The Middle East's petulant hot-heads set the agenda...again

It's been hard for me to form an opinion on what's happening in the Israeli/Lebanese border areas. I've read the news over the last couple days constantly asking myself, "Who benefits from this?" Several opinion articles in major US papers have accurately said that it benefits the most uncompromising and/or radical elements of all the societies touched by it. That's true for Lebanon in that Hezbollah has no reason to exist unless there is conflict where it can play the self-declared role of militant defender of Shi'ites (first), all Muslim Arabs (second), and all Muslims (third). I would think that the leaders of Hezbollah are truly afraid of the extent to which they would be trivialized, ignored, and forgotten in a fully functional Lebanon. Maybe this recent action by them is proof that Lebanon actually was straying into functionality. Maybe Hezbollah wants to bring back the good old bad days. I hope they fail in that, but in order for Hezbollah to fail the moderates of Lebanon need to not lose their voice in all the violence. What are the chances of that when they are being bombed along with Hezbollah? It's sort of like the idea that if someone is going to be accused and punished for a crime simply by association, and no matter how innocent or virtuous they might really be, then they might as well go and do the crime.

Which brings us to Israel, 'cause this idea that violent conflict benefits the uncompromising and radical elements of a society definitely also applies to Israel. Whichever political parties in Israel espouse simplistic, violent revenge measures as being viable policy moves for a country calling itself the Middle East's only true democracy, those parties are benefitting from this current conflict. Israel probably has very many people that would feel cast adrift in the absence of the huge unifying threat of annihilation. Again, the moderates need to not be drowned out by these fear-driven, tribalistic elements of society.

I've also been reading the news on this conflict with a higher level of scepticism than ever before. What are we NOT being told? How is what we ARE being told shaped and worded so as to limit us to a smaller selection of acceptable points of view?