Along with hundreds of civilians killed, thousands wounded, and over 500,000 fleeing for their lives, Israel has launched a series of debilitating air strikes against privately owned factories throughout Lebanon and is "dealing a devastating blow to an economy already paralyzed by a week of hits on residential areas and crucial infrastructure," according to the Daily Star of Beirut.

"Today while we understand, appreciate and grasp the extreme pressures the resistance in Palestine is being subjected to, both externally and internally, we unite our voices and stand with theirs to say yes this issue is worth that level of sacrifice, confrontation and steadiness for it is a matter of principle and the issue of 10,000 detainees." —Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (June 30)

To say that the situation in the Middle East right now is a mess would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. Israel has sent ground troops into Lebanon. The violence between Hezbollah and Israeli forces has killed more than 300 people (the vast majority of them in Lebanon) in less than two weeks and shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. Although no one is admitting it, Iraq has plunged into a civil war (the official euphemism is "sectarian violence"). A day doesn't seem to go by without a report of another bombing, kidnapping, or mass killing. According to a United Nations report, nearly 6,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq during the last two months – more than 3,000 in June, which was the first full month of the new Maliki-led government that has promised to end the violence. It's hard to imagine the situation getting worse, but it could.

Just because the neocons and al-Qaeda say it, doesn't make it so

Even in an age when e-mail, word processors, and high-speed Internet connections allow writers to almost instantaneously publish glaringly inchoate offerings, it is not often that one comes across a work as poorly conceived as Larry Kudlow's contribution to National Review online (NRO) on Monday. In a piece less than 800 words long on the recent unpleasantness in the Middle East, NRO's economics editor provides enough hackneyed neocon propaganda, apologetics for limitless Israeli aggression, and plain old unhinged bluster to fill an entire book. The article, entitled "Israel's Moment, the Free World's Gain," is so crammed with ludicrous statements, so "target-rich" (to use a phrase from the armed forces vernacular the wannabe militarists at NRO would no doubt appreciate) that it could serve as a warning to aspiring authors to always have at least one other person read your work prior to publication.

What explains the indifference of the Bush administration to the slaughter of civilians in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza?

As of the morning of July 19, Israeli bombardments of Lebanese civilian residential districts and public infrastructure have murdered 300 Lebanese, wounded 1,000, and displaced 500,000. The Lebanese prime minister said that Israel's attack has caused "unimaginable losses" and that his government will seek compensation from Israel.

It's one thing to endorse Israel's right to defend itself and retaliate. It's another to remain silent on the crime of causing mass destruction and civilian deaths in neutral areas of Lebanon.

Part of Israel's war strategy may be to push the Shiites out of Lebanon's south. That would be a humanitarian disaster -- and it won't work.

Haifa and Beirut, both usually bustling Mediterranean seaports whose terraced chalk apartment buildings and hotels rise abruptly from the aquamarine waves, are shadows of their usual selves this week, their streets empty, bars closed and shops locked up. Panicked tourists are fleeing or canceling their reservations, and the sanitation crews have to deal not with shawarma wrappers and beer bottles but with rubble and body parts. Everyone is wondering about the military objectives of the Israeli and Hezbollah leaderships, whose rash and immoral actions have brought their countries to this dangerous pass.

Its blanket bombardment of Lebanon amounts to collective guilt.

Apparently suffering from amnesia, Israel now says that its extraordinary collective punishment of the entire Lebanese population is intended to stop rocket attacks across its northern border.

However, Israel's blanket bombardment of Lebanon was sparked not by rockets (which came in retaliation) but by a guerrilla operation against a military target, the aim of which was to capture soldiers as leverage for the release of some of the Lebanese prisoners Israel stubbornly refuses to free. Israel itself has repeatedly crossed into Lebanon to capture prisoners — including civilians — for use as bargaining chips.

Zahra al-Samra, 18, comforted by her brother Tuesday in a hospital in Hosh, Lebanon,
two days after she was wounded and their mother and sister died in an Israeli airstrike
in nearby Tyre. (New York Times)

You can see Lebanon from my sister’s backyard. She and her family and thousands of others in northern Israel live with a constant roar of gunfire -- mostly from Israeli cannons aiming to kill Lebanese, occasionally from a Hezbollah shell that might land on them.

But the real threat to Israel doesn’t come from Lebanese rockets. The real threat comes from the Israelis themselves -- and the rest of the world -- forgetting how and why this war started.

Both Parties Back Ally, Court Jewish Support

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are rushing to offer unalloyed support for Israel's offensive against Hezbollah fighters, reflecting a bipartisan desire to not only defend a key U.S. ally but also solidify long-term backing of Jewish voters and political donors in the United States, according to officials and strategists in both parties.