In 1979, while a correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Cramer won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Middle East, including the peace deal with Egypt and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He is also author of the bestseller “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” a classic work on Washingtonian inside politics. His well-researched biographies of Ted Williams, Bob Dole and Joe DiMaggio were enthusiastically received and won him a reputation as a serious journalist and writer.

Raised as a “zionist” (he now avoids writing the word with a capital letter) on the slogan of “a land without a people for a people without a land,” Cramer was shocked to learn, during his first visit to the “Holy Land,” just how false that slogan was. He was not too deeply concerned by this realization at the time, though. This was, after all, the period when Anwar Sadat made his historic visit to Jerusalem, when the newly elected ultra-nationalist Menachem Begin made a deal that returned every inch of Sinai’s land to Egypt and even guaranteed “full autonomy” to the Palestinians within five years. It took Cramer years to realize that Begin had made that deal in the hope of being rewarded with full and eternal control over Greater Israel — including the West Bank and Gaza.

The lessons that Cramer learned regarding the cynical interest-based politics behind Israeli peace negotiations inform “How Israel Lost.” This book is divided into four chapters, each of which poses a different question — an obvious reference to the “four questions” asked at Passover: Why do we (Americans) care about Israel? Why don’t the Palestinians have a state? What is a Jewish state? Why is there no peace?

The first question — Why do we care about Israel? — would have been sharpened if Cramer had acknowledged that the Bush administration’s unconditional political, economic and military support for Israel is, in fact, a new phenomenon, and one that could disappear just as quickly as it has emerged. Cramer does not acknowledge this fact, and his answer seems extremely superficial. He suggests that American support for Israel derives from the fact that the Americans have traditionally felt that they were like the Israelis, and warns: “Somewhere along the line, we got the feeling, ‘they aren’t like us.’ Or maybe we don’t want to be like them. And this is just one of the ways — one big one — how Israel lost.” In the light of the invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib scandal, perhaps both statements are correct. Nonetheless, they cannot really be thought of as having a deterministic explanatory power. The truth is that no one yet has come up with a truly satisfactory answer to this question, which calls out for deeper research. This is the weakest part of Cramer’s thesis and it is not supported by any provided evidence based on the American scene.

The three additional questions Cramer poses can be thought of as one single big question. They are mostly focused around Cramer’s correct assertion that 37 years of occupation and subjugation of millions of Palestinians and the colonization of their land have fundamentally corrupted, militarized and brutalized Israeli society, as well as the occupied people. The conflict, argues Cramer, is the only reason that, regardless of which party or coalition is in power in Israel, a military junta controls the political, economic and most of the cultural spheres within a supposedly democratic country. The reserve generals and colonels of this junta (whether they consider themselves “rightists” or “leftists”) fill almost every important position in Israel. The perpetuation of the conflict, which is good for every kind of business directly or indirectly connected with the permanent condition of warfare, is thus in their vested interests. Cramer provides ample evidence to prove and illustrate this thesis.

Cramer’s other main point is that the occupation is responsible for what he denounces as the splintering of the Israeli polity into a series of self-interested groups. The idealism, friendliness and humanism that characterized the Israel he once knew have been replaced by coarseness, increasing violence and an I’ve-got-mine-Jack attitude. Cramer is correct that the occupation is responsible for many of the pathologies that affect Israeli society, but I would take issue with him on what those pathologies are.

Cramer buys the idea that the demise of “Israelization,” the failure of the American-style “melting pot,” is the biggest crisis facing Israel. I see that failure as in fact a sign of blessed progress toward a multicultural and individualistic society, and away from the quasi-fascist collectivism (what is good for the state is good for the individual), exacerbated by the Jewish-Arab conflict, that has characterized Israel for most of its history. Moreover, the corruption of the occupation is only partially responsible for this trend.

One of the most important things that Cramer does is debunk, yet again, the apparently indestructible myth of the so-called “generous offer” made by Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David, which has been cited ad nauseam ever since as evidence that the Palestinians have no interest in peace. As Cramer notes, what Barak offered Arafat was a minuscule country divided into three enclaves lacking territorial contiguity by offering an exchange of the lands of three major settlement blocs characterized by sandy and unusable land. This, after the Palestinians had already given up their claim to more than 78 percent of the land of historical Palestine.

The situation on the Palestinian end of the story is, according to Cramer’s analysis and description, both similar and different. After he learned, following the first intifada, that it is impossible to oppress a people, Yitzhak Rabin initiated a deal with Fatah leader Yasser Arafat that was based on a terribly wrong assumption. The assumption was that imported Palestinian militias from Tunisia could serve as subcontractors to ensure Israel’s internal security (“without High Court and human rights organizations’ interventions,” as Rabin explained). The Israelis, like many colonial powers, preferred to rule indirectly.

The Palestinians, for their part, instead of having a prosperous sovereign state (they are probably the most educated and skilled Arab society per capita in the world), found themselves to be doubly oppressed. On the one hand, they found themselves still ruled by the Israelis, who continued to build settlements and wield ultimate power over Palestinian jobs, freedom of movement, water and land; on the other hand they encountered an even crueler oppression by the despotic tyranny of the “Tunisians” headed by Arafat and his Mafia-like security services. As Cramer vividly shows, Arafat and his lieutenants maintain the loyalty of the people by personally granting bribes and benefits (many have made a good fortune in this way) and using brutal force and torture.

Cramer correctly notes that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is not essentially a religious conflict but a political one. He accurately notes that the Palestinians are not a particularly religious group (they include Sunni Muslims, various Christian denominations and other smaller groups). However, the religious dimension of the conflict has begun to loom larger, as impossible and inhumane living conditions have pushed many Palestinians into embracing Islamist movements, turning the occupied territories into a huge factory for suicide bombers (or “martyrs,” in their terminology). The Islamic movements, through their image of purity, their devoted work for community welfare and their charity activities, have easily captured the support and loyalty of the Palestinian constituency, especially after Israeli military actions wrecked the Palestinian Authority’s power, prestige and legitimacy. Now, rule over the Palestinians is conveniently (for Israel) divided between Fatah, Hamas and Israel.

Cramer characterizes the second intifada as a “phony war.” Indeed, thousands of innocent civilians and non-civilians from both sides have been murdered or have sacrificed themselves (sometimes Cramer touchingly provides names, faces, ages and short life-stories for the victims). Nonetheless, as he points out, the corrupt present political and economic establishments have profited greatly from the situation. In fact, their only raison d’être is the continuation of the killings. Sharon could decide to kill or expel Arafat. He does not do so because Arafat is his insurance policy: The folly of the Palestinian leader ensures his own political survival. Sharon serves the same role for Arafat: Palestinians overlook their leader’s gross incompetence every time the Israelis lash out. Sharon’s investment in the status quo is revealed by the fact that every time Hamas has proposed a truce in suicide attacks, the Israeli military has promptly responded with a “targeted killing” of one of their leaders or activists, thus once again inflaming the cycle of violence and mutual slaughter.

Cramer has enormous admiration, empathy and sympathy for ordinary Jews and Arabs and their cultures, both of whom he sees as victims of their evil and corrupt leaderships and establishments. He argues that Israeli Jews, mainly the secular ones — many of them descendants of the socialist founding fathers of the Jewish state and of the early pioneers — are oppressed both by the old-boy junta generals and by zealous rabbis who have transformed secular Israel into a semi-theocratic state.

The author of this review is an atheist Israeli Jew who has fought an uncompromising struggle over the past 40 years or so for the separation of state and synagogue. Having said this, however, I find Cramer’s description of the Israeli Orthodox and national religious rabbis (today it is difficult to find any differences between them) to be highly stereotypical and repugnant. Cramer portrays Orthodox rabbis as greedy and ridiculous, as in a story about a hotel restaurant which goes to absurd degrees to get around its violation of a kosher dietary law. Even if this portrait has some roots in Israeli daily life, it is so exaggerated it resembles an anti-Semitic screed — surely not Cramer’s intention.

In fact, religion plays a more profound role in Israeli civic life and Israeli self-definition than Cramer realizes. It’s true that Israel was envisioned and created by secular socialists and liberals. At the same time, the Zionist movement was essentially a religious-messianic one. This is why it aroused the antagonism of European Jewish Orthodoxy prior to the Holocaust and World War II. It was not incidental that the founders of the state chose the Holy Land, nor is it by chance that the major symbols of the state were selectively borrowed from the Jewish religion. The Bible was always perceived by both Jews — even the atheist ones — and many non-Jews as the “Charter” of the Jewish people, justifying their claims over a land which was already populated by a native people.

The roots of Israeli submissiveness to religion and toward the “representatives of the god on the earth” — rabbis and religious clerks — should thus be seen as reflecting the quest for legitimacy of a settler-immigrant society in a region where they were not welcomed by the local population. Herein also lies a partial answer to the mystery of the extraordinary influence of the settler minority, which far exceeds their actual numbers.

As for the question of how to end the occupation, according to Cramer the solution is simple. He argues that “any Jew who isn’t an Israeli and not on psychotropic drugs, could solve this Peace-for-Israel thing in about ten minutes of focused thought. Give back the land to the Palestinians. All of it [the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem]. And since Palestinians are already living in their own country, they should have equal rights, a fact so laughably obvious — the only nation that can’t see this is Israel.”

Cramer is right about the solution, but wrong to say that Israelis don’t recognize it. In fact, opinion polls indicate that approximately 35 percent of Jewish Israelis support the so-called “Geneva Accord” issued recently and built on the same principles as suggested by Cramer. This level of support for such a “radical” peace plan was almost unthinkable several years ago. Today, even every child in Israel knows that if ever it will be possible to reach an agreement, these would be its contours.

What is the cause of this dramatic trend as well as of the surprising “disengagement” suggestion of Prime Minister Sharon, including the uprooting of all the settlements in the Gaza Strip and some isolated settlements in the northern West Bank? No doubt it is the so-called “demographic threat”: the fact that Palestinians will eventually outnumber Jews, forcing the Jewish state to choose between democracy and its Jewish identity. Some calculate that by 2020, a total of 15 million people will live on the land of historic Palestine, with Jews comprising a minority of 6.5 million. Moreover, even in Israel itself, within 20 years, the Jewish population will be reduced from its current 80 percent majority to a projected majority of barely 65 percent. Israeli fear of this has led to proposals that Israeli areas densely populated with Arabs be transferred to the Palestinian state in exchange for Jewish settlement blocs.

Two deep-rooted existential anxieties exist within Jewish Israeli political culture. The first is the physical annihilation of the state, an issue that is frequently used, abused and emotionally manipulated by many Israeli politicians and intellectuals. The second is the loss of the fragile Jewish demographic majority on which the supremacy and identity of the state rest. In fact, the loss of that demographic majority could be a prelude to the physical elimination of the Jewish state. Thus, the annexationist camp has found itself in an impossible situation: The patriotic imperative of holding onto the sacred land is contradicted by the patriotic imperative of ensuring a massive Jewish majority on the land.

Other settler societies “solved” the problem of the indigenous population by annihilating the natives (e.g., North America, Australia, New Zealand) or intermarrying with them (South and Central America), while others completely collapsed (Algeria, Zambia and, perhaps, South Africa). Israel’s problem is so intractable because none of these or other options, including repartition of the territory or binationalism, are either acceptable to it or viable.

The final question that must be addressed is the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. There is no doubt that, as Cramer suggests, Israel should recognize its moral responsibility at least for not accepting the refugees back home after the 1948 war. The Geneva draft, supposedly accepted even by Arafat (perhaps too late), presumes that most of the refugees should return to the Palestinian state and rehabilitate there, after having been compensated for their lost properties. A very limited number would be allowed to return into Israel. This may not be as difficult for Palestinians to accept as it may appear: Khalil Shikaki, a controversial pollster, found that only 10 percent of Palestinian refugees were in fact even interested in exercising their right of return (as Cramer notes, for his trouble he had his office smashed up by thugs associated with Arafat’s corrupt political machine). Nonetheless, even if all the trends outlined above take off, the solution to this complex situation may not be quite as simple as Cramer suggests.

Since 1967, Israel has regarded the occupied territory of the whole of Palestine and the Syrian Golan Heights as an open frontier for Jewish settlement and colonization. Both the rights of the indigenous inhabitants and international law were blatantly ignored. This was a gradual and incremental, two-dimensional and mutually complementary process. One dimension was the establishment of irreversible and accomplished facts on the ground, like settlements and the transfer of Jewish residents to them; at the same time, Israel prevented the development of local Palestinian institutions, infrastructures and leadership. (Those institutions and authorities that were created during the short period of the implementation of the Oslo Accords were a major deviation from the general trend, and were destroyed after Rabin’s assassination.) It must be mentioned that even the Oslo Accords were hardly welcomed by the majority of the Jewish population, and that Rabin’s government was based on a parliamentary minority.

The second dimension was the psychological-cognitive one. The fact of occupation and rule over a territory and its population was absorbed into the Israeli consciousness and became part of its identity. Today most Israelis have grown up under the present reality or immigrated into it (more than 1 million from the former Soviet lands, Ethiopia and even from the U.S.) and cannot imagine life within the narrow pre-1967 war borders. Moreover, “peace” is an abstract and incomprehensible notion, while land is a tangible asset. If Israeli casualties caused by wars and Palestinian terror, or resistance movements (depending on one’s values), were regarded in the past as a painful national calamity, they were slowly routinized and perceived as an inevitable cost of Israel’s existence. In the past, governments that failed to prevent war or protect the personal safety of their citizens were voted out. Today, casualties only empower governments — a situation that reflects a high level of national cohesion on this issue. It’s true, as pointed out above, that many Israelis say they are prepared to give back land for peace, but their words remain untested.

Cramer’s impressionistic book, with all its charming naiveté, lack of historical depth and some imprecision and exaggeration, is a very important work, both for American Jews and non-Jews. It is my hope that it will create a more open and critical debate regarding American policy and relations toward Israel (and perhaps even towards the entire Middle East), replacing the current orthodoxy of reflexive, blind defense of any wrongdoing by the Jewish state merely because it is Jewish.

Cramer is completely correct in his intuition that Israel is behaving today like a suicidal nation. Unlike Europe, the United States has not yet come to reject Israel’s behavior as unacceptable. Nonetheless, such a time will surely come, probably as a part of an increasing general awareness that the American responses to 9/11, including George W. Bush’s blank-check acquiescence in all of Sharon’s schemes, were evil, wrong and counterproductive. When the time comes that Americans realize, in the words of Cramer, that “we, the Americans, don’t want to be like them,” and Israel is forced to stand alone and choose its course, we will witness Israel’s finest or worst historical moment.

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.