Arab leaders mull Israel-Hezbollah crisisBy STEVEN GUTKIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
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It's more than just a matter of pride. Israel fears any perceived weakness in its current fight against Hezbollah will be a boost to all Islamic militants out to destroy it and to their main patron, Iran.
"From the Israeli point of view, to reach a cease-fire right now without reaching some or most of its strategic goals is not just counterproductive but dangerous," said Israeli counterterrorism expert Boaz Ganor.
Because of the near impossibility of beginning a negotiating process with either Hezbollah or Iran - and considering the weakness of the Lebanese government - Ganor argues the right address for negotiations is Syria, which like Iran, supports, arms and funds Hezbollah. However, Israel, Syria and Lebanon will not be at the conference.
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Assembling such a force is likely to prove difficult. Israel says it prefers a NATO-led coalition, but the alliance's member states are already stretched in missions elsewhere. And the traumatic history of peacekeeping in Lebanon works against nations committing themselves to another try.
The complexity of the negotiations makes a quick resolution of the crisis "almost unimaginable," said Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, the director of the Palestinian think tank Passia, argues that negotiations on the Lebanon fighting should not be handled separately from Israel's other crisis: a battle in the Gaza Strip with Hamas, which captured an Israeli soldier June 25.
"I don't see Hamas selling out Hezbollah for a separate deal," Abdul-Hadi said.
"People in Gaza as well as in Beirut are accepting the sacrifices, are accepting the pain and they are filled with steadfastness, with national pride and no surrender," he said.
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