By Alain Gresh, a specialist on the Middle East for Le Monde Diplomatique. His most recent book is "L'Islam, la République et le Monde" (Fayard) (THE GUARDIAN, 22/08/06):
Killers slaughter dozens of civilians in Iraq every day just because they are Sunni Muslims. Suicide attacks are increasingly common in Afghanistan, where they used to be unknown. On the Gaza Strip, 1.5 million Palestinians are caught in a trap, hemmed in by the Israeli offensive and the decision by the US and the EU to freeze all direct aid. The sudden escalation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon may drag Syria and Iran into a regional conflict. And the Iran nuclear crisis remains unresolved.
Not since 1967 has the Middle East suffered so many simultaneous high-intensity crises. They are all linked by many threads, making partial solutions more difficult and dragging the region ever faster into the abyss.
For many western observers there is no doubt about the culprit: Hizbullah, which aims to destroy Israel and unsettle the western camp. The analysis, predominant among politicians and the media, is close to that of the US neoconservatives: a new world war has started.
One leading US neocon ideologue, William Kristol, proudly proclaims that "it's our war," since he believes that in the face of an across-the-board attempt to destabilise the west, the Israeli government, led by Ehud Olmert, is undoubtedly "on the right side". Even as Lebanon was being bombed, the G8 issued a statement from its meeting in St Petersburg, signed by France, proclaiming Israel's "right to defend itself."
True, the initial Hizbullah attack on July 12 on an Israeli patrol led to six deaths and the capture of two soldiers. This was hardly an isolated incident . Skirmishes are commonplace along the Israel-Lebanon border. On May 26, Israel had a leader of the Islamic Jihad assassinated. Lebanese militants are still held in Israeli prisons.
Even if we accept that the Hizbullah incursion was illegal, how do we regard the systematic destruction of Lebanon? Under international law such action counts as a war crime. Who could imagine that the stated objective, to rescue two soldiers, justifies the death and destruction caused by Israel's bombing? Is a Lebanese life is worth less than an Israeli life?
The outcome of the Israeli offensive remains uncertain. Hizbullah is Lebanon's largest political party, with 12 members of parliament. It is deeply rooted in the Shia community, the country's largest, and enjoys enormous prestige for having liberated the south of Lebanon in 2000. It is allied with major political forces, such as General Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Communist party, and the Syrian Social Nationalist party. To claim that Hizbullah is a pawn in the hands of Iran or Syria is absurd.
The occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and parts of the Golan Heights has lasted almost 40 years. Despite many UN security council resolutions and optimistic statements - the roadmap, approved by the US, Russia, the EU and the UN claimed that the Palestinian state would be set up before the end of 2005 - conditions in Palestine are deteriorating.
No progress was made in 2005. The authorities in Tel Aviv repeatedly explained to the world that Yasser Arafat was an obstacle to peace, but his death and replacement by Mahmoud Abbas did not force Ariel Sharon to give up his unilateral policies.
The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, hailed by political leaders and the media as a courageous act, destroyed what remained of the Oslo accords: the principle that peace would be achieved through bilateral negotiation. For the Palestinian population of Gaza the evacuation did nothing to improve their predicament; it worsened their position. The pace of Israeli settlement of the West Bank quickens and the "peace process" is no more than an empty phrase used by the international community. Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that Hamas should have won the general election in January. Yet the west promptly punished the Palestinians for making the wrong choice. With French backing, the EU deprived the Palestinian Authority of its direct aid, worsening living conditions and further hampering already enfeebled administrative bodies.
On the subject of the rockets fired from Gaza into the Israeli town of Sderot, Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist for Ha'aretz, asked: "What would have happened if the Palestinians had not fired Qassams? Would Israel have lifted the economic siege that it imposed on Gaza? Would it open the border to Palestinian labourers? Free prisoners? Meet with the elected leadership and conduct negotiations? Encourage investment in Gaza? Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda here and around the world. Nobody would have given any thought to their fate if they did not behave violently."
After considerable tension, all the Palestinian organisations except Islamic Jihad signed a text on June 27 calling for a political solution based on the creation of a Palestinian state beside the state of Israel. It also restricted armed resistance to the occupied territories. This agreement opened the way for the formation of a government of national unity that could open peace negotiations. The next day the Israeli army invaded Gaza, on the pretext that a soldier had been taken hostage, but in fact to destroy Hamas.
This Israeli incursion, with its bombing of power stations and ministry buildings, arrests of political leaders, destruction of homes, and use of civilians as human shields also qualifies as a war crime. The Swiss government, the custodian of the Geneva conventions, said on July 4 that there is "no doubt Israel has not taken the precautions required of it in international law to protect the civilian population and infrastructure".
The wars against the Palestinians and Lebanese are parts of the same strategy, which seeks to impose a solution that only satisfies Israeli interests. Yet never in the past 40 years has Israeli policy received such unanimous western support. We have heard only a few voices of dissent, notably from the Vatican.
Again the Arab world has demonstrated its inability to intervene - so far. Arab states allied with the US feel unable to exert pressure on Washington. What they have done is to condemn Hizbullah and Hamas, implicitly justifying Israeli incursions. The Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, asked non-Arab parties to keep out of the conflict, obviously not referring to the US, but to Iran.
Abd al-Wahab Badrakhan, an al-Hayat columnist, wrote: "All the Arabs, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, know that the peace process is well and truly dead. However, the Arabs have never acknowledged that the peace process was dead, out of obstinacy and because they do not know how to get out of the swamp they have sunk into. Therefore, whether we like it or not, the final word has been left to those we call extremists or adventurers."
Hamas began in Gaza in 1987, after 20 years of Israeli occupation, surfing on the tidal wave of the first intifada. Hizbullah emerged from the fight against occupation forces after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. What new extremist organisation will rise from the fresh ruins of Lebanon?.