas in the long run precisely because it can't satisfy basic human desires. Indeed, Israeli/American attempts to impose such a regime only serve to legitimize the worst sorts of hatreds of the West.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 24, 2007 12:04 AM