My mother and I e-mail each other every day. If I am late writing, she begins to panic that something has happened to me here in our settlement of about 6,000 people near Kfar Saba, located just a 10-minute drive from the Green Line, which separates the West Bank from Israel proper. It’s the land Israel captured during the 1967 Six-Day War, land that Palestinians and Israel critics still refer to as “occupied” territory. We both watch CNN continuously, so if an news anchor or banner mentions any action near the Palestinian city of Kalkilya, located down the road from here, I make sure to call to reassure her that we are, indeed, all right.

I am not just a “settler” here. I am also easily identifiable as a recent American transplant. With my dearth of Hebrew language skills, my Midwestern accent, and my lack of Middle Eastern aggressiveness, Israelis in stores and on the bus often ask me how long I have been here. Almost two years, I now answer proudly (but also sheepishly, if I have failed to understand someone’s basic Hebrew!). It does not take long for the questioner to do the math in his head. Are you crazy? he asks. Who would come here now with all of our problems?

In truth, we arrived exactly two months before then opposition party Knesset (parliament) member Ariel Sharon took his historic pre-Rosh Hashana stroll on the Temple Mount, touching off riots that led to what is now known as Intifada II. Because of this, nothing about our absorption into Israeli life and culture has been “normal.”

Before we arrived, our community coexisted with its many neighboring Palestinian towns and villages. Our neighbors shopped at their roadside stands and drove on Route 55 — the main artery into Israel proper — with few concerns. Palestinians worked here in the construction industry, at the local supermarket and as city gardeners. Since we arrived, only bulletproof public buses are in use and all Arab workers have been banned from our community. A security fence has been erected around the entire settlement, and members of the community trained in firearm use do security patrol alongside the professionals. Last week my husband and I joined the dozens of residents here who have purchased bulletproof vests for use in the car.

We did not move to a West Bank settlement to help fulfill former Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s vision of a “Greater Israel.” Actually, as soon as we moved here, we knew we might be required to leave, should a peace plan force us to. And we would have done so, trying to be optimistic that it would be the right thing. But now, as the president of my homeland seems intent on pressuring Israel to give in to a “Palestinian state,” and his secretary of state, Colin Powell, speaks of how the “settlements are a disturbing and destabilizing factor in our pursuit for a solution to the Middle East crisis” that will have to “be dealt with,” the situation has changed. And I have, too. I’m no longer sure I’d be so happy to leave, or optimistic as I packed up our belongings.

We originally moved to this particular settlement to be with family. My husband’s three sisters and their families, who moved to Israel 18, 12 and 10 years ago — all live within four blocks of our small rented apartment. Our children are basking in the attention of their aunts and uncles and their 12 cousins. Our plan was simply to move to Israel, but we decided that our integration would be easier and the learning curve shorter if we could rely on close family nearby.

Many of the people who live here do not appear to have come for ideological reasons, but rather for a better quality of life. They’ve moved here for the reasons people usually move to the suburbs: The air is fresh, the greenery abundant, the children can play unsupervised in the community’s myriad parks or walk themselves to a friend’s house in safety. The school system that my children attend was recently ranked third in spending per pupil. Tax breaks for living here, which Sharon championed for years before becoming prime minister, also make buying and renting in the settlements much more affordable and attractive.

But our pastoral way of life has been shattered by almost daily reports of suicide bombers and attempted attacks that filter through the media and by word of mouth. When someone attempted to blow himself up inside a crowded supermarket in the settlement of Efrat near Jerusalem, just hours before the Sabbath, news of the thwarted attack (thanks to the quick thinking of one of the store’s shoppers) hit the Internet at the same time it did the TV news. I read about it on our community’s electronic bulletin board, since I try not to watch local TV news when my children are in the room. Many people in this community have friends in Efrat, and Saturday morning our synagogue buzzed with secondhand reports of what had taken place in one of the last Israeli towns to allow Arab workers inside its gates.

Through the attacks, I have felt a deepening connection to my neighbors, including those that have mourned death at the hands of Palestinian terrorists — local deaths have included a mother of five children, three 14-year-olds, an elderly gentleman from the former Soviet Union — just as I am connected to all Israelis who have suffered attack upon attack and who are fearful for themselves and their children every time they leave their homes.

It has also helped to put the little things into perspective. So what if my newly imported American stove does not work properly? So what if I can not find an Israeli brand of peanut butter that tastes halfway decent? So what if my daughter has brought home head lice from school again? People are dying out there — mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. We had barely connected with our new, but in many ways only, homeland before we felt we were truly at war to defend it.

My father, a Holocaust survivor, actually entertained the idea of emigrating to Israel, instead of America, at the end of World War II and his escape from the Nazis. He and his two siblings eventually moved to Cleveland, but many of his cousins found their way to Israel and still live here today. One of my first cousins moved here from New York nearly two decades ago and lives just two blocks from my home here. And one of our third cousins lives right down the street.

My dad never made it to Israel because his relatives convinced him America was the promised land for Jewish refugees from the Holocaust. I think he forgot about his youthful idealism when I told him that I would be leaving his adopted homeland to move to the Jewish state. More likely, I think he was disappointed that after he went through being an immigrant in a strange country, learning a new language, building his own business, all so that he could give a better life to his children, one of them would choose to go through the experience all over again.

I wouldn’t have imagined it either, growing up in Cleveland, where I took money to my synagogue’s Sunday school each year just before spring to pay for a tree to be planted in Israel. I had a pen pal over there (actually a distant cousin). I knew that the room had to be quiet whenever Israel was mentioned in a news report.

But when I turned 10, my parents sent me to a Jewish overnight camp at the urging of our rabbi. The camp had a Zionist orientation, and I learned more about Judaism and Israel in my four summers there than I had in years of Sunday school and two days a week of supplementary Hebrew school.

At age 16, I spent six weeks in Israel on a summer teen tour. While everything started out feeling foreign, things soon began to feel very comfortable. Ruins that were centuries old stood alongside memorials to soldiers who fell in the modern state of Israel’s many wars. All the people around us — the kind ones and the rude ones — were “my people.” As we hung out on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem on Saturday night and young people poured out of buses and taxis, I found a sense of belonging I had never felt before. I planned to return for other visits. I did not plan to spend my life here.

In college I affiliated with the campus Hillel, participated in activities in support of Israel, and contemplated a quarter abroad. I spent a quarter working at a newspaper in Wilmington, Del., instead.

My husband and I went out on our first date exactly one week after my graduation from Northwestern University and five days after I started working as a full-time reporter for the Cleveland Jewish News. Some time during our first date he told me he intended to one day make a permanent move to Israel. Did I ever see myself living in Israel? he asked. I liked the guy and wanted a second date. I said yes.

To his credit, during the first 10 years of our marriage, my husband always told me he would release me from my promise, and even as we planned our aliyah, he said that if I was unhappy personally or professionally there we could return to the United States. But we agreed that the best place for our children and grandchildren would be the Jewish state, where they would learn about their Jewish past, participate in their Jewish present, and prepare for their Jewish future. We would live in a place where the history they studied in school was Jewish history and where the national holidays we would celebrate together would be Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur instead of Christmas and New Year’s Day. We would live in a place where our children would not worry about job discrimination because they could not work on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and where wearing a kippah, or head covering, was the norm. Instead of watching Jewish history take place through a CNN camera lens, we would live it.

America and its special brand of democracy are still very important to me. What Americans think about Israel is also still important to me. And looking at world events, I carry with me a great deal of what I learned and believed as an American and a Jewish-American. But when I see polls showing that most Americans believe Israel should withdraw from the settlements in exchange for recognition by Arab countries, I wince. My fellow Americans, I think, don’t really understand.

I came to Israel as a centrist, perhaps slightly to the right of center. I believed peace was possible, that we could live side by side with the Palestinians in their state — on the Gaza strip and on the vast majority of West Bank land — that was envisioned by the previous prime minister, Ehud Barak, and offered to Arafat in a deal brokered by then President Clinton at Camp David in 2000. On the day in 1993 that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a peace treaty on the White House lawn, I jostled with my fellow staff members at the Cleveland Jewish News to get a look at the historic event on the screen of our 13-inch black-and-white television. I believe I may have snorted when the two shook hands — Rabin looked like he was getting a tooth extracted and Arafat looked positively triumphant — but I bought into the pageantry of it all.

I still did when we finally moved here, three children in tow and one arriving a year and a half later. If Jews had to leave their homes in the West Bank, I thought, so be it. If we had to give up some of what we believe is land promised to the Jews by God and our forebears, so be it. The price of peace, I rationalized.

Yet with each passing week and month that I live here, my optimism about peace and living in peace with our Arab neighbors fades and my desire to remain here grows.

After every suicide bombing, Hamas or Islamic Jihad release a videotape of their “martyr” who talks on camera about why he, or she, has decided to become a human bomb. The videos are usually released to the Arab cable network, al-Jazeera, and picked up by Israel’s television, which sometimes gives a running translation. I hear the venom in their voices and see their conviction that they are right — and their belief that they will achieve paradise for their actions. I see the bomber’s parents interviewed, usually flashing a victory sign and accepting congratulations from their neighbors and friends. And I realize that another generation of Palestinians has been taught to hate Jews and that their ultimate goal is to drive us all into the sea.

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The Palestinian manager of the corner market always greeted me with a smile and had little treats for my children. The Arab man behind the meat counter at the local grocery store began working on my order as soon as he spied me coming up to the counter. The Palestinian owner of the gas station up the road always peeked into the car to see how quickly my infant son was growing and asked how we were handling the “situation.”

I am sorry that those hard-working men have been banned from the community. On the other hand, my relatives and neighbors point out to me that those men may be fine people but if one of the terror organizations threatened the lives of their family members, there is no telling what they would do. I don’t believe one of the men I know would personally become a human bomb, but if Hamas or Islamic Jihad threatened to kill their wives or children unless they eased an operative’s way onto the settlement or into the store, I have a good idea of where their loyalty would lie — after all, can I be sure I would act any different? Interestingly, most of the day-to-day contact between Israelis and Palestinians took place in the settlements, and those contacts were, for the most part, very good. Only after suicide bombers and gunmen began entering the settlements several months ago did those final contacts break off.

And in their absence, I will admit it: It becomes easier to think the worst of them.

On Sept. 11, My children were running around the house and I was attempting to get dinner started when my husband called me from the Petach Tikvah hospital, where he is a staff internist. “Turn on the news,” he urged. I flipped CNN on just in time to see one of the four hijacked airplanes slam into the second tower of the World Trade Center. Before I knew it, my cynical side kicked in — “Arabs,” I nodded to myself.

I was ashamed of my knee-jerk reaction, but it was soon to be validated. And when I finally sat down with my kids to talk to them about what had happened, in a country where their grandparents live and in a city where we have many relatives and friends, it was their first reaction, too. “Was it bad Arabs?” my oldest, age 7, asked.

I e-mailed friends to extend my sympathies and make sure they were handling things emotionally. At the same time, I felt somewhat vindicated. Terrorism can happen anywhere, even in America.

When President Bush announced his intention to launch a war on terrorism, I cheered. But then, not only was Israel specifically asked to stay out of the war on terrorism, but — as the United States bombed the stuffing out of Afghanistan, causing many civilian casualties in the process — Bush also continued to urge Israel to negotiate with a known terrorist leader and to decry a limited number of Palestinian civilian deaths at the hands of Israel Defense Forces.

Most of the organizations and people who less than a month ago were calling Jenin a massacre now agree that it was not. Palestinian estimates of 500 dead have been revised to under 50. In desperation, the Palestinians dug up bodies from area cemeteries and staged mock funerals to bolster their claims (in one funeral caught on IDF surveillance cameras and broadcast on Israel television, the “corpse” fell off the bier and began running through the crowd, starting a panic). This is not a people that is ready to make peace.

Each time I get into my car to drive to another city for something as simple as a visit to the bank or for a new pair of shoes, I feel a flutter of panic and fear. As I put on my bulletproof vest and set my cell phone to be ready to auto-dial the emergency number, I often cannot believe that this is what everyday life is like. This fear and incredulity stay with me throughout my whole drive down Route 55, where I often see soldiers at the side of the road — sometimes watching through binoculars, sometimes running and, last week, shooting over the heads of a group of Palestinian men gathering in a field. I felt the rifle discharge, I smelled the smoke of the gun! When I pass through the checkpoint at the Green Line I am sometimes disconcerted to find a soldier’s rifle aimed right at my forehead, as it is at each driver’s as he enters Israel proper, ready to halt his entrance if it is determined he can pose a threat to others.

As my fear continues to fester, it is rapidly turning into anger, resentment and hatred. I feel this even as I try to teach my children that not all Arabs are “bad Arabs,” as their friends tell them. That many of the people living in the Palestinian villages that surround us are good, and have families that they love just like ours. But the way things are, I am having a hard time believing it. And I am not the only one here.

I would like to see the Palestinians live with dignity and autonomy. I would love to live in peace. Ariel Sharon has seen his share of wars against, and adversity in, the Jewish state. When he and the other old warhorses here have faith in a peace plan — one that is not disfigured by partisan politics and wrangling — I will put my faith in it. When I am asked to leave, I will leave. And I, like my fellow citizens both here and in the United States, will pray that a true peace has really come. But right now, I believe that if we do leave the settlements, the violence will only follow us.

Many governments struggling with dissent appear to be using a double-barreled strategy to fight back against the so-called Facebook revolutions: classic repression and by promoting their own views using the very same platforms.

“The thought police already have a presence online in these countries,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “And they have a very heavy presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks. They go out there and intimidate people. And they accuse people of being heathens. And call for their heads.”

Jeffrey Ghannam, a media lawyer and analyst in Washington, thinks the propaganda strategy will win out over subjugation.

“It’s my sense that Arab governments will focus less on control, filtering and blocking — though those efforts will not completely disappear — and begin to assert their own views in the Arab cyberspace,” he said.

“Consider the cases of so-called Bahraini twitter trolls and the Syrian cyber attacks that go after critics of these respective Arab regimes. The official Arab government view is increasingly in the mix,” he said. “Another example is the way the SCAF (Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces) uses Facebook and Twitter. It may not be beautifully done, and it does draw tens of thousands of critical remarks online that are viewable, but the SCAF is contributing its views. These are all significant developments and point to increasing government engagement in the Arab cyberspace.”

Some of the official efforts smack of classic public relations techniques.

In Bahrain, the government launched an online campaign called “We Are All Hamad,” asking supporters to post pictures of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s ruler, on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

In Tunisia, government officials, including President Moncef Marzouki (@Moncef_Marzouki) have joined Twitter. The royal family in Jordan, as well as the mayor of Amman, Jordan’s capital, also use Facebook and Twitter to speak directly to constituents.

These regimes, however, have a long history of using heavy-handed tactics and are apparently not about to give up on old habits. Many, in fact, have learned that social media can help identify potential targets of their crackdown.

This nascent trend, however, has not led authorities in these countries and elsewhere to give up old habits. Many have continued to opt for the more traditional and heavy-handed response.

Last month, for instance, Moroccan authorities arrested 18-year-old college student Walid Bahomane on charges of “defaming Morocco’s sacred values” by posting unflattering pictures and videos on Facebook that poked fun at King Mohammed VI. Authorities also convicted another student, Abdelsamad Haydour, 24, earlier in the month for criticizing the ruler in a video posted on YouTube.

These developments have taken place in a country largely praised for its response to citizen discontent over the past year. In November, Morocco held peaceful parliamentary elections as part of a governmental reform process initiated by the king that also included a new constitution.

In Saudi Arabia, 23-year-old journalist Hamza Kashgari faces charges of blasphemy, an offence that carries the death sentence, for tweeting an imaginary conversation he was having with the Prophet Muhammad. The uproar over Kashgari’s comments prompted the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, to issue a fatwa against Twitter, which he told “real Muslims” to avoid as a “platform for trading accusations and for promoting lies,” according to an article in The National.

And in Jordan, a masked assailant on Feb. 20 stabbed university student Enass Musallam after he published a blog post that criticized a member of the Jordanian royal family.

Authorities in the region are now also turning to old laws — such as emergency laws, anti-terrorism laws and press laws — to justify the arrest, fines and incarceration of individuals for online expression.

“When the internet and social media blogs were just starting to become popular, press laws were only applied to the mainstream media. But that’s no longer the case as these media platforms continue to converge,” said Courtney Radsch, program manager for the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House in New York.

Earlier this month, for instance, authorities in the United Arab Emirates arrested pro-democracy activist Saleh al-Dhufairi for tweets criticizing the UAE’s decision to deport Syrian expatriates who demonstrated outside their consulate in Dubai without a permit.

“Saleh al-Dhufairi has been arrested on accusation of spreading ideas by speech, writing and any other means that provoke strife, hurt national unity, and social peace,” a spokesman for Dubai police said in a statement.

Al-Dhufairi’s arrest is a scare tactic by a government that is itself scared of any significant dissent, CPJ’s Abdel Dayem.

“Events are occurring that are of monumental political weight and have very far reaching implications. So what happens in Tunisia matters in the Gulf and what happens in Syria matters in the Gulf,” Abdel Dayem said. “These are obviously separate political entities and separate states but there is a Pan-Arab media consumed across borders, so journalists, bloggers, regular citizens and everyone else is exploring these new found venues for expression.”

“They are testing government tolerance for criticism, not just in Libya, Egypt and Yemen where there was an actual change in the political arrangement, but also in countries where there hasn’t been change.”

And these governments in turn are testing their responses, said popular UAE commentator Sultan Al Qassemi, who has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

“What we are seeing today is part of the teething process of accepting social media as an avenue of communication and criticism of society and government in the Gulf,” Qassemi said. “As the adoption of social media tools grows in the Gulf there will naturally be a larger output of opinions, some less agreeable to the authorities than others.”

Citizen journalists, bloggers and average citizens who run afoul of the law for expressing their opinions online must also contend with inadequate legal representation.

“This is a new realm for many lawyers in these countries. It requires training and requires a level of experience with the technology and that’s lacking in many countries if not all,” Radsch said. “Certainly, in the U.S. where you’ve had a longer history with internet-based content you have some more sophistication there.

But in many of these countries, blogging really just got going in 2004 and 2005.”

“With the advent of TV, you saw fewer cases against broadcasters at the beginning because it was still new and they were figuring things out, but you’re going to continue to see this battle between governments and citizens play out,” she said.

This time, however, the very nature of the internet and social networking might be enough to break the cycle.

“One thing is different,” Radsch said. “There are a lot more stakeholders and users of social media. The mainstream media is owned by a few and provides jobs for a few more but the vested interest across the broad swath of the public using social media could mean far more stakeholders could fight for the right to keep this space open.”

In the past few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon have all held high level meetings in Jerusalem. Barak is scheduled to meet with Panetta and with Vice President Joe Biden. Peres will meet with President Barack Obama, as will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Washington for a much anticipated meeting on March 5.

The subject at hand is nuclear Iran — not the movie version, and not even the proxy war version, which has seen the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, the attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats, and genial computer viruses attack Iranian nuclear installations, making centrifuges spiral out of control, as in Hollywood’s imagination.

On the eve of the Israelis’ Washington visits, there is a divergence of opinion between the United States and Israel regarding the utility of the recently hardened sanctions on Iran, and a growing apprehension on both sides about what the other may be prepared to accept from the Islamic Republic’s leadership.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel bilateral relations who holds posts at Bar Ilan University and at the University of Southern California, said the situation is stark and in some ways unprecedented.

“The Obama administration has little trust in Netanyahu and vice versa. The new sanctions that have been imposed have produced economic hardship in Tehran, but this does not mean they are working. To work, they have to change the Iranian government’s policy toward nuclear development, and this has not yet happened.”

“The UN Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just announced that Iran has substantially increased enrichment, which seems to contradict American statements that have appeared in all the media suggesting that Iran has not yet made the decision whether to develop nuclear weapons.”

Two points of dispute stand out in creating what Sen. John McCain, also on a visit to Israel last week, called the “daylight” between the two countries regarding Iran’s nuclear plan.

The first is the question of what constitutes unacceptable progress toward the manufacture of an armed nuclear device, or, in Barak’s words, Iran’s entry into a “zone of immunity.” The other is the extent of uranium enrichment at a nuclear site near the holy city of Qum, which was highlighted by the IAEA report.

The United States and Israel agree that the secret underground structure is better protected from a possible military strike than other known Iranian facilities. But from that point of agreement, different conclusions are drawn.

Israeli analysts believe Iran is moving fast toward a nuclear military option, and taking advantage of the pressure of sanctions and the time granted by European offers to negotiate in order to assemble all the parts necessary to build a bomb. The United States, which is in the midst of an election year, meanwhile, thinks sanctions may yet bring Iran — “if it is behaving as a rational actor,” in Gilboa’s words — to negotiate.

“The process is preparing everything for the building of bombs, with the aim of creating all the parts and then needing only a very short period of time to assemble a weapon. So it is just playing with words if we say that we don’t know whether they have made a decision. If you produce all the parts, it is obvious that means you intend to produce a bomb,” Gilboa said.

“I think that what Obama wants from Netanyahu next week is a commitment not to strike Iran at least until the American election, to give heavier sanctions a chance and not to surprise the United States.”

Gilboa does not believe Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations without notifying the Americans beforehand.

Still, he points out, “The current situation is unprecedented. The U.S. has never before asked Israel to refrain from military action, and Israel has never before asked the U.S. for permission. This is all new ground.”

The 1981 Israel Air Force attack on Osirak, Saddam Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor is now ancient history. In that campaign however, only eight jets were involved.

The New York Times estimated that at least 100 Israeli fighter planes would be needed today for a crippling attack on Iran. At the time of the Osirak strike, the United States angrily condemned Israel. But in 2005, former President Bill Clinton said, “Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing.”

The current disagreement between Israel and the United States seem not to be on the substance of Iran’s nuclear program, or even on the possibility of a necessary, last-resort, military strike, but on the timetable and method of response to the threat.

Many Israeli analysts believe the Obama administration and Europe are not convinced that the full effect of sanctions has yet been felt. Israelis are concerned that by the time they are felt, possibly by next summer, when Europe’s oil embargo on Iran is scheduled to go into effect, it might be too late.

“What Obama would like is to put the crippling sanctions to the test. He thinks that the sanctions being used this time, alongside the oil embargo, will actually have an impact,” said Tel Aviv University professor Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

“He is in effect saying to Israel, don’t surprise us. We want to be updated from A to Z. The second thing, I think Israel is being asked is to play down the shadow war and really just let sanctions work. If the sanctions are going to be fully implemented it could inflict a lethal blow on the Iranian regime, and since what we are talking about is the survival of the regime itself, this could be very effective.”

As to Israel, Rabi says, “It would like to make sure everybody knows that from its point of view, a nuclear Iran is unbearable. This combination of ayatollahs and power is something that poses an existential threat to Israel, and it is something Israel is really afraid of. What Israel thinks is the right thing to do is to make sure the military option is not only on the table, but actually feasible.”

Not many in Israel think that Iran, even with a nuclear weapon in hand, would attack Tel Aviv.

“Based on rational thinking, which is not one of the strongest characteristics of the Middle East, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would be tantamount to suicide were they to use them. Iran would be wiped out by Israel’s second strike capability and by American nukes,” Gilboa said.

“I think they want them in order to acquire hegemony in the Middle East. By becoming a nuclear power they can threaten anybody. The power of threat is much more than the power of destruction.”

Gilboa predicts that next week Netanyahu will ask Obama how he plans to ensure Iran’s non-nuclear status in the event sanctions fail to cripple the nuclear program, and that Obama “will evade the answers.”

Rabi says “Israel is afraid to be left alone. I don’t think Iran would attack Israel. But their actions provide a source of inspiration for lunatic radical movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fact that they are attacking Israelis in Baku, Delhi and Tbilisi, though ineffective for now, show that this is a state that could act in accordance with the modus operandi of a terrorist group. This has very negative implications for the stability of the Middle East.”

Not all Israeli experts see in the commotion of transatlantic visits and consultations evidence of tension between the United States and Israel. Shlomo Shpiro, vice chair of the Department of Politics at Bar Ilan University, believes those claims to be overstated.

“I think there anxiety among some in the U.S. administration who fear that a powerful Israeli military action against Iran could have an impact on the election in November. I don’t think there is tension. A whole range of senior American officials have been visiting Israel almost on a weekly basis.”

“I think the threat assessment is very similar in Washington and in Jerusalem,” he adds. “I think Obama is very concerned about the possibility of Iran getting nuclear weapons. Both are very worried, and both countries agree the process is moving quickly. The disagreement is only about how to prevent or delay it.”

Any Israeli military option, Shpiro says, would be a “last resort.”

“But if it comes to a last resort, I think Israel’s leadership will not hesitate. It all depends on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and on information that the U.S. and Israel obtain about that program.”

For now, the war of nerves will play on, with Israel pressuring the U.S. and Europe to fully implement severe sanctions as soon as possible, and demanding assurances, perhaps impossible to give, about what the West will do if sanctions do not deter Iran.

The psychological warfare, many say, may lead Iran to believe it can “safely assume it can continue with its plan to build nuclear weapons without much interference,” Gilboa said. “There is a possibility the Iranians are laughing at everybody. For example, why announce sanctions and then say you’ll impose them only in six months?”

“The Iranians are the only ones producing consistent statements, and this is our problem. Too many of the statements coming from the West are confusing and could be interpreted in any number of ways.”

Hezbollah has enjoyed enormous popularity across the entire region, perceived by many as the champions of the Arab world, successfully standing up to the bully in the playground, Israel. There was a time when the portrait of Hassan Nasrallah hung on the walls of homes and cafes from Baghdad to Casablanca. Yet, following a relatively cool reception of Nasrallah’s speech on the 16^th of February , one got the distinct impression that the Lebanese resistance leader may not enjoy the same popularity he once did with the Arab masses.

A simple explanation might be Hezbollah’s unequivocal support for Bashar el-Assad’s regime in Syria.  In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on May 25^th 2011, Nasrallah declared his group’s strong support for the Assad regime. He hailed Syria for its support of the Resistance movement in Lebanon and Palestine. Many have been unable to comprehend why the former champions of the resistance would side with the regime against the people, especially considering Hezbollah’s unreserved support for the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain. This has eroded the party’s popularity not only among Sunnis in Syria, who dominate the opposition, but also in the Arab world at large as regional tensions intensify between Shi’ite Iran and the predominantly Sunni Arab states.

Ironically, the very cause which won Hezbollah respect from thousands across the region, also, lost them the support of their own people. Throughout the 1990s, the Lebanese, regardless of sect, were united by Hezbollah’s resistance to the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon and again in 2006 when Israel threatened reinvasion. However, critics point to Hezbollah’s reluctance to disarm as the main source of national instability. Lebanese political leader Samir Geagea asserting that “The ones who are involving Lebanon [in crises] are those wielding power outside the Lebanese state” and demanding that Hezbollah put down its arms and integrate itself with the official Lebanese army and government.

In a similar vein, Hezbollah has alienated many followers by becoming embroiled in a petty tit-for-tat exchange with the March 14 coalition over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq el-Hariri.  Many, regardless of their politics, had respected Nasrallah for his commitment to his cause and ability to avoid entanglement in party politics.

Though not Hezbollah’s fault, as such, the persisting devastation of the socio-economic condition and infrastructure of southern Lebanon has also served as a harsh reminder, to the organisation’s critics, of the consequences of war with Israel

In the Asia Times, Sami Moubayed, points out Hassan Nasrallah’s total withdrawal from public life in Lebanon in recent years; choosing to address his supporters on live television rather than the massive public rallies for which he has been famed. His disappearance has been due to security fears. However, this has made it difficult for followers to connect with him. It is, also, now harder to draw in new supporters from across the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Despite their somewhat dented popularity, Hezbollah is still massively important on a strategic level, with regard to predicting the outcome of unrest in Syria.

In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on the 25^th August 2011, Nasrallah named Syria as a very important ally in the region “The Syrian support has been crucial. A great part of the Iranian support comes through Syria. If it had not been for the will of Syria, even the Iranian support would have been blocked”.  So, it is reasonable to assume that the fall of the Assad regime would serve a tremendous blow to Hezbollah, but also, act as catalyst to a power struggle within the country. A regime in Syria based on the Sunni Muslim majority would most likely be more friendly to Hezbollah’s local rivals in the March 14 coalition. Such a regime would also have good relations with regional powers that have severe disagreements with the Hezbollah movement over sectarian and political issues.

Prof. Joseph Bahout at Sciences Po in Paris notes that, in such a situation, Hezbollah would be faced with two alternatives, if faced with waning support from Syria “will Hizballah gradually become more flexible in terms of Lebanonization and civilianization? Or, on the contrary, will it increasingly pursue a radical position and bitterly defend its share of the Lebanese system while echoing Tehran’s dictum that Assad’s rule in Syria is a red line?” Judging by Hezbollah’s stern rhetoric over the past few months, the leadership has already decided on the latter and will continue to stand by the Assad regime.

Perhaps, most dangerously, Hezbollah also play an extremely important strategic role in what has been suggested as an imminent conflict between Israel and Iran. Would Israel be capable of conducting an aerial battle with Iran at the same time as defending itself against Hezbollah, closer to home?

Ha’aretz commentator Yoel Marcus thinks not, saying that a strike on Iran would be out of Israel’s league and points to cautions issued by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan against attacking Iran, amidst concerns that such a move would drag Israel into a regional war, which would involve Hezbollah, Hamas and possibly Syria.

Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Iran for some time, recently, heightened following attacks on Israeli embassies in India, Thailand and Georgia. An official for the Israeli counter terrorism bureau, quoted in Ha’aretz warned Israelis of further attacks and noted that Nasrallah’s threats of revenge for the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughaniyeh were being taken into account.  Nasrallah categorically denied any involvement in the explosions in his speech on February 16^th.

But what would such a conflict mean for the Arab world at large? It seems unlikely that Egyptians, Jordanians or, the Palestinians, all not so embroiled in the sectarian debate, would support Israel in any conflict against Muslims whether they be in Lebanon or, in Iran. However, countries in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) might have more to gain from a weakened Iran.

The GCC have been concerned about Iran’s capabilities, behavior and intentions for a long time, but it takes on an additional importance in light of the Arab Spring. This has certainly been the case in Egypt and Bahrain, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, possibly in Yemen, and now in Syria.

GCC countries have repeatedly accused Tehran of attempting to destabilise their internal security, and attempting to instigate sectarian strife. Iran has rejected these accusations, and pointed to the GCC’s appalling treatment of Shi’ite citizens. Particularly, concerning the brutal suppression of the largely Shi’ite uprising in Bahrain against the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy, a struggle which was obviously covered up by Gulf sponsored media such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.

Tensions have also been rising over Iran’s ability to developing nuclear weapons, something that is already of great concern to the GCC. Without a nuclear advantage, the Gulf far outguns Iran in terms of military capability, although, Iran is not reluctant to use its geopolitical position and has threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, if pressured.

When placed in the context of a larger regional conflict between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah plays an absolutely crucial part as an ally of Iran, especially in the absence of Syria. Yet, when the financial might of the GCC is also turned against Iran, Hezbollah, which is ultimately a financially dependent arm of Iran, becomes inconsequential.

It is possible that Hezbollah may look to find solutions to its waning popularity, and a possible run in with the GCC, by pre-emptively launching a strike against Israel. In his speech on Feburary 16^th, Nasrallah ambiguously claimed that “We have arms and they are increasing [in number]. We have well-known weapons and there are others which are hidden and unknown. We are hiding them because we need to protect our country and prepare surprises for the Israelis.” Whilst this may be an empty threat, a Hezbollah spokesman has said that the organisation would be willing to go to war with Israel, should Syria be attacked. It seems likely that the same logic would apply if an attack were to be staged against Iran.

Prof. Juan Cole has said that, in the case of a conflict with Iran, Hezbollah would almost certainly launch a rocket attack, which would threaten up to a quarter of the Israeli population. The casualties might be even worse if Hezbollah is able to target toxic gas storage in Haifa or nuclear reactors in Dimona and Nahal Sorek. Already Israel has been taking steps to shut down these facilities, in the event of an attack.

This seems to be a departure from Nasrallah’s statement in 2006, shortly after the 34 day war between Hezbollah and Israel, when he told Lebanon’s NTV that had he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers, had he known that this would lead to such devastation. However, six years on, the situation between Iran and Israel has escalated, and for Hezbollah this has become a battle for existence. In an earlier speech, February 7^th, Nasrallah admitted that the organisation has been completely dependent on Iran for “moral, political and financial support” since 1982.

Hezbollah has found itself in the unenviable position of choosing between its Iranian financial backer and its Arab popular support base. Ironically, Hezbollah’s only hope may be an Israelis attack on Iran, thus gaining it some support, once more, as the champion of resistance against the Zionist aggressor. But should the pressure on Iran be laid on by the Gulf states, Hezbollah will be left with no alternative but to cut its ties with Iran or, face complete irrelevance within the Arab world.

On the surface, the criteria that Obama outlined in his Libya speech are present in Syria: impending and ongoing massacres; a multilateral coalition led by America’s traditional allies; and an opportunity to side with the people in a crucial state in the Arab spring. For this reason, many liberal writers have called on the U.S. to intervene. Paul Berman has signed onto a conservative-led letter to the president asking him to intervene in Syria. The New Republic has an entire symposium with intellectuals (mostly) asking Obama to side militarily with the Syrian resistance. “Lead again from behind!” Leon Wieseltier exhorts. Especially powerful is a heartfelt plea for American help from a Syrian activist in Washington:

Pressure is building in Congress. Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who both serve on the Armed Services Committee, have argued for arming the Syrian rebels. Obama’s former State Department policy planning head Anne-Marie Slaughter was among the first to call for intervention. In late January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said it’s only “a question of time” before President Bashar al Assad falls. In December, the State Department pointman said Syria’s leader was a “dead man walking.” More recently, White House press secretary said on Tuesday that “additional measures” such as rebel-arming may need to be taken if the international community keeps dithering.

There are two significant reasons the administration has not pushed for military intervention, however. First, the international consensus that existed on Libya is not present in Syria. Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government. Imagining that they would agree to a military intervention is simply fanciful.

What hasn’t been much discussed is why China and Russia vetoed the resolution. And here we circle back to Libya. The resolution authorizing military action in Libya was limited to protecting civilians in Benghazi and other areas. NATO and its allies quickly went beyond the scope of this mandate, using airpower to assist the rebels in defeating Col. Gadhafi and his forces. Such actions may have been morally justified, but they didn’t go unnoticed by the Chinese and Russians, who are extremely sensitive to infringements on state sovereignty (lest they be targeted one day). Tellingly, foes of the proposed Syria resolution explained their decision in terms of national sovereignty. Russia’s foreign minister said that “the Security Council by definition does not engage in domestic affairs of member states.” Russia’s U.N. envoy faulted the resolution for aiming at “regime change,” even though the wording of the text notably did not call for it and the Arab states explicitly rejected Western military intervention.

The second reason Libya isn’t acting as a template for Syria is one of logistics. As Middle East expert Marc Lynch has explained, “Military intervention in Syria has little prospect of success, a high risk of disastrous failure, and a near-certainty of escalation which should make the experience of Iraq weigh extremely heavily on anyone contemplating such an intervention.” The Syrian opposition, impressive and courageous as they have been, is divided, weak and controls no territory. Air power of the sort the West can provide would not be effective in preventing civilian deaths, and the fighting is taking place in densely populated cities. For these reasons and more, a Libya-style no-fly zone simply won’t fly.

Eventually, the Syrian government’s efforts to suppress the rebellion may be so bloody that the Obama administration feels compelled to intervene. But so far, the conditions that were present in Libya are not present in Syria. It may be a double standard, and one that liberal hawks are not comfortable with, but it is one with good reason.