Over a matter of hours, my reaction to the resumption of hostilities between Israel and the Gaza Strip has changed from pessimism about the future of any peaceful relations to a partial rehabilitation.  If I had written this post yesterday, it might have looked something like this:

The continued volley of attacks between the two sides is exactly why I don’t see a solution for Palestinian-Israeli peace. At least not for the foreseeable future. There’s just too much ingrained strife between the two peoples.

That and the fact that the most conservative elements in both tend to have the most sway. Just see what’s happened when the past two Israeli Prime Ministers have made negotiations. They were both pretty much called appeasers. And I’m sure the same is true of the Palestinians. Note who (sorta kinda) got voted into control Palestinian authority. It’s not the sorta more moderate Fatah, but the more radical Hamas. Not to mention the power struggle between those two factions.

Add on to the fact that there is no way to effectively govern a country when it is split into two parts that are separated by another country.

A peace process is a long way off, if ever to come.

I suppose I still believe a lot of that.  But then I read an article by Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey that indicates Hamas may be in hot water over this whole situation, and that gave me a little hope.

Not only are other Palestinians, like Mahmoud Abbas, blaming Hamas for all of this, so is Egypt, whose foreign minister recently put the blame on Hamas for the attacks Gaza is now receiving.  Morrissey’s conclusion:

Normally, Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets seen as a venue for the general Arab/Israeli power struggle in the region, but things are changing.  The Sunni Arab nations see less of a threat from Israel than from Iran, the Persian Shi’ite nation bent on establishing regional hegemony.  Hamas gets its funding and direction from Tehran, in part through its Syrian ally.  Egypt has no desire to see Iran establish a satellite nation on its border and on the Mediterranean, and the Saudis won’t much care for it either.  Hamas’ war gave the Sunni moderates an opportunity to isolate their leadership among Arab nations, enough of an opportunity to do it publicly.

Morrissey notes that the battle may be more about Arab-Persian ethnic terms (which could make sense) and sectarian terms (which would not since Iran is Shi’ite and Hamas Sunni), than Israel.  Since Hamas is backed by Iran, I’m not so sure that the reason is sectarian, more than it is Iran looking to increase its own power in the region regardless of who lives there.

This could then be either for ethnic reasons or it could just be purely political.  Who knows, but I’m betting on the political aspects of things, especially if Persian Iran is so willing to fund Arab groups that they would normally be against.  In this situation, it makes sense for countries like Egypt to be against Hamas, since they wish to limit Iran’s political power in the region.

So, for once, Israel is sort of actually supported by an Arab country, at least for the time being.  Whether this indicates a movement toward a peaceful resolution remains to be seen.  I don’t think it’s going to be seen under Hamas rule of Gaza.  And perhaps my pessimism will be justified if nothing changes after this.