Last year Israel voluntarily pulled out of Gaza, gave it back to the Palestinians and set up a defensive perimeter. The Palestinians promptly began lobbing shells into Israel. Israel fired back.  Now, a year later, an Israeli soldier has been kidnapped setting off a series of attacks and incursions by the IDF. Gaza may not be occupied but it is definitely controlled by Israel.

In the north, Hezbollah took this opportunity to attack an Israeli military post, killing eight soldiers and kidnapping two others, thus setting off a major conflict in the north that threatens to draw in Syria and Iran. Lebanon, just eighteen months into a new phase of self-government, cannot control its own and suffers retaliation, clearly showing that its present government is not in control.

Reports say that Syria and Iran are supplying weapons to Hezbollah and directly influencing events. With Iraq trying to find its legs with a new government and a continuing insurgency that situation continues slowly forward.

You have to wonder when the call may come for an international presence in the region to prevent the violence where no one else has been effective. Today, Israel dismissed a U.N. proposal for an international peacekeeping force to help end fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border, saying the move was premature. But what other solutions hold any effective promise of a solution. I saw one internet posting yesterday that said, "Send in Rome, it kept the peace once upon a time".  Europe has deep interests in the Middle East. Might the threat to energy supplies and the imminent threat of a nuclear-armed Iran trigger an initiative for a European presence in the region to keep the peace and preserve international stability?

Nothing else works. The United States used to do shuttle d iplomacy, an action initiated by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Virtually every administration has done this since. The current Bush administration has not. Secretary Rice says she is ready to go but there seems a hesitancy, characteristic of the past six years. Will she begin another round of shuttling back and forth between the warring states? Or will a vacuum continue, no effective power able to bring about a peaceful solution, waiting for someone to step in with a solution to end hostilities.

Daniel 11:40 shows us a conflict in the region that will bring in a European power, the successor to the ancient Roman Empire. What will cause that incursion and what will have gone before to justify entry by forces into the region is yet to be seen. But the King of the North will enter to protect its interests and likely do it in the guise of a "peacekeeping force". This current round of conflict may move the region closer to this point in prophecy.