If the military confrontations between Israel and its neighbours in Gaza and Lebanon do not quite qualify as a major Arab-Israeli war, they sure have the trappings of one.

In Gaza, where it all started, the putative cause was a Hamas guerrilla attack against an Israeli army base where two soldiers were killed and one taken prisoner.

In response, Israel launched a ferocious assault against the Palestinian population in the entire Strip, destroying its only energy plant, knocking bridges, government buildings and other infrastructure, and seizing two dozen Hamas officials as bargaining chips - acts that Amnesty International and other human rights groups have identified as a war crime.

The current mayhem may have started in Gaza, but who actually started it?

For those of us whose job it is to follow these events, the cycle of violence that began in Gaza, before it spread to Lebanon, was set off by weeks of Israeli shellings of the Palestinian territory, culminating in the killing of eight Palestinian civilians on a beach, and of several "targeted assassinations" of Hamas activists, a practice more reminiscent of gang rub outs than that of an established state with a seat at the United Nations.

It was then, and only then, that the military wing of Hamas called off its ceasefire, or hudna, with Israel.

Whatever agenda Hamas was pursuing when it attacked that Israeli army base is not clear. But Israel's response was clearly both disproportionate and provocative.

In a prescient editorial at the time, the highly respected left of centre American magazine, Nation, said Israel should consider the implications of its actions.

"If it doesn't," it stated, "the bloodshed in Gaza will spread ... " And sure enough it did - to Lebanon, where the Zionist state's air, sea and land forces have wreaked havoc on the country, killing hundreds of people, mostly civilians, and evoking images of its invasion in April 1996, most notably the image of its fighter jets strafing a UN shelter in Qana where 800 civilians had taken refuge, slaughtering 106 men, women and children, and injuring hundreds more.

Ten years later and we are watching a repeat performance. One Israeli soldier held captive by Palestinians and the whole world wants his release. Nine thousand Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and no one cares.

Israel destroys Lebanon, its infrastructure, its airport, its bridges, its roads, its very people's lives and livelihood, and US President George W. Bush says archly that it is "defending itself".

Destroying Hamas

To be sure, there is more to this war than that, more, in other words, than the release of three wretched Israeli soldiers.

In Gaza, Israel's intention, again with US support, is to destroy Hamas once and for all - as government and military wing - thereby freeing itself of any future restraint on its strategy of territorial expansion and unilateralism, in which Israel alone, with an expected nod from Washington, decides its final borders, and the devil with the "peace process".

In Lebanon, calls for a ceasefire will continue to be resisted by the Israeli entity - and guess with whose approval - as it pushes its long-term goal to "eliminate" Hezbollah altogether, or at the least cripple it.

The United States, which believes this goal is attainable, is out to deal a blow, via its Israeli proxy, to that new "axis of evil", Iran and Syria, along with their allies in Lebanon and Palestine, which it fears are pooling their resources to change the strategic playing fields in the Middle East.

Moreover, Washington appears to be convinced that it already has, or can easily elicit, behind-the-scenes support of key Arab leaders to take down Hamas and Hezbollah, with the timing, and the excuse, just right.

According to a senior US official, quoted in the Washington Post last Sunday, who requested anonymity, Washington is convinced this is a unique moment to strike.

"What is out there is concern among conservative Arab allies," he claimed, "that there is a hegemonic Persian threat [running] through Damascus, through the southern suburbs of Beirut and to the Palestinians in Hamas."

Naive? Improbable? Delusional? Well, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, you can't go wrong underestimating the intelligence of this clueless administration.

By giving Israel the green light to go on with its war of aggression in Lebanon, the US is not only playing with fire, it is alienating, yet again, more and more Arabs against it.

The dream of reason, of inherent rationality, of social justice and freedom, that animated the thought of the Founding Fathers of the American republic has largely broken down, or at best can no longer be asserted with much confidence.

Watching the carnage in Palestine and Gaza, one turns away in nauseated disbelief.

On ABC News earlier this week, a young Lebanese woman, her face bloodied, spoke directly into the camera, and asked the interviewer to look at the rubble around them.

"This is all made in the USA, delivered to us with the compliments of George Bush," she hollered in perfect English. "Damn the man."

What else is there to say?