> The broader "Arab world" hasn't conveniently forgotten that Egypt > kept its border closed to the sick and dying in Palestine as Israel > cluster bombed Gaza -- not for a moment. Memories are very long
Hah, yes - but you also forget the factor of indoctrination on both sides (all the way from rabble rousing preachers + politicians on either side, to textbooks that provide anything from biased retellings of past history to vituperative hatred of the other side) And the arab world cordially detests each other .. only they detest israel and "world jewry's plot to control America and the American media" even more. The late unlamented Saddam Hussein was famously quoted as saying that God should never have created "Jews, Flies and Persians (that is, iranians)" So while the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs might hate Egypt for not opening their borders to Palestinian refugees, and while the Palestinians might detest Syria and Jordan they certainly do hate Israel even more for bombing them and sending in troops. And the history behind this is not just for what took place during the 1940s - that's simply the culmination of a much broader split along tribal lines, with rival families propped up by the British to form petty countries all over the Persian gulf. Typical divide et impera in action there, and a remarkable illustration of how successful it can be .. not that it needed the Brits to do all that much division, among warlike people for whom blood feuds have a long and honorable tradition. And likewise, the Israelis are the least likely to forget a generation of suicide bombings, night raids across the border so that towns became armed camps, and random terrorism directed at them. And so there's no shortage of hate crazed rabble (aka cannon fodder) for the next mad mullah, mad rabbi or power crazy politician / general to recruit as either a soldier willing to go into a situation guaranteed to put civilians in harm's way, or a suicide bomber solely focused on putting as many civilians in harm's way as possible.
