Gaza Bombing: Watching for Regional Escalaton

The scale of these Israeli strikes has to be viewed as more than
retaliation. It is in effect a test, seeing who will react, and how
dramatically. The pro forma Arab condemnations, Abu Mazen's feeble
call for restraint, and protests by "dozens" of Palestinians in Syrian
and Lebanese camps signify little. The question mark is Hezbollah and,
in the background, Iran. Will they respond as they did in the summer
of 2006, when Gaza was under siege in the south and they opened up on
Israel's northern front? Is Israel ready to respond if they do? And is
Lebanon ready for that response? All delicate and dangerous
calculations. After Hezbollah's leading terrorist, Imad Mugniyeh, was
blown up in Damascus last spring, Nasrallah vowed to take revenge
outside the normal theaters of confrontation. That could mean
anywhere, literally, as with the example of the Argentine attacks in
the 1990s. Has Hezbollah held back waiting for the right political
moment? This could be it.

And we can also expect Al Qaeda to try to get in on the action, most
likely with another video from Ayman Zawahiri.

Israel strikes demolish Hamas compounds, kill 192

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