The most recent conflict in the Middle East has now extended into its tenth month. A Lexington expert on this ongoing warring doesn’t see a long-term cease-fire soon.
UK Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Senior Lecturer Robert Farley said there’s really more than one war in the Middle East. In addition to Hamas, Farley noted Israel is, quote, “sort of at war” with Hezbollah, the Iranians, and Houthis in Yemen. And He added it is hard to see an end to the Israeli-Hamas terrorist group fighting right now.
“It’s still pretty tough to see an end to the war between Israel and Hamas. And the reason for that is we don’t have a really good understanding of how much of Hamas is left,” said Farley.
Farley is not optimistic about a cease-fire over the next month, giving it not more than a 10% likelihood.
And while Farley said an end to the conflict is hard to predict, even when the fighting does come to an end, there’s likely to be an unclear governance picture.
“We also don’t have any good idea of what the Middle East will look like after the war. We don’t know who’s going to be governing GAZA. We don’t know what the balance of territories is gonna be in the West Bank. We don’t know if the Houthis are going to stop firing at ships,” said Farley.
While calls continue internationally for a cease-fire in the region, Dr. Farley said neither Israel nor Hamas seem seriously interested right now. And the Patterson School lecturer said there’s a wait-and-see attitude about an Iranian response to the Israeli bombing of Tehran.
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