New alliances for a 2015 Middle East peace conference?
The Gaza conflict demonstrates that Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Saudi Arabia share common regional interests, which could lead them to an international peace conference based on the Arab League's peace initiative.
The war in the Gaza Strip is both about the illusion of power and about its limitations. Hamas, like a classic, guerrilla-terror organization, spent five years developing an impressive long-range rocket arsenal as well as a comprehensive underground terror world — a fundamentalist religious ideology marrying sophisticated modern armament. The well-prepared infrastructure of terror, however, turned out to be a disappointment to its architects, due to the Iron Dome air defense system and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) incursion.
Israel is one of the leading military powers in the world; yet, it is unable to defeat a terrorist group of 20,000 fighters, surviving underneath the Gaza Strip.
