Despite the ceasefire, the sources of the conflict in Gaza are unresolved and peace is unlikely to hold
Alastair Crooke
(former security adviser to the EU and founder and director of the Conflicts Forum conflictsforum.org)
The Guardian, Monday 19 January 2009
"....At another level, however, the 22-day war has changed the parameters in the region: it has produced an unparalleled, overt challenge to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the formal structures of Arab political power. The Doha informal meeting of heads of state on Friday gave legitimacy to the Palestinian resistance movements, called for direct action to isolate Israel and pronounced the Arab initiative to normalise relations with Israel in return for withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 to be "dead".
None of these decisions has any formal status, but they represent a striking and open attack on the Egyptian and Saudi claims of primacy over Palestinian affairs. It heralds the beginning of a bitter struggle of the Doha-Syria axis versus the Saudi-Egyptian alliance for control over the future of the region......
All of these separate initiatives - Israeli, American and Egyptian - have as a primary aim an agreement from which one of the main protagonists, Hamas, is excluded. None of this bodes well. It resembles the choreography for a further round of conflict......
In the longer run, however, things are not so clear. The uncompromising nature of the assault is having a profound impact. Muslims saw the Israeli mood as drawing on an ancient narrative: a desire for an unmitigated, religious victory. Israel will point to its statistics of perceived success, but the other side will see not the hollow counting of damage inflicted but an archetypal image of a heroic Muslim stand against overwhelming military odds. "Victory" may look rather different a few months from now."
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