Nahum Barnea, Israel's top newspaper columnist, has a column rich with insight in today's Yediot Achranot [Israel's leading newspaper], his weekend column. He describes behind the scenes goings-on between the Israeli Prime Minister's office and the bureau of the Palestinian president, Abu Mazen--it's a glass half full-half empty sort of discussion, the kind that the Middle East revels in and precisely the type that is nuanced in a manner that consistently eludes the Bush Administration.

But there is a line in the article, a quote from an unnamed top Palestinian official, presumeably someone from Fatah, from Abu Mazen's wing of the political leadership, that I found chilling in its simple formulation: "everyone is hostage to everyone," this Palestinian official told Barnea.

And, the Palestinian official went on to discuss how the Israeli soldier abducted earlier this summer in Gaza, Gilad Shalit, will only be released by Hamas when Syria "fixes its problems with the international community" over the murder of Hariri, [the former Lebanese Prime Minister widely assumed to have been murdered on Syrian orders]. In other words, there is a domino effect of actions and reactions--or in this case, inaction causing further inaction. Hamas is watching Fatah and watching Syria; Syria is watching the moderate Arab world and Europe and the U.S. ; the Israelis are watching their back and the U.S. and Europe and the moderate Arab states; Fatah is watching Hamas and Europe and Israel and the U.S. and moderate Arab states and so on--everyone is watching for someone to act in a way that provokes the chain, and so far, the only actions that are occuring are causing more and more of an inward spiral.

By any measure, this was not a good week in Gaza. The Israeli Military is increasingly engaged there; there are more deaths of Palestinians, the qassam rockets lobbed by Hamas and their allies from Gaza into civilian populations in southern Israel continues and everyone is hostage to everyone.