One of the most important trends to watch in the present crisis engulfing Israel is who the Jewish state turns to for help. Though Israel is certainly the strongest military power in the region, the crisis could easily escalate beyond Israel’s control.

The United States is Israel’s strongest and staunchest ally. But with its resources tied up so heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is reluctant to invest too heavily in a third conflict. The Israel situation is simply the latest in a series of serious threats—including, very prominently, those involving Iran and North Korea—where the U.S. is looking to feeble international bodies and ad hoc groups of nations with competing interests. While critics accuse the U.S. of being a swaggering superpower, here it is doing little more than watching and hoping things turn out.

With Israel, America is among several Western nations that have asked Germany to step in. According to Germany’s weekly newsmagazine Spiegel, U.S. President George Bush, on his visit to Germany last week, asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel to speak with Israel, which she did—telling them, in the words of Deutsche Welle, “that Lebanon was in a fragile state and should not be destabilized.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Israel’s present retaliatory efforts, but the two sides are definitely talking.

Merkel also took the opportunity on Sunday to speak with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg. An official statement from Germany said,

The German chancellor and the foreign minister, along with their counterparts from other EU countries, are having numerous conversations, including with representatives of Israel and the Arab countries. The conversations are aimed at contributing to a de-escalation of the situation and stabilizing the Lebanese government.

The German foreign minister said he had been speaking with the Lebanese prime minister and the foreign ministers of both Israel and Syria, among other officials in the region.

The Trumpet has forecast that eventually that the U.S. will lose its credentials as a mediator in the Middle East and that the Jews will feel compelled to request assistance from Germany. That the U.S. is seeking to offload some of the responsibility for the situation, and that Germany appears so anxious to beef up its status as a peace broker, are both interesting developments—both of which have enormous potential to grow more pronounced as the present crisis grinds on.