By Ira Sharkansky

We in Israel live in a tough neighborhood. And we get the blame.

The big news is the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik al-Hariri, and at least 13 others who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one is ever likely to be convicted in a reputable court of law for this killing. It is not that kind of neighborhood. Syrian officials were among the first to condemn the act. Perhaps they had prepared their statements before hearing the news. 

An as-yet unknown group, seemingly identified with the likes of Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility. But in this region of 1001 nights, groups often claim responsibility for what they did not do. It's a way of getting a bit of media attention. The best guess is that Syria did it, to warn others that opposing Syria's continued domination of Lebanon (as Hariri did) is risky business. If Syrian agents did not actually carry out the deed, they are likely to have known about it and permitted it to happen. 

But alas, some of those looking for responsibility have mentioned Israel. Some of the accusations have been indirect. It is said that Israel stands to benefit the most from the event. That claim of benefit, if not the hint of responsibility, may actually be true, if it convinces even a few doubters about the character of our neighbors, or if it leads the United States and others to do something serious about Syrian sources of violence.

A Syrian government spokesman was more precise. According to Aljazeera.net "an organised terrorist structure such as the Zionist regime has the capacity for such an operation whose aim is to undermine the unity of Lebanon," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Another tough event was even closer to home. 

Last weekend, the village of Maghar, in northern Israel, had what police called a "pogrom." 

The population includes both Christian and Druze families, whose relations have varied between tolerable and tension. According to the latest news from police investigations, a Druze teenager invented a story that Christian youths had put photos of naked Druze girls on the internet. Christian homes, businesses and cars were destroyed, and Christian residents fled the village or barricaded themselves in the local church. 

Village leaders are now trying to put things back together, blaming a few local hotheads for the problem, and blaming the Israeli police for not anticipating the trouble and preventing it. Overlooked in the charge of police inaction is the report that three of the eight people injured in the rampage were police officers. 
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Sharkansky is a member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem