The war in Lebanon has convinced many Arabs that Israel is carving out a new security posture that includes anti-Arab alliances with Turkey and Eritrea, a stronger strategic relationship with the United States, and a leading role as partner of Washington and London in the fight against rogue regimes in Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan. Anger and frustration are mounting as more and more Arabs feel the future is no longer in their hands. PNS commentator Rami G. Khouri is a widely syndicated columnist, author and TV-radio commentator based in Amman, Jordan.

AMMAN, JORDAN -- Now that the latest round of the war in Lebanon has quieted down, Arabs are reassessing what that nasty little war was all about. Judging from personal and media comments from throughout the region, most Arabs believe that much more was at stake than the occupation of south Lebanon by Israel, or the shelling of northern Israel by Lebanese guerrillas or Shimon Peres' desire to win the upcoming elections by acting tough.

The war in Lebanon was really about the future of the Middle East and who is going to shape it. Will this remain a predominantly Arab-Muslim region with guaranteed national survival for Jews, Christians and other minorities, as the Arab-Israeli peace process has been seeking? Or will it become a mosaic of fragmented Arab states dependent on one grand Israeli-American hegemon -- as the armed zealots and holy warriors on both sides want?

These two differing visions first manifested themselves openly in the 1991 Gulf War. The questions for Arabs then and now are the same: will we enjoy the same rights and freedoms as Israelis to chart our own national development in peace, coexistence and cooperation? Or are we fated to remain perpetually subservient to the historical claims, security needs and commercial designs of Israel and its Western patrons who view the Arab region as a strategic and minerals-based service center for their own narrow interests.

In the short term, the war has hardened the general Arab attitude to Israel, the United States and the peace process, and it has also widened the gap between the Arab people and their governments.

"We cannot hold America alone responsible for its pro-Israeli double standards," observed As-Sayed Zahra, a widely read Egyptian commentator writing for the Gulf-based daily Al Khaleej. "Our Arab governments are responsible too, and everyone knows that."

With hundreds of dead and injured and some half a million Lebanese uprooted, many Arabs wonder why the world never convened a summit against terror when Arab civilians died, as it did when scores of Israelis were killed? Why did Israel and the United States welcome European participation in the Sharm el-Sheikh summit but reject European initiatives to help make peace in Lebanon? Why has the United States diligently prodded the world to implement UN resolutions against Iraq and Libya yet shows no interest in implementing equally valid UN resolutions calling for Israel's unconditional withdrawal from south Lebanon?

"We are witnessing nothing less than an American-backed Israeli attempt to re-draw the strategic map of the Middle East," concludes Salaheddin Hafez in Cairo's semi-official Al Ahram newspaper. Pointing to Israel's tension-raising measures in Lebanon, Libya, Iran and Sudan, he accuses Israel of wanting to "trigger crises in the region as a prelude to clearing the ground for the construction of a new (Middle East) order that gives primacy to American and Israeli interests ... " And he dismissed "the peace process and the various Arab-Israeli deals concluded hastily under its auspices (as) little more than a cover for a more far-reaching Israeli and American objective, namely to impose their control over the region."

Mahmoud Awad, editor of Egypt's Akhbar el-Yom weekly, goes even further, suggesting that Israel's recently signed strategic agreement with Turkey "heralds the establishment of a new security axis with Israel as its pivot and which is to incorporate Turkey, Jordan and, at a second stage, perhaps Eritrea and Ethiopia ... Analysts had supposed that when Israel spoke of a 'New Middle East' it meant one based on peace and economic cooperation, but what it has in mind is military overlordship."

Many Arab writers have seen the Israeli-Turkish strategic agreement as heralding Israel's wish to strike against Iran and Syria from facilities in Turkey. This, they charge, signals Israel's effort to use the Arab-Israeli peace process as a tool against other threats to its interests.

Such views, right or wrong, reflect a deepening Arab fear of the future -- a sense that the Arab world is fated to swallow the commercial and cultural dictates of a new American-Israeli empire in the region while Arab governments grow more and more incapable of working together for common Arab rights and hopes.

At the same time, the war has accelerated a painful, violent fragmentation of the Middle East into opposing camps that line up with and against the American-Israeli axis.

As long as this fragmentation proceeds, peace and stability will remain elusive, whether in south Lebanon, northern Israel or many Arab lands. This was the real lesson of the war in Lebanon, and why it has evoked such an intense emotional response from the Arab world.