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Peace moves and overtures are being overshadowed by growing militancy on Palestinian and Israeli sides, fuelled by spiralling violence, an arms race...and threats of a final apocalyptic war that could see Iran and Syria battling Israel and the West over Iran's nuclear program. The recent Israeli strike on Syria's alleged nuclear reactor only brings this point solidly and frighteningly home.

The 2006 Lebanon war showed that less than a division strength of Hezbollah fighters, trained and armed by Iran and Syria, could bring Israel to its knees with thousands of missile strikes and a new generation of Russian-made anti-tank missiles that easily stopped Israel's main battle tank, the Merkava. Additionally, a modern, state-of-the-art Israeli naval ship was badly damaged by a sophisticated missile supplied by Iran. Israel was forced to accept a ceasefire that effectively allowed Hezbollah to regroup, rearm, refurbish and eventually return to the positions they held before the war. A far cry from the days when the PLO was vanquished from Lebanon in the 1982 Israeli military operation "Peace for Galillee" and Syrian forces were routed, unable to effectively deal with Israel's new main battle tank, the Merkava, and the F-15 fighter that contributed to staggering losses of Syrian air force planes. I remember when the IDF effectively surrounded and then forced the PLO from Beirut.

Hamas tore a page from Hezbollah, and with similar training and weapons, seized the entire Gaza Strip in a lightning-fast blitzkrieg.This does not bode well for the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is an almost unprecedented defeat of Western weapons systems by Russian-made weapons systems in the hands of Israel's enemies. A similar defeat of Western weapons systems almost brought the world to the point of nuclear annihilation when the armies of Egypt and Syria attacked Israel's southern and northern frontiers during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, easily defeating IDF armor with the 'Sagger' anti-tank missile and routing the Israeli air force with the new SA-6 anti-aircraft missiles, cleverly integrated into a defensive shield of other SAM missiles and powerful, radar-controlled ZSU 23-mm anti-aircraft guns. Israel suffered horrendous losses from these new weapons' system, and came within a hair's width of being defeated.

In the year 2008, the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict is grim. With Hamas growing in strength, moderates in the Palestinian Authority are increasingly being drowned out.

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