Israel Matzav

War on Iran Has Begun

Years from now, the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit will be regarded like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Against the backdrop of Kassam rocket fire on Israelis living within range of the Gaza Strip, it was the fate of Corporal Shalit that triggered the Israeli return to Gaza, which in turn brought the Hezbollah forces into the game.

Israel is fighting two Iranian proxies on two fronts. It may, or may not, open a third front against a third Iranian proxy, Syria. It is from the Syrian capital that Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, has been laying down Palestinian Arab negotiating conditions. Why listen to Mr. Meshaal? Because the Hamas troops are loyal to him, rather than to their erstwhile leader, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, let alone the increasingly (as if that were possible) hapless Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas.

As one senior Palestinian Arab close to Mr. Abbas told me Mr. Meshaal believes that any resolution of this crisis, and of the wider crisis brought on by the surprising Hamas election win last January and the ensuing isolation of the Palestinian Authority from its European and American funding sources, must await the outcome of the discussions between Iran and the West over its nuclear enrichment program.

Perhaps a grand bargain is in the works, in which Tehran will forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions in exchange for Washington's recognition of its emergence as the new regional power. Every day, Iran grows more powerful; any deal should reflect Iran's growing importance. For example: forcing Israel to bargain for prisoner swaps, cutting the Israeli military advantage down to size, and scuttling both the possibility of unilateral disengagement in the West Bank (the preferred Israeli option) and renewed negotiations with weakened Palestinian Arab moderates (the option preferred by the Europeans).

Even more loyal to Tehran is the Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, whose forces yesterday kidnapped two more Israeli soldiers, opening up the second front. Sheik Nasrallah is warning Israelis that they must not think Lebanon is unprotected as it was in 1981 and 1982 when Israeli forces came pouring across the border to silence Palestinian Arab guns. Sheik Nasrallah's men are the recipients of tens of thousands of rockets — longer range and presumably more deadly than their roughly engineered younger Kassam cousins — that put central Israel in their range.

Each one of these players — Hamas inside Gaza and in Damascus, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Assad dictatorship in Syria — are chess pieces on the Iranian board. The pawn moves, drawing in the Israeli bishop; the Lebanese rook challenges; the Syrian queen is in reserve.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:42 PM