month of ramadan and the jewish passover. it s considered incredibly provocative and aggressive. but many middle east experts say the timing of hamas attack had more to do with the country that is home to mecca, the holiest of places in all of islam, saudi arabia. > h hamas was really concern about the saudi moves to build ties with israel and the u.s. one concern was that saudi money would then bolsterer the palestininian authorority, its revival inin thehe west bank. > hamas looooks at this worl an emerging alliance between the modern arabs and israel and decides we re gogoing to blow this wholele thing up. if ththe scale e of civilian casusualties in n gaza is s hih if thehere is protractcted conflict, there will be strong pressure within hezbollah and within iran to say we ve got to wiwiden the coconflict. we veve alreadydy seen hehez firing rocockets. wewe ve seen uprisingsgs in tht west banank. t the p possibilityty of escalalation is vevery real. i f fea