The January 10th New York Times: “Nowhere in the Arab world is the gap between the street and the government so wide as here in Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel and has refused to allow free passage of goods and people through its border with Gaza, a decision that has been attacked by Islamic and Arab leaders and proved deeply troubling to many Egyptians… The mood on the streets of Cairo feels somber, dark, dejected. There is a heavy security presence. Armed riot police officers are massed outside of professional organizations...

The issues for local leaders is pain...

The January 10th New York Times: “Nowhere in the Arab world is the gap between the street and the government so wide as here in Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel and has refused to allow free passage of goods and people through its border with Gaza, a decision that has been attacked by Islamic and Arab leaders and proved deeply troubling to many Egyptians… The mood on the streets of Cairo feels somber, dark, dejected. There is a heavy security presence. Armed riot police officers are massed outside of professional organizations...

The issues for local leaders is painfully obvious (same Times article): “ ‘The pressure is mounting on Egypt,’ said Abdel Raouf el-Reedy, a former Egyptian ambassador to the United States. ‘How come you keep the Israeli ambassador here? How come you keep the Egyptian ambassador in Israel? How come you still export gas to Israel in spite of a court order to stop? The system is on the defensive. Public opinion is more clearly on the side of Hamas.’ ” Hamas has drawn grassroots sympathy, and Iran seems to have been elevated as the political powerhouse in the Middle East, particularly among the Muslim masses. Could this Israeli effort, while militarily successful, have turned Hamas terrorists into “freedom fighters” in the eyes of an even greater number of people? Has this Israeli attack made recruiting Muslim radicals that much easier?

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama face their own nation’s economic chaos as their most immediate threat, but if someone doesn’t take steps to diffuse the anger in this region – heavily exploited by Iran to grow its own power base – pretty quickly after the inevitable cessation of hostilities, we are going to be faced with the added cost of another Afghan-like war in the not-too-distant future, a drain that this country simply cannot afford. The poverty and hopelessness in an angry Arab world is much more than something we can deal with in the future. The future safety of both Israel and the United States depend very much on how the aftermath of this fury is handled. The Obama administration’s...

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama face their own nation’s economic chaos as their most immediate threat, but if someone doesn’t take steps to diffuse the anger in this region – heavily exploited by Iran to grow its own power base – pretty quickly after the inevitable cessation of hostilities, we are going to be faced with the added cost of another Afghan-like war in the not-too-distant future, a drain that this country simply cannot afford. The poverty and hopelessness in an angry Arab world is much more than something we can deal with in the future. The future safety of both Israel and the United States depend very much on how the aftermath of this fury is handled. The Obama administration’s willingness to engage both Hamas and Iran in dialog is a decent place to start… but the path is long, winding and tortuous.