http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=23051
Bethlehem – Ma'an – British newspaper the Sunday Times reported that Israel's new defence minister and Labor party leader, Ehud Barak, is preparing to attack the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks in order to decimate the Hamas leadership that have recently seized control.
The plans laid out by the new defence minister, call for a short-lived high-impact war, in which 20,000 Israeli troops will be deployed to destroy much of Hamas' military capability within days. ===================================== [MG] Wouldn't flattening Gaza in the manner described above trigger an uprising on the West Bank and perhaps a resumption of fighting in South Lebanon? Is the Israeli military prepared to fight a three-front war? Would the Bush administration - with Cheney favouring a military strategy and Gates and Rice reportedly favouring a political solution - give the green light to what might well grow into a very uncertain regional war further exposing US forces in Iraq? If it comes to this, the US and Israel will have really become desperate riverboat...er, gunboat gamblers.