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America Must Deal First with the Threat from Iran

[Financial Times-UK] Efraim Halevy - The Obama administration is openly telling Israel that its policies on the Palestinian dispute must be crafted in such a way as to enable Washington to build a credible and powerful anti-Iranian coalition including the moderate Arab regimes. While Iran's nuclear threat, coupled with its policy denying Israel's right to exist, is a predominant factor demanding an extraordinary international response, other aspects of Iran's involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict are assuming ever-growing importance. In addition to Iran's traditional sponsorship of the Hizbullah movement in Lebanon, for close to ten years Iran has invested heavily in Hamas, upgrading training and equipment. If the convoy of Iranian equipment sent via Sudan in January had not been destroyed, its arrival in Gaza would have put most of Israel within accurate missile range. All-out regional war might have been unavoidable. Iran, through Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, is constantly upping the ante. Iranian support has been a key factor in solidifying Hamas' political power base in the Palestinian territories. Not only is Gaza firmly in its hands, but all the combined efforts of Israel, Fatah, the U.S., Europe and the moderate Arab regimes to reduce Hamas' status in the West Bank have proven futile. Polls show Hamas would win a majority in the West Bank. Fatah, still struggling to try to hold its party congress, not convened for 20 years, has become a politically hollow movement. Even if the Palestinian Authority signed a peace agreement with Israel, it could not implement it in the West Bank, let alone Gaza. Iran has emerged as a spoiler of the "peace process." Its nuclear ambitions pose an unprecedented strategic challenge to Israel and the free world, and its activities on the ground are the biggest block to efforts to reinvigorate Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. It is essential to rid the Palestinian scene of Iran's destructive involvement. In the absence of this, efforts to aid the Palestinians in nation-building are doomed to failure. The writer heads the Shasha Center for Strategic Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a former head of the Mossad.
2009-05-15 06:00:00
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