Gaza and Lebanon, an endless summer

News from the Middle East comes with virtual sound effects — the hiss of a fuse, the tick of a time bomb. As troubling as the daily bloody accounts are, there is a dreaded sense something worse will happen.

For all the spasms of violence that afflict the region, this episode feels like an Archduke Ferdinand moment, toxic with unintended consequences. Israel is squared off against the military wing of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in South Lebanon. They hold Israeli soldiers, taken in bold, premeditated attacks, and both have ties that loop through Syria or Iran.

Are these the last-gasp efforts of illegitimate groups being overtaken by political events? Sadly, they seem a substitute for irrelevant local governments.

Demands for safe return of the soldiers are punctuated by Israeli aerial attacks on Hamas military leaders and bombing raids into Lebanon, which are starkly reminiscent of turbulent times from the 1980s.

An attack in Gaza City claimed the lives of nine members of a Palestinian family whose house was blown apart by an errant Israeli bomb intended for Hamas military leaders. A single tragedy sows the seeds for years of more misery for all parties.

Summer of 2006 is roiling with potential for a wider regional fight, for which a political purpose cannot be readily defined. Add these Middle East battlefronts to the instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the standoff with Iran over nuclear capacities and the simmering sectarian civil war in Iraq.

In Gaza and Lebanon, the outside world appears to be incredibly and inexplicably comfortable with letting the sides fight themselves bloody. Key neighbors in the Middle East believe Hezbollah invited the punishment it suffers. Israel has the sympathy of the United States to hit back hard against rocket attacks. Europe is upset with Israel's destruction of civilian targets — power stations, highways and the Beirut airport — and an economic blockade at sea.

No one is interested in pushing the combatants apart after their early crude statements with rockets and airstrikes.