Fulcrum

There are some new aspects of the current situation that represent a fulcrum, a turning point in the history of Israel and the Middle East.
1. The US has realized once again that Israel is a strategic asset. Now that US forces are spread thin over Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran is a major strategic threat, the need to defeat Hizbollah, a proxy of Iran, is an urgent American strategic interest. But, the US can't do this by itself now, so it is cooperating with its ally Israel in facilitating this destruction. Israel is using US-made weapons and is operating under an umbrella of protection from the US, particularly in terms of time and the pressure by the international community (the UN and EU) to use civilian casualties as a means to peremptorily halt the war against Hizbollah and enforce a ceasefire, as it has been used to do in the past. So this is in effect a proxy war between the US and Iran through their allies, much as previous wars in the Middle East were proxy wars between the US and the USSR. Yes, Lebanon's infrastructure is being hit, yes, there are civilian casualties, but neither are the actual target of the IDF's actions. Israel and the US, as well as ironically the EU and UN, want finally to see a strong and democratic Lebanon arise from the ashes. But this cannot be achieved without the effective destruction of Hizbollah's military capability, both its ability to fire rockets into Israel and to dominate the Lebanese state on the ground with conventional forces. Israel has been in effect given the US imprimatur to go ahead and carry out this task on behalf of the entire western bloc.
2. The ability of Hizbollah to build up a huge arsenal of offensive ballistic weapons in Lebanon with Syrian and Iranian support, without serious challenge from Israel or the West was a major strategic error. Never before has any Arab force (for that is what Hizbollah calls itself even though it is Shia and is allied to non-Arab Iran) been able to actually fire rockets into Israeli cities and pose an existential threat to the State of Israel. This is what Pres. Ahmedinejad meant when he kept threatening Israel with being "wiped off the map." Yes, he wants to have nuclear weapons, but he and Nasrallah couldn't wait until then. They needed to show off their prowess and their capability in order not to be outdone by Hamas (a Sunni Arab terrorist organization). So once again Israel is being used in an inter-Arab competition, to show who is the most effective anti-Israel bloc. At this point the Iranians have won, even if their proxy Hizbollah is decimated. However, they have lost one of their major chess pieces in the future maneuvering over their nuclear ambitions.
3. The prior main enemies of Israel were the Sunni Arab countries, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the rest. But, they now find themselves outflanked by the Shia forces of Iran, Syria and Hizbollah, representing the Shia population of South Lebanon. While we could never consider the Sunni Arab states truly moderate, they have become in two respects, both Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel, and Saudi Arabia as well as the other two are totally dependent on US backing for their continued existence. Without being able to sell their oil to the West and depositing their petro-dollars in the West (as they discovered in 1973), the Saudis would be bankrupt. Also, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan exist because of US military support (and indirectly that of Israel). How can we interpret the fact that none of the usual Arab culprits have done anything effective to support Hizbollah and/or Lebanon, other than calling for an "immediate" ceasefire to stop humanitarian casualties (as if they really cared about the deaths of a few hundred Lebanese). No, the fact is that these countries have realized that Shia fundamentalism is a far more dangerous threat to them than Israeli Zionism!
4. Hamas is split, between the conservative fundamentalist Sunni Muslims who derive their ideology from the Moslem Brotherhood of Egypt, and the Muslim fundamentalist revolutionaries who derive their philosophy from Khomeinist Iran. The former reside in Gaza while the latter are hosted in Syria. Although they ostensibly belong to the same organization, the "foreign" residents such as Khaled Mashaal have been calling the shots because Iran has been supplying the money and the revolutionary ideology. While Palestinians don't care so much where the ideology comes from, as long as it supports their war against Israel, the Saudis and their Sunni brothers are very concerned that the Palestinian cause is being hijacked from under their noses by Hamas and Hizbollah and Syria/Iran making a better showing against Israel. So they are back-pedaling on the war in Lebanon, not wanting to show that they in any way support Israel, but on the other hand not wanting in any way to actually support Hizbollah. Bush made this very clear by meeting first with the Saudis in Washington with Condoleeza Rice before she left for her visit here. Presumably they gave their assent to anything that she decides in relation to the Israeli war against Hizbollah. There is nothing more that they would like to see than for Hizbollah to be defeated, and Iran to be taken down a peg in the Middle Eastern arena.
So we have come to a fulcrum in the Middle East. Just as the Lebanon conflict has eclipsed that in Gaza, so from here on out the Palestinian conflict will be seen as a subsidiary battle in the ongoing struggle with Iran.