Contextualizing the crisis in Lebanon

UCI professor Laura Deeb has spent extensive time researching community activism in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hizballah is the most popular political party. She is author of An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon. In response to the current crisis between Israel and Lebanon, Deeb commented: "The current escalation of conflict between Israel and Hizballah has to be understood in the broader context of the new Israeli government and its policies of extreme violence in Gaza, Hizballah's relationship with other groups in Lebanon and the 1982 Israeli invasion and subsequent occupation of Lebanon. No matter what the underlying rationale for Hizballah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, Israel's response has been disproportionate and counterproductive."