1. The EU: Because they've drawn closer to the US in the 'War on Terror', particularly given the rise in EU troop commitments to Afghanistan. Many EU states were also quite taken by last year's Disengagement, which represented one of the best diplomatic coups Israel has ever engineered in terms of helping eliminate traditional policy divisions with European states.
2. Arab states: It really is what conservative American and Israel papers are saying - because they see the hand of Iran in Hezbollah's initiation of this fight, and fear that its both the beginning of an Iran-Israel conflict, (which nobody in the Mid-East wants, except the US) and because many US-allied Arab states believe that the Iranians are providing support to their own Islamist movements as part of a strategy to make Iran the local hegemon.
3. Israel: Israelis are less divided on this Lebanon war than the first because the country is being so heavily targeted (forget the remarkably distinct casualty ratio here with the Lebanese) and because there's a coalition government in place tying together centrists, liberals and many leftists with the security conservatives of the Kadima party.
Given that this coalition is 100% in agreement about its Lebanon policy, it creates a rare national consensus that sucks in Israelis of literally every political stripe.
Best, Joel
On Jul 22, 2006, at 11:21 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Jul 22, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Seth Kulick wrote:
>
>> This is why, unlike the demonstrations of 1982, only 800 men and
>> women
>> demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Sunday night against the aggressive
>> operations in Lebanon and the Israeli policy of might.
>
> Reuters reports that "thousands" protested in London and "hundreds"
> in Amsterdam. Hundreds? Wuzzup? Is Israel getting a free pass
> outside the Middle East?
>
> Doug
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