I hope you all realize that Hezbollah is coming off on top here. That Israel is playing into Nasrallah's hand. That Hezbollah expected military retaliation as a probable Israeli response. That they are becoming more popular not only in Lebanon but in the entire Arab world, and that, as with all guerilla/militia movements, an added amount of popularity makes it more legitimate and relevant in Lebanon today : in this way, Israel's actions are ensuring Hezbollah's survival.

Of course, this could change if Israel decided to launch a major ground offensive, which seems very unlikely. But it would be a change for the worse: Hezbollah could be destroyed, but a larger resistance movement would appear to fight Israel, and this movement would no doubt be united, as the Lebanese have very bad memories of their civil war. An Israeli invasion would only breed more hatred, and would prolonge the Mideast conflict.

Yes, more of those tersly worded UN letters....

"Cease all hostilities, or we shall be very angry with you!! We are going to give you, lets say, another six months to comply!! If not, you will definately feel the wrath of our extremely pissed off Security Counsel letter writers, as we will send you another letter, this one even more harsh than the previous!!"

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"A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done."
Fred Allen

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith

Your repeating your point about a weak UN. I won't deny the UN force that was deployed in Lebanon was useless. But, as I already stated above, Israel could easily have pushed for stronger action without intervening as quickly as it did. It is becoming more and more apparent that Israel wanted to attack Hezbollah and Lebanon for a long time, and took this occasion to strike, without any long-term thinking.
But you continue picturing the situation in black and white, where the only options for Israel were either ATTACK or COWARDLY APPEASE, and that's dishonest.

And, BTW, Israel is not a pure white "victim" here. It is illegally occupying the Shebaa farms area in Southern Lebanon. Another illegal occupation that breeds hate among the Shiites and which Hezbollah can use to justify its terrorist actions...
Military action never gets rid of terrorism. It can push it back, it can temporarily neutralize it, but, in the long run, it does nothing. And Israel, after more than twenty years, hasn't understood that yet. Israel doesn't care about drying up Hezbollah's popularity, which would require that they put an end to their paranoid expansionist policies.
The only way to put an end to terrorism and popular resistance is to "win the hearts and minds" of populations which support, or tolerate, armed groups, (an oft repeated phrase!), and use police forces and limited military operations, but that is something Israel has almost always been incapable of doing.

No, I work at Global Crossing.

Condi has no role to play and 'being there' doesn't mean the Bushies are engaged. She might as well go see "Pirates II".

Have you got a lot to learn, old sport.

Explain how you came to that conclusion if you will, please. If Israel didn't exist any longer, the West (meaning America) would not be endangered because Israel is the reason the Muslims hate us.

The wouldn't be fighting us if we didn't have the biggest welfare queen in the world: Israel.

More Chinese died in their revolutions than Jews died in Germany (heck, in hundreds of years), but you don't see the USA giving every man, woman and child in China about 17k a year, either.

Pure victimology.

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Israel is a cancer ...Its presence in the M.E. is the cause of all the problems .

There was actually a good discussion going on here people.

Try to avoid foaming at the mouth, so it may proceed.