Israel's reaction to the rocket attacks by Syrian and Iranian backed Hizbullah guerrillas has been predictably ferocious. This ferocity may have gained the prime minister, Mr Ehud Barak, support from more militant supporters at home but it has caused Israel to forfeit credibility on the international stage.
The "April Understanding" of 1996 bound Israel and Hizbullah to refrain from attacking civilian areas and from using civilian areas as bases for attacking military targets. It is clear that Israel's air strikes on areas close to Beirut and elsewhere involved a breach of that understanding. Its assertion, after its own raids had been carried out, that Katyusha rockets were launched against Israeli soldiers in South Lebanon from civilian locations is open to question.
A statement by one cabinet minister, Mr Haim Ramon, that the "rules of the game" were hindering Israel's actions against Hizbullah indicates that the understanding was deliberately breached. The foreign minister Mr David Levy's assertion that "soil of Lebanon will burn" if Katyushas land on Israeli settlements and that "vital interests of Lebanon" would "go up in flames" did little to inspire confidence in a continuation of the peace process.
More worrying still is the possibility that Israel's response was an instinctive reflex action rather than a properly thought-out action. Mr Barak and his associates may have fallen into a trap set by President Hafez Assad of Syria. There is little doubt that Hizbullah acts in concert with Damascus. Syria can now claim that Israel has breached agreements even as it talks peace. For domestic consumption in Syria the government-controlled Tishrin newspaper has been fanning the racist flames by describing the Holocaust as a fable invented by Israel to hide its own "atrocities".
Against this background the prospects for peace appear slim. Mr Barak's own deadline of February 13th for negotiating the main outlines of a peace agreement is now extremely unlikely to be met. But the current violence and its consequent heightening of tensions should not be allowed to distract the main parties in the region from the ultimate goal of a lasting peace settlement.
There have been crises in the peace process in the past and it is likely there will be more in the future. The sides must keep an eye on the prize at the end of the path to peace. Syria stands to gain lost territory, Israel to achieve a peaceful accommodation with its Arab neighbours. With so much at stake a stop-start process is to be expected.
The process now needs to be started again. Diplomatic intervention by the United States helped end the last serious violence. The Secretary of State Mrs Albright has shown her willingness to intervene again. It is to be hoped, however, that her decision not to send the special envoy Mr Dennis Ross back to the region until February 15th does not reflect a lack of urgency on Washington's part.