This article was originally published by Ariga.com and is republished with permission.

Palestinian children play in the village of Umm Al-Nasser. It is located in northern Gaza, which is facing a possible Israeli invasion. (Wesam Saleh, Maan Images)

Terrorist attack or guerrilla attack, an Israeli soldier kidnapped or held as a POW -- the high-strung rhetoric of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was once again being tested today in the wake of a successful coordinated, three-cell attack by armed Palestinians on an IDF base at Kerem Shalom, a kibbutz on the Israeli side of the southeastern corner of the Gaza Strip. The raid killed two Israeli soldiers but more significantly, it ended with a corporal, quiet Gilad Shalit from a Galilee hamlet, being held by gunmen. The military wing of the Hamas party, Izzadin al Qassam, the Popular Resistance Committees, and a group calling itself the Army of Islam, claimed responsibility. But Hamas' political leaders were calling for the militiamen to release the Israeli soldier, the PRC was saying it was not holding him, and nobody really knows who is in the so-called Islamic Army.

In any case, the general consensus in Israel was that the Hamas government is to be held responsible -- and to blame. Indeed, while Israel was giving time to an Egyptian diplomatic-security delegation in Gaza working to recover the Israeli corporal, Israel was also threatening to conduct an assassination campaign against Hamas political leaders, and to conduct a 'rolling campaign' by air and possibly ground, against the Hamas' 'terrorist infrastructure' in Gaza. That's almost laughable, considering that over the five years of the intifada, from 2000-2005, there were hundreds of Israeli air strikes against that so-called 'terrorist infrastructure,' which among other things included the Palestinian Authority's police stations, prisons, with the Israelis claiming that the Palestinian security forces were also terrorist outfits, so their command and control facilities -- the infrastructure -- should be destroyed.

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For the Israelis, yesterday's event was a clear-cut case of kidnapping. And as The Jerusalem Post's Anshel Pfeffer pointed out in his newspaper's web edition last night, Israelis can bear the burden of dead soldiers, but the anxiety of what happened to a captured soldier is too much for them to bear, so much so that clear thinking becomes clouded. Pfeffer's article slaughtered a sacred cow, calling it the Entebbe Syndrome, a belief that no negotiations with terrorists and a heroic rescue is the only choice available to Israel. But as has happened often in the past, that policy has only meant more dead soldiers.

As for whether it was a terrorist attack or a guerilla operation, an important distinction in international law at least, just a few weeks ago, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, whose father was operations chief for the Etzel underground, which killed dozens if not hundreds of innocent people (including Arabs and British -- and Jews) during the British Mandate in Palestine before Israeli independence, admitted to an American TV network interviewer that attacks on soldiers are not terrorism. And while it is true that the seven or eight Palestinian gunmen who tunneled 800 meters over the past two months did cross the border into sovereign Israeli territory even as the Palestinian political arena seemed on the verge of approving a plan to end all attacks inside the Green Line, Israel routinely crosses the border into Gaza by air and occasional ground and armored troops, for their own operations.

The attack was a baptism of fire for four key players: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

Olmert: With no military background to speak of, he was one of those who promised that the Gaza disengagement -- and his plan to do something similar in the West Bank -- would improve security for Israel. The Right, many in the Center, and the Left, are all now mocking that claim. He is a politician, most comfortable with backroom wheeling and dealing, not setting military policy. His instincts, as a born and bred Rightist, is to lash out at the Palestinians with what he calls 'a powerful and intensive reaction' -- but he also knows that any move right now against Gaza with force would spell death for the hapless corporal. Yitzhak Rabin faced a similar situation, with Hamas grabbing an Israeli soldier and demanding the release of prisoners. Rabin said no, sent in troops to rescue the soldier, and not only the soldier died, so did one of his rescuers.

Robert Rosenberg in Tel Aviv (nigelparry.net)

A larger operation, meant to punish the Palestinians might please Israelis fed up with the Qassams and Palestinian anarchy, but it would most certainly lead to more Palestinian violence against Israelis, and sooner or later would lead to a case of overwhelming Israeli force resulting in disproportionate civilian casualties, subjecting Israel to international pressure and condemnation.

Peretz. He gave up a 'social agenda' to accept the defense ministry, reckoning the title Defense Minister Peretz would lead to his real goal down the road: the prime minister's office. With as little military experience as Olmert, but with an ego and willpower as big as any general's, 'Citizen Peretz' has tried to 'restrain' the army, ease conditions for Palestinians -- and try to convince his neighbors in Sderot that he is doing all he can to stop the trickle of Qassam rockets that may not have killed anyone in the sleepy Negev town since before the August 2005 disengagement but has kept everyone in the town sleepless with anxiety.

Still, he turned off the army's artillery barrages of the 'Qassam launching zones' and for the last week, in the wake of embarrassing Israel Air Force strikes killing innocent civilians instead of wanted terrorists, shut down those attacks. He hoped that the Palestinian president and prime minister would reciprocate with pressure on the Qassam launchers to cease their fire, and indeed, Qassam launches dwindled in number to one to three a day. But that provided no consolation to the people of Sderot, or the press and the political arena.

So, the incident yesterday puts Peretz on the spot. His response has been to say that he is no longer making a distinction between the Hamas military wing and the political wing, meaning that when the time comes, he'll be ready to give orders to use the army to go after Hamas politicians in the government, including Haniyeh.

Haniyeh. His really does not have any control over the military wing of Hamas. That control is in the hands of Damascus-based Khaled Mish'al, whom Israel tried to assassinate on the streets of Jordan in the mid-1990s. When that Mossad operation was botched, Israel was forced by Jordan into handing over to Jordan the antidote to the poison they tried using on Mish'al -- and more significantly, freeing Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin from prison. Almost a decade later, Yassin would be assassinated from the air by Israel, for his role in ordering terror attacks against Israelis. Yet the very same Yassin had often spoken about striking a fifty year truce with Israel, through a 'hudna,' a traditional Arab ceremony for ending blood feuds between clans. Mish'al was against Hama signing onto a pan-Palestinian ceasefire almost two years ago, but he was persuaded not to prevent it or obstruct it. But as Haniyeh and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas struggle over who sets policy for the Palestinian government (Haniyeh believes it should be the government, while Abbas believes it should be the president) Mish'al is afraid that if Haniyeh and Abbas strike a deal, he'll be left out. In any case, Haniyeh's office has issued a plea to the militiamen holding the Israeli corporal to free him at once.

As of noon, there was no response -- nor in fact were there any demands being made by the gunmen who apparently did not plan to capture any soldier but grabbed the opportunity when it arose. Israel, in any case, will not be seen making a direct trade for the corporal. But if he is released, there could be a behind the scenes deal that sees some Palestinian prisoners released in a few weeks, perhaps as a gesture to the Palestinian president, Abbas. Haniyeh's people said his spokesman today on Israel Radio, are in discussions with all concerned 'secretly and not so secretly' to win the Israeli's release 'at the proper time.'

Abbas. This may be his final chance to prove that he is the partner for peace negotiations that he has claimed to be in the last four years and whom Israel has basically ignored or humiliated at every turn. If his security forces can find out where the soldier is being held, he could send them to recover the Israeli. He has been talking with Haniyeh in person and on the phone, as well as with Arab leaders, including Bashar Assad, Mish'al's host in Damascus. He's also relying heavily on the Egyptians diplomatic-security personnel in Gaza to win the Israeli's freedom. If Abbas -- and for that matter Haniyeh -- is seen as being instrumental to the corporal's release, it will put Israel in the corner, since Abbas (and even Haniyeh) will have proven they can deliver. But if the soldier is not returned alive and well and soon, the Israelis will believe they have good reason to write off Abbas, once and for all.

This is a tense moment in local history. If Abbas and Haniyeh can't find a way to release the captured soldier, they will face the wrath of the Israelis, who may not hesitate to take action to bring down the Hamas government. If they cannot find a way to work together on the problem, their efforts at resolving their differences over the 'national dialogue consensus document' also known as the Prisoners' Document, which was ostensibly near completion just two days ago, could disintegrate into what they fear most -- a Somalia-like breakdown into gang warfare, or a full-scale civil war between the Islamist Hamas and the secular Fateh.

The Israelis, meanwhile, are loath to return to Gaza on foot or even in armor. As one columnist wrote today, Gaza may be sandy but it is really quicksand. But hell hath no fury like the Israeli defense establishment fearing it has lost its deterrent capabilities. The lack of military authority in the prime minister's office and defense minister's office could mean that the army sets the policy for how to respond to what happened or happens to Corporal Gilad Shalit.

On the other hand, Olmert and Peretz have managed, once they sensed the IDF overstepped itself, to restrain it. The next 24-48 hours are critical. By then, given predilection among Palestinian militants for bragging, the missing soldier's whereabouts should be known to all concerned. The Israelis won't have any patience to wait for Abbas, Haniyeh or the Egyptians to talk the captors into releasing the corporal. They'll want action -- and if the Palestinians don't do it, they will. One bright spot on the diplomatic front -- the kidnapped soldier has a French passport, so the French government is trying to use its not inconsiderable influence in the Arab world to win the soldier's freedom. But as the American ambassador to Israel said, the entire affair is further proof of the Hamas government' 'inability to control its own affairs, let alone provide for the needs of the Palestinian people.'

Robert Rosenberg is a senior editor, translator and newswriter at the International Herald Tribune-Haaretz.