The Gaza-Lebanon crises.

• Author: Bennis, Phyllis
• Position: Thinking Politically

The current crisis in Gaza is not a crisis of "re-occupation;" the Israeli occupation of Gaza never ended, despite the hype of last year's "disengagement." The New York Times quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saying that Israel will continue to act militarily in Gaza as it sees fit. "We will operate, enter, and pull out as needed," he said. The withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from within the Gaza Strip represented a change in the form of occupation, not an end to occupation. After the "pull-out," Gaza remained besieged and surrounded and Israel has remained in complete control of all aspects of Gazan life.

Israel has continued to control the Gaza economy, withholding $50 million or so in monthly Palestinian tax revenues, prohibiting Palestinian workers from entering Israel, and controlling the Israeli and Egyptian border crossings into and out of Gaza for all goods and people. Israel continues to forcibly limit the range of Gaza's fishermen. It still controls Gaza's airspace and coastal waters, and continues to prohibit construction of a seaport or rebuilding the airport. Israel continues its air strikes and ground attacks on people and infrastructure throughout Gaza, as well as its nightly barrage of sonic sound-bombs across Gaza's population centers.

As Gideon Levy wrote in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, "the Palestinians started it" remains the assumption for Israelis as well as for most Americans.

"They started" will be the routine response to anyone who tries to argue, for example, that a few hours before the first Qassam fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no damage, Israel sowed destruction at the Islamic University in Gaza. Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but "they started." The new escalation in South Lebanon followed clashes at the Israel-Lebanon border that led to the capture of two Israeli soldiers, apparently inside Israeli territory. If, as it appears (it did not take place in the disputed Sheba'a Farms area) this attack was Hezbollah's initiative in crossing Israel's border, Hezbollah was in violation of international law.

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Hezbollah claims their attack was designed to help the Palestinians negotiate a prisoner release but the consequences are already extraordinarily dangerous. In response, Israel has showed its continued willingness to target civilians with completely disproportionate attacks. Israeli warplanes attacked two bridges over the Litani River deep in southern Lebanon, killing two civilians; that was followed by an incursion with tanks, gunboats and planes across the Lebanese border.

If the fighting continues, it raises the even more dangerous possibility that Syria could get involved either on the ground in Lebanon or if Israel attacks Syria directly. Such moves could threaten a significant broadening of a potential new war.

The consequences of the Lebanon attacks remain uncertain. In Gaza the humanitarian crisis is skyrocketing--and there is serious danger that escalating tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border will divert the world's attention from that crisis. As was evident in sanctions-devastated Iraq in 2003, a new war in the area does not improve the...