It’s an error to deal with Middle East events in narrow compartments. Local mediation may suspend the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza. But only renewed, concerted diplomacy by the US, Europe, the Arab states, and Israel to reach a comprehensive Middle East peace accord will block new crises.

The current escalation of attacks, which began with Palestinians firing rockets from northern Gaza into Israel, threatens to further unravel already stalled progress toward peace in the region. Compounding the situation, on June 25, Palestinian militants stole into Israel and kidnapped Israeli army Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is hanging tough. To try to compel Shalit’s safe return, he has ordered Israeli land, sea, and air forces to knock out electricity, water, roads, food, and fuel supplies for Gaza’s 1.4 million civilians.

Olmert’s intention to wreck Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) became obvious with the ensuing Israeli detention of scores of West Bank PA cabinet ministers and parliamentarians and aerial assaults in Gaza. Israel and the West refuse to deal with the Hamas-controlled PA and have cut off funds to them. Before Shalit’s kidnapping, Hamas had agreed with its rival party in the PA, Fatah, on a formula involving at least implied recognition of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side. Decisive US involvement will be inevitable to prevent the highly combustible Israeli-Hamas warfare from inflaming the entire region.

In addition to the escalation in Gaza, Israel’s air force buzzed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s residence — reportedly to intimidate Syria into giving up extremist Hamas leaders such as Khaled Mashal. And John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, has called on the Syrian government to arrest Mashal. But these moves have only stiffened resistance.

US-encouraged Arab reform movements, and occasional concurrent moderation toward Israel, are waning fast. Islamist parties have eclipsed secular forces in Iraq. Islamists gained in recent Saudi Arabian polls. And Muslim Brotherhood, the parent of Hamas, won 20 per cent of the seats in Egypt’s latest parliamentary election. Islamists have also made political gains in Yemen, Algeria, Sudan and Somalia. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joins Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in urging Hamas to fight Israel. The US needs to exercise the same sustained, direct influence that in the late 1980s brought the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and the direct US-PLO contacts leading to the peace agreements in Oslo and Washington in 1993.

The US shows some understanding of these factors. Washington should now take a lead to facilitate humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people. And they should provide strong support to Islamic and Arab moderate elements. That would secure gains in Bush’s “war on terrorism” and help to get the derailed Arab-Israeli peace efforts back on track. — The Christian Science Monitor