March 29, 2012 | Quote
As Global March to J’lem Nears, Press War Rages
Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research for the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in a blog post for the website of The Weekly Standard that the risk of violence at Friday’s march should not be discounted.
“Should the organizers have their way, this will be a messy affair. If Israel fires upon the marchers, it will be a public relations victory. The organizers already know this is likely,” he wrote.
Schanzer noted that senior Hamas figures sit on the Global March to Jerusalem’s (GMJ) central committee and have discussed the march with counterparts from Hezbollah, and that the Muslim Brotherhood has sent delegations from at least five countries to participate. Media in Iran have reported that Iranian parliamentarian Hussein Sheikholeslam is GMJ’s board secretary.
“The need for early intervention is compelling,” Schanzer wrote. “The region is already on tilt, thanks to multiple Arab protest movements and ongoing tensions over the Iranian nuclear program. The last thing we need now is a new conflict in the Palestinian territories.”
A new uprising would be even more dangerous, he writes, if “outsiders, with no ties to the land they’d be dragging to war, sparked it.
“They would pay no price for violence, and create untold unrest in a region that already has its fair share.”