Who will benefit from a new deterioration of the situation in the region?
Israel has sent its troops back to Gaza to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, a 19-year-old corporal taken hostage by Palestinian armed groups several days ago. They insisted that they would not release the captive unless Israel freed all Palestinian women and children from its jails.
Another hostage, Eliyahu Asheri, an 18-year-old settler from Itamar in Samaria, was found dead, and it is believed that one more Israeli is being held captive by the terrorists.
This tragic story has many aspects. The hostages were taken several days after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PNA head Mahmoud Abbas, who attended a breakfast in honor of the Nobel Prize winners gathered in Petra, Jordan, agreed to start preparations for a more substantial meeting.
It was their first meeting since the Islamic resistance movement Hamas won the January elections. Unfortunately, their decision to meet again has been foiled - by chance or intentionally.
Several groups, including Hamas's militant wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigade, assumed responsibility for kidnapping Shalit. Therefore, not only Mahmoud Abbas, who is viewed as a supporter of peace with Israel, but also some Hamas government members, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, have appealed to the kidnappers to release the Israeli corporal.
But this was before Israeli troops entered Gaza.
The media also report that Abbas and Egyptian intermediaries, who are trying to save the young man, have called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to pressure the Damascus-based chief of Hamas's political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, into helping to secure the release of Shalit. The Israeli media report that President Assad has done as asked but did not succeed.
This story sounds credible because Arab leaders are concerned not so much about Gilad Shalit as they are about a new escalation of tensions in the region. Shalit's murder would boomerang on the Palestinians, whose social and economic situation has deteriorated rapidly since Hamas's victory, as well as on Syria. The Damascus elite, who have many problems of their own, do not want to be associated with the murder of Israeli hostages in any way.
Like the majority of the international community, Russia has taken a harsh stance on the issue. Rather than trying to whitewash the kidnappers, it has said that this situation has created a "window of opportunity" for a political force to find a solution to the crisis. Those who save the hostages would earn big political dividends.
The kidnapping has again showed the depth of the divide in the Islamic movement, exemplified by Meshaal's reported refusal to facilitate the release of Shalit, and by contradictions between Hamas's militant wing and the movement's political leaders in the Palestinian cabinet. There is an abyss between those who are trying to become integrated into current political conditions, and those who pursue the policy of "resistance for resistance's sake."
A similar crisis has gripped the ruling Fatah movement. While its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is trying to resume peace talks with Israel, the movement's militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have declared war on Sderot, urging their fighters to launch rockets at the town of 25,000 in the Israeli Negev. The Brigades have also assumed responsibility for kidnapping a third Israeli hostage.
There are divisions as well within Israel, between the "hawks" and the "doves". It sometimes seems that some groups of Israelis and Palestinians can more easily come to terms with each other than with their compatriots, which makes the regional situation almost hopeless.
Israel's decision to order the army into Gaza was mostly rooted in the fear that the political leaders of Palestine would not free Shalit.
A spokesman from the Israeli army's press service told a RIA Novosti correspondent: "A limited operation should show that we will not wait till doomsday, and also prevent the Palestinian militants from removing the kidnapped soldier from Gaza."
Psychologically, it is not Israel but the Palestinians who should make a concession now. The equation has changed from Shalit's life for the release of Palestinians jailed in Israel to Shalit's life for an Israeli pullout from Gaza.
Sending troops to Gaza was the correct decision in the context of the global war on terror, because the policy of concessions is makings terrorists more audacious. But will it save the life of Shalit? More to the point, why can't the Palestinians use peaceful methods, such as talks between Abbas and Olmert, to ensure the release of their jailed compatriots?
The situation is rapidly deteriorating now, and the number of casualties, as well as prisoners, is growing on both sides. The actions of irreconcilable groups have dramatically weakened the stance of peace advocates among Palestinians and Israelis.
In short, it is not only Gilad Shalit, but all Israelis and Palestinians who have been taken hostage by terror. Do they have a chance?
