The crisis featured far and wide, from the pan-Arab channel Al Jazeera, whose ticker was dominated by a stream of news from Israel, to al-Manar, run by the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which led its evening newscast with the story.
Some Arabs said they hoped the crisis would lead to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political demise. Others expressed hope of more far-reaching consequences for Israel, which fought numerous wars with Arab adversaries after its establishment in 1948 and occupies land the Palestinians seek for a state.
“As an Arab citizen I think that this is the beginning of the end of Israel, God willing,” said Qusai al-Qaisi, a citizen of Jordan, whose government signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. “I don’t want to say that I’m happy but I’m really happy that this is happening there,” he said.
The sentiment was echoed by Mohammad Abdullatif in Syria, from which Israel captured the Golan Heights in a 1967 war….
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