With violence gripping Lebanon and Gaza, some point fingers at Iran and Syria, while others blame Israel and the U.S.

Shortly after two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into his town in northern Israel yesterday, Kiryat Shmona mayor Haim Barbivai spoke on behalf of most of the denizens of the Middle East. "Heaven help us if we have another summer like the last one," he told Israeli television as policemen inspected a car damaged by the missile. "That would be a tragedy."

The rocket strikes injured no one, and the Hezbollah militia that fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during a 34-day war last summer denied any involvement. But coming after a week in which the Hamas movement seized control of the Gaza Strip and another pro-Western politician was assassinated in Beirut, it was seen by many as more proof that some force is trying to push the Middle East back into the inferno of all-out war.

One common thread between Hamas and Hezbollah is that both are supported by Syria and Iran in an alliance of convenience among those opposed to the regional policies of the United States and Israel.

The region's pro-Western moderates clearly think they're up against something co-ordinated. Defeated fighters from Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah movement curse the millions of dollars they say Hamas received from Iran, along with training, before the military takeover of Gaza last week.

Meanwhile, members of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's equally beleaguered cabinet - who have clung to power through six months of peaceful Hezbollah-led protests in the centre of Beirut - strongly believe that Syria is out to bring down their government.

Many Lebanese blame Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime for the car bomb that killed parliamentarian Walid Eido last week, the seventh anti-Syrian figure slain in Lebanon in the past two years. Lebanese politicians also say that Fatah al-Islam, a fundamentalist group that has battled the Lebanese army at a refugee camp in the north of the country for almost a month, entered Lebanon from Syria and is part of a Syrian plan to destabilize the country.

The Katyusha salvo that fell on Kiryat Shmona yesterday was blamed on one of Lebanon's renegade Palestinian factions, many of which also report to Damascus. Iran and Syria are also accused by the White House of backing the various warring militias inside Iraq.

In Ramallah, Jerusalem and Beirut, there is suspicion and fear that the region is about to be dragged through another long, hot summer. In Baghdad, there's no expectation of anything else.

"Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority are the weakest states in the region. They're seen as up for grabs, and you could add Iraq to that list," said Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "We know that Israel and the U.S. have an interest in seeing certain results in Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority and have acted to strengthen their allies and friends. Syria and Iran have done likewise to help their own allies."

With Tehran facing intense international pressure - and the threat of U.S. or Israeli attacks - over its nuclear program, and Syria concerned about the formation of a United Nations tribunal to investigate the Lebanon assassinations, the two countries are seen as having the motivation to stir up trouble in Lebanon and Gaza. "Syria and Iran don't want to be on the defensive later, they want to be on the offensive now," Mr. Kramer said.

Fighting back, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas made plain yesterday that he's fully casting his lot with the West by outlawing the armed wing of Hamas and naming an emergency cabinet stacked with pro-American moderates. Though Hamas rejected his appointment by Mr. Abbas as illegal - saying Ismail Haniyeh remains the legitimately elected head of government - prime minister Salaam Fayyad vowed yesterday to restore order in both the West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Israel and the United States, who long called for more democracy in the Palestinian territories only to reject it when Hamas won legislative elections last year, immediately vowed to support the crisis government.

The United States and its Arab allies have also airlifted emergency military supplies to Mr. Siniora's government to help it both battle Fatah al-Islam and keep Hezbollah from rearming along the southern border with Israel.

And while the politicians in Washington, Tel Aviv, Damascus and Tehran push their pawns around the chessboard, ordinary Lebanese, Palestinians and Israelis are bracing for more war.

The Israeli and Lebanese media have been bubbling for months with speculation about another war between Israel and Hezbollah. Meanwhile, London's Sunday Times newspaper reported yesterday that Israel's incoming defence minister, Ehud Barak, has asked that plans be drawn up for a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip that would be carried out "within weeks."

Eyal Zisser, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Tel Aviv University, said that while neither Israel nor Hezbollah have much appetite for renewed hostilities on that front, a Hamas-run Gaza was unlikely to see peace in the near future.

"Israel has two options, to occupy [Gaza], or to let it survive and encourage others to fight Hamas," he said. "If Hamas launches attacks on Israel, [an invasion] will be an option. With time, it could become a more and more real option."

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