Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>
> Was this a surprise to anyone in the Middle East? As I recall,
> Gilbert Achcar said this was Bush strategy when I interviewed him
> last January <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#070104>.
>
> Doug
>
The question is, a surprise to whom? This fits well with what we have been hearing, and from Palestinian sources in Gaza and such. You can get smatterings of information from the media on it if you know how to read between the lines when they discussed Dahlan, the Palestinian security services, Tenet and Dayton and the training of the "elite" Palestinian units in Jordan and such...
But, I don't think it has been laid out so clearly before from one source with some backing.
And for the majority of Israelis, they take what they are told from the government and Israeli media at face value...so this would be news to most of them... I would think the case is the same for the Americans, especially the US Jewish population, not that they will be able or willing to register anything from it....
Bryan