Soon: A War In The Middle East?

Will there be open war in the Middle East? As soon as this week or next?

Emblazoned at the top of the DrudgeReport is the photo of a teenager sitting on a table. This is a photograph of the young soldier, in civilian clothing, captured by the Palestinians. Already tanks and soldiers and guns are lined up at Gaza ready to recapture this lone soldier.

Egypt is already marshaling forces along its border with Gaza.

Israel Defense Forces troops launched a major arrest operation overnight, detaining 64 of the Palestinian Authority's Hamas ruling party's cabinet ministers and parliamentarians in the West Bank, as well as another 23 military activists. G8 (Group of 8 "industrialized") countries are "concerned" over the very recent move. Israel say officially that the move had been planned "weeks ago." The predicating event was the capture of the soldier? We shall see.

The UK Times Online says:

Today the future of the Middle East could hang on the fate of this otherwise unremarkable 19-year-old.

What happens to Corporal Shalit will almost certainly determine whether the region is plunged into a new cycle of violence, or whether the Middle East peace process can somehow be revived.

If Corporal Shalit is killed while in the hands of militants linked to Hamas, any prospect of a rapprochement between Israel and a Hamas-led Palestinian Government will vanish for years to come, perhaps for ever.

It is clear that Israel is militarily poised to, minimally, recapture the soldier. It may elect to do much more.

It is events such as these upon which hinging points like these are created.

Possible logical extensions?

To include outright war by aligned Islamic states against Israel?

Where would the US stand?

Then where would the countries recently acquiring contracts with ME oil stand, such as Russian and China?

And where would this lead?

BZ