Let there be Peace......
In Middle East, talk is cheap, life is worthless, cowards are waging wars through their misguided proxies, but the sufferings of the innocents are real. Sadly, we still have a bunch of sadists and satanists around the world justifying their stand and taking sides to perpetuate human sufferings...... I was moved to tears when I saw the picture of a Lebanese father holding his dead infant son. And yet, despite the graphic details of sufferings, we have morally bankrupt politicians arguing about who is right, who is wrong, who should take the blame, and deciding which side they should support to gain further political popularity. Scums and maggots !
To those who sympathized with Israel actions and to those who sympathized with Hzebollah rights to launch attacks and kidnaps, I would like to say this to you. Stop being an asshole to world peace ! Stop whoring around with your faked and forked tongues righteousness !
From what I read in the Internet news, the Israelis complained that Hezbollah militants repeatedly launched series of rocket attacks into the territory of Israel, and went inside the territory of Israel to kidnapped two of its citizens. In the name of self defense, Israel retaliated by discharging its arsenal of modern weaponry into territory of southern Lebanon. Is this right ? Where is the civility of humanity ? The sovereignty of Lebanon has been instigated by Hezbollah to be abused by the mighty Israelis' armies. The Lebanese people suffered properties loses, lost of lives, and injuries. But the warring parties backed by rogued countries continued trading their destructive blows on the soils of Lebanon while the rest of the world watch in horror and in silent pains.
It is absurd that the Lebanese government has, in the first place, allowed itself to surrender the sovereignty of southern Lebanon to the a bunch of demented clerics and militants to operate criminal activities to launch attacks into Israel for years. When Israel attacked southern Lebanon to carve out a buffer security zone in defense, the Lebanese government now claimed that its sovereignty is disproportionately breached by Israel. By allowing the Hzebaollah militants to romp in Lebanon to launch indiscriminate attacks into neighbouring countries is in itself an indirect sponsorship of terrorisms by the Lebanese government. The Lebanese government must now send its army to southern Lebanon to engage, disarm, and evict the Hzebollah militants to show its sincereness to Lebanese people and the world that it want peace with her neighbours. The Lebanese government is responsible for bringing the current disproportionate sufferings to the Lebanese people. The sponsor of violences now cried wolf claiming that they are victims of aggressions ? Ridiculous ! A government that choose not to exercise its responsibility for sovereignty over its territory to maintain law and order in the first place is by itself an irresponsible government and not fit to govern.
The Israelis government may have a mighty army with arsenal of technologically advanced weapons. A country must behave with certain statehood's elegance and demostrate great restraints. It is wrong to discharge that fire powers into Lebanon using the slightest excuses. There is a United Nations, Israel should bring her grievances to United Nations before unilaterally interprets and executes international law. Yes, the process of righting the wrongs may take a long time, but once it is righted, peace shall prevail for even longer period. The Israelis' actions so far has not brought justices to any parties, but the innocent human beings are made to suffer through no faults of theirs. The Israelis tit-for-tat hard line engagements of fame and attention seeking lunatics is creating window of opportunities for terrors sponsoring states to legitimize their stay in powers and making this world a very dangerous place.
It is about time, the United Nations exercise its absolute authority by immediately deploying its peace keeping forces to Middle East to stop this insane carnages. The terrorists leaders, the head of state of the invading countries, and the head of state of the scummed supporting countries must be captured by the force to be send to the international war crimes tribunal to stand trials for crime against humanity and put them out of circulations.
The United Nations must not resort to kowtowing the super powers. The united Nations must not be afraid of the insane threats of religious groups and terrorists. The United Nations must banned and embargoed those countries hiding behind religions and false righteousness to justify their immoral actions that perpetuate wars and violences in the Middle East and other parts of the world. The United Nations must exert its authority as the international administrator nations.
The United Nations must take over the administration of Lebanese government to disarm and evict the Hezbollah militants from using Lebanon as launching pad to conduct military attacks on other countries. The United Nations must also reprimands and expels countries that provide financial and material supports to Hzebollah to conduct threatening activities. The United Nations definitely must punish Israel for taking inhumane unilateral actions that caused suffering to the Lebanese people.
The United Nations must immediately set-up a mechanism to hear complaints from member nations and take immediate step to punish rouged nations directly or indirect involved in disturbing the peace of the world. It is WRONG for Palestine to allow its militants to enter into Israel to capture its citizen as bargaining chip. It is wrong for Lebanon to allow its territory to be used by Hzebollah to launch rockets into the territory of Israel to initiate acts of wars. It is wrong for Lebanon to allow Hzebollah to use its soils as transit to enter into Israel to capture its citizen as political pawn. It is Equally wrong for Israel to take International Law into its own hand to launch barbaric attacks to cause human sufferings for innocent people.
Whether we like it or not, peace can never be negotiated or mediated in the Middle East. The only way to enforce peace in the Middle East is through vigorous deployment of large contingent of United Nations peace keeping force to conduct policing activities and to take over the administration of the governments there.
Let the United nations make the decisive decisions and take aggressive remedial peace keeping actions to end this carnages. And the decision must be made NOW. For the rest of the world, stop perpetuating more violences by your stupidity of showing sympathies and giving indirect support for the warring parties. Stop taking sides. Stop using religion to rally support for Hzebollah or Israel. Stop reporting loop sided news. It is a war between two criminal parties indirectly supported by some barbaric nations, it has nothing to do with religions. it is immoral and despicable to use religion as a political tool to justify for atrocities. Let the United Nations unmasked the peddlers of crimes and terrors against humanity.
Humanity is about compassionate acceptance and respect for each other to eliminate sufferings and perpetuating co-prosperities. Humanity is about cerebration of Life. Humanity is not about using wars and religions to establish supremacy of race, religion, and country over others. Humanity is not about destroying life or make life difficult for others. Humanity is not about filling the hearts of frustrated young people with hatreds. Humanity is not about brainwashing unemployed young men to become suicidal freedom fighters. Humanity is not about propagating the love for deaths........ I shake my head in disbelieve of the demented reality of those despicable maggots.......
We have hooligans and fame seeking lunatics living in comforts and luxuries urging their stupid and misguided followers to go around conducting warfares and terror acts on their behalf to support their comfortable lifestyles. Stupidity and insanity knows no limits ! United Nations, Where are you ? Don't subject yourself to become a forum for a bunch of insincere and revengeful mental retards to propagate hatreds and seeking support for their narrow minded political and religious adventurisms. Do the right things and do it NOW ! Sweep those demented clerics, bastards, and predators out from the hallway of United Nations and put them into the hall of shames. Send the Peace Keeping Force to enforce peace and enforce it seriously and vigorously.
On my bended knees, I would like to recite this Buddhist Prayer For Peace :
May all beings everywhere plagued
with sufferings of body and mind
quickly be freed from their illnesses.
May those frightened cease to be afraid,
and may those bound be free.
May the powerless find power,
and may people think of befriending one another.
May those who find themselves in trackless,
fearful wilderness ~
the children, the age, the unprotected ~
be guarded by beneficial celestials,
and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood
Sincerely, may there be lasting peace on earth.
Om Namo Amithaba Buddha..
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Israel defiant as demands for cease-fire grow
By Matthew Schofield and Warren P. Strobel
McClatchy Newspapers
July 20 2006
JERUSALEM - The broad outlines of a diplomatic strategy to end Israel-Hezbollah fighting emerged on Thursday with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan calling for a cease-fire and the United States announcing that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to the Middle East as early as next week.
Israel, however, said it wouldn't stop fighting until it had achieved its military goals. Israeli troops on Thursday were sent back into southern Lebanon, where four died in skirmishes with Hezbollah guerrillas. Israeli air raids again rained devastation on Beirut's southern suburbs, and hundreds of thousands of refugees scrambled to escape the fighting.
But the number of Hezbollah rockets hitting Israel dropped to 50, one of the lowest totals in nine days of war. There were no reports of casualties.
In Beirut, the minister of social affairs became the first senior Lebanese official to blame Syria and Iran publicly for the abduction of two Israeli soldiers that touched off the fighting. But the comments of Nayla Moawad, a Maronite Christian whose husband, Lebanese President Rene Moawad, was killed in the country's long civil war, weren't echoed by other officials.
International officials warned of a growing humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who've fled the fighting face shortages of food, water and housing.
The U.S. military evacuation of thousands of U.S. citizens continued Thursday, with U.S. officials announcing that nearly 3,000 people had been transported to Cyprus. Cyprus' government pleaded for international assistance to cope with the influx of thousands fleeing Lebanon.
A coalition of U.S. lawmakers will head to Israel this weekend to assess the situation, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said in a statement late Thursday. Reps. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Jane Harman, D-Calif.; Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.; and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., all members of the House Intelligence Committee, will meet with American, Israeli and Palestinian officials to discuss efforts to end the fighting.
Rice and President Bush so far have refused to intervene to stop the fighting, allowing Israel to continue a military offensive that's aimed at dislodging Hezbollah from southern Lebanon and eliminating it as a threat.
Speaking in New York, Annan said a cease-fire wouldn't just save lives and provide aid agencies a chance to help displaced people, but it would also "give diplomacy a chance to work out a practical package of actions that would provide a lasting solution to the current crisis."
Annan, who was scheduled to confer with Rice Thursday evening, said that a U.N. team sent to the region proposed several steps to end the crisis.
The steps include an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon that would replace the current force, known by the acronym UNIFIL; Lebanon's agreement to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the dismantling of militias such as Hezbollah; urgent international funding for Lebanon's reconstruction; and an international conference that would, among other steps, finally delineate Lebanon's disputed borders.
Rice was scheduled to meet with the U.N. team on Friday.
"This is going to be very large. It's not just going to be a cease-fire," said a Middle East diplomat who confirmed elements of the package on condition of anonymity.
Rooting out Hezbollah from southern Lebanon could prove difficult, however.
Annan noted in his report that while Israel's military operations might be hurting the group's military capabilities, "they are doing little or nothing to decrease popular support for Hezbollah in Lebanon or the region, but are doing a great deal to weaken the government of Lebanon."
In Israel, officials showed little enthusiasm for a cease-fire and suggested that sending in ground troops might be necessary.
"The air attacks are not enough to destroy the Hezbollah infrastructure," said Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, the head of Israel's infantry. "Hezbollah has been planning this for years."
Earlier, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Amir Peretz made the same point, saying that "under no circumstances" would Israel end its operations without assurances that Hezbollah had been dismantled.
"If we need to conduct an operation in order to complete the mission, Hezbollah shouldn't think we will refrain from any operation in order to change the situation," he said. "We have no intention of re-conquering Lebanon, but there is one thing you can write down: Hezbollah flags will not fly on the border with Israel."
Israeli news reports have said several hundred Israeli soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon, but Israeli military officials said that the ground operations have been relatively quick incursions, with all troops returning to Israel afterward.
On Thursday, Israeli ground forces targeted Hezbollah rocket-launch pads and other tactical targets, encountering Hezbollah gunmen in often close-quarters fighting that left four Israeli soldiers dead. Israeli military sources would confirm only one Hezbollah death.
Israeli bombing also continued throughout Lebanon. Israeli jets dropped 23 tons of explosives on what Israeli officials said was a Hezbollah bunker in southern Beirut but Hezbollah officials said was a mosque under construction. A McClatchy Newspapers reporter who viewed the site said it was impossible to know what had been there; the explosives left only a huge hole filled with electrical wires and debris.
Bombing also hit southern Lebanon as international aid officials expressed concern about their inability to assist residents there.
Roland Benjamin Huguenin, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, said getting aid to refugees was virtually impossible because of the fighting and the level of destruction.
"The problem is that the roads and bridges in southern Lebanon are so badly damaged that it's very, very difficult to get to these people," he said, "so difficult that we can't say that we have an accurate count of how many people are in need."
He said that while they know which villages have been hit by the bombing campaign, they have no way of knowing how many residents escaped.
The 50 Hezbollah rockets fired Thursday into Israel were a sharp decrease from 115 the day before. In all, Hezbollah is believed to have fired 775 rockets since the fighting began a week ago Wednesday.
There were no reported deaths from rocket fire in Israel on Thursday, but an Israeli tank shell reportedly killed four Palestinian militants and two civilians in Gaza on Israel's southern border. Three militant fighters reportedly were killed in the West Bank town of Nablus during an Israeli raid.
Israeli military officials said the Nablus attack was aimed at senior leaders, including "wanted terrorists under the control of Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon." They spoke on the condition of anonymity because Israel's intelligence on terrorists is classified.
The same military officials said that Israel now believes that Hezbollah recently has intensified efforts to launch suicide attacks from Gaza and the West Bank.
In Beirut, few politicians seemed eager to echo Moawad's comments about Syrian and Iranian involvement in Hezbollah's decision to cross the border and capture two Israeli soldiers. Three other soldiers were killed in the initial attack, and five Israelis died in subsequent fighting.
"The decision for this operation was not taken in Lebanon," Moawad said at a daily news briefing for reporters organized by the Lebanese government. "We are convinced it was taken in Damascus, with Iranian coordination."
But calls to 12 other Lebanese officials found only one willing to comment. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a Christian and the son of a former president and the nephew of another, said it was too early to point fingers when Lebanon is suffering a humanitarian disaster. "Talking about this issue is useless now and could incite disputes," he said.
Meanwhile, the U.S Embassy in Cyprus rented a massive exhibition hall at Cyprus' state fairgrounds where American evacuees waited for flights to the United States, biding the time by resting on folding beds or watching movies.
Two ships scheduled to reach the Mediterranean island Friday morning were carrying about 2,000 passengers. About 1,000 Americans were evacuated Thursday, most of whom quickly traveled on to the United States.
But the crush of people fleeing Lebanon clearly was pushing Cyprus to the breaking point. Hotels were booked solid, accommodating not only evacuees but also an influx of humanitarian workers, some of whom were sleeping in shifts in overcrowded rooms.
Schofield reported from Jerusalem, Strobel from Washington. Contributing to this report were Hannah Allam and McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Nada Raad from Beirut, Shashank Bengali from Larnaca, Cyprus, and Drew Brown from Washington.
.....Kofi Annan said at United Nations :
(1) "Let me be frank with the Council, the mission's assessment is that there are serious obstacles to reaching a ceasefire, or even to diminishing the violence quickly."
(2) "Hezbollah's provocative attack on July 12 was the trigger of this crisis."
(3)"They ( Hzebollah ) hold an entire nation hostage, set back prospects for negotiation of a comprehensive Middle East peace"
Now, even the Sec Gen of UN is pissed off with Hzebollah.....
A Strange War
Israel is at last being given an opportunity to unload on jihadists.
By Victor Davis Hanson
July 21st 2006
Sum up the declarations of Hezbollah’s leaders, Syrian diplomats, Iranian nuts, West Bank terrorists, and Arab commentators — and this latest Middle East war seems one of the strangest in a long history of strange conflicts. For example, have we ever witnessed a conflict in which one of the belligerents — Iran — that shipped thousands of rockets into Lebanon, and promises that it will soon destroy Israel, vehemently denies that its own missile technicians are on the ground in the Bekka Valley. Wouldn’t it wish to brag of such solidarity?
Or why, after boasting of the new targets that his lethal missiles will hit in Israel, does Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (“We are ready for it — war, war on every level”) now harp that Israel is hitting too deep into Lebanon? Don’t enemies expect one another to hit deep? Isn’t that what “war on every level” is all about?
Meanwhile, why do the G-8 or the United Nations even talk of putting more peacekeeping troops into southern Lebanon, when in the past such rent-a-cops and uniformed bystanders have never stopped hostilities? Does anyone remember that it was Hezbollah who blew up French and American troops who last tried to provide “stability” between the warring parties?
Why do not Iran and Syria — or for that matter other Arab states — now attack Israel to join the terrorists that they have armed? Surely the two-front attack by Hamas and Hezbollah could be helped by at least one conventional Islamic military. After promising us all year that he was going to “wipe out” Israel, is not this the moment for Mr. Ahmadinejad to strike?
And why — when Hezbollah rockets are hidden in apartment basements, then brought out of private homes to target civilians in Israel — would terrorists who exist to murder noncombatants complain that some “civilians” have been hit? Would not they prefer to lionize “martyrs” who helped to store their arms?
We can answer these absurdities by summing up the war very briefly. Iran and Syria feel the noose tightening around their necks — especially the ring of democracies in nearby Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, and perhaps Lebanon. Even the toothless U.N. finally is forced to focus on Iranian nukes and Syrian murder plots. And neither Syria can overturn the Lebanese government nor can Iran the Iraqi democracy. Instead, both are afraid that their rhetoric may soon earn some hard bombing, since their “air defenses” are hardly defenses at all.
So they tell Hamas and Hezbollah to tap their missile caches, kidnap a few soldiers, and generally try to turn the world’s attention to the collateral damage inflicted on “refugees” by a stirred-up Zionist enemy.
For their part, the terrorist killers hope to kidnap, ransom, and send off missiles, and then, when caught and hit, play the usual victim card of racism, colonialism, Zionism, and about every other -ism that they think will win a bailout from some guilt-ridden, terrorist-frightened, Jew-hating, or otherwise oil-hungry Western nation.
The only difference from the usual scripted Middle East war is that this time, privately at least, most of the West, and perhaps some in the Arab world as well, want Israel to wipe out Hezbollah, and perhaps hit Syria or Iran. The terrorists and their sponsors know this, and rage accordingly when their military impotence is revealed to a global audience — especially after no reprieve is forthcoming to save their “pride” and “honor.”
After all, for every one Israeli Hezbollah kills, they lose ten. You are not winning when “victory” is assessed in terms of a single hit on an Israeli warship. Their ace-in-the-hole strategy — emblematic of the entire pathetic Islamist way of war — is that they can disrupt the good Western life of their enemies that they are both attracted to and thus also hate. But, as Israel has shown, a Western public can be quite willing to endure shelling if it knows that such strikes will lead to a devastating counter-response.
What should the United States do? If it really cares about human life and future peace, then we should talk ad nauseam about “restraint” and “proportionality” while privately assuring Israel the leeway to smash both Hamas and Hezbollah — and humiliate Syria and Iran, who may well come off very poorly from their longed-for but bizarre war.
Only then will Israel restore some semblance of deterrence and strengthen nascent democratic movements in both Lebanon and even the West Bank. This is the truth that everyone from London to Cairo knows, but dares not speak. So for now, let us pray that the brave pilots and ground commanders of the IDF can teach these primordial tribesmen a lesson that they will not soon forget — and thus do civilization’s dirty work on the other side of the proverbial Rhine.
In this regard, it is time to stop the silly slurs that American policy in the Middle East is either in shambles or culpable for the present war. In fact, if we keep our cool, the Bush doctrine is working. Both Afghans and Iraqis each day fight and kill Islamist terrorists; neither was doing so before 9/11. Syria and Iran have never been more isolated; neither was isolated when Bill Clinton praised the “democracy” in Tehran or when an American secretary of State sat on the tarmac in Damascus for hours to pay homage to Syria’s gangsters. Israel is at last being given an opportunity to unload on jihadists; that was impossible during the Arafat fraud that grew out of the Oslo debacle. Europe is waking up to the dangers of radical Islamism; in the past, it bragged of its aid and arms sales to terrorist governments from the West Bank to Baghdad.
Some final observations on Hezbollah and Hamas. There is no longer a Soviet deterrent to bail out a failed Arab offensive. There is no longer empathy for poor Islamist “freedom fighters.” The truth is that it is an open question as to which regime — Iran or Syria — is the greater international pariah. After a recent trip to the Middle East, I noticed that the unfortunate prejudicial stares given to a passenger with an Iranian passport were surpassed only by those accorded another on his way to Damascus.
So after 9/11, the London bombings, the Madrid murders, the French riots, the Beslan atrocities, the killings in India, the Danish cartoon debacle, Theo Van Gogh, and the daily arrests of Islamic terrorists trying to blow up, behead, or shoot innocent people around the globe, the world is sick of the jihadist ilk. And for all the efforts of the BBC, Reuters, Western academics, and the horde of appeasers and apologists that usually bail these terrorist killers out when their rhetoric finally outruns their muscle, this time they can’t.
Instead, a disgusted world secretly wants these terrorists to get what they deserve. And who knows: This time they just might.
Israel's goals in the present conflict
By Nadav Morag
The Christian Science Monitor
2006-07-22 12:46 AM
The Israeli wars with Hezbollah in Lebanon and with the Palestinians in Gaza must be seen in the context of the pressing Israeli need to reestablish some semblance of a deterrent capacity.Israel's national security policy has historically been based on the understanding that true security could only be obtained once its neighbors agreed to accept it as a legitimate state. But since its founding in 1948, Israel has never been able to achieve this overarching goal - despite important advances, such as the peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994.
In the absence of true peace, Israel's goal has been the maintenance of overwhelming strength that could effectively dissuade attacks of any kind - whether through conventional warfare, supporting terrorism directed at Israel, or, more recently, threatening to strike Israel with missiles carrying conventional or nonconventional payloads.
Following a policy based on deterrence is "high maintenance" and requires the periodic reinforcement of that message lest the enemy come to a conclusion that one is no longer capable of maintaining a posture of overwhelming strength or, no less important, the commitment to use that military power when necessary.
Israel has had to use its military muscle during six Arab-Israeli wars as well as countless raids in response to terrorist attacks. This deterrence policy had succeeded in achieving periods of relative quiet for Israel during which the country was able to develop economically and socially. However, Israel's deterrence capabilities have become increasingly eroded, primarily as a result of the changing nature of warfare.
Safer now than ever before
It should be made clear that at no time in its history, has Israel ever been safer from the threat of a full-scale conventional Arab-Israeli war. Egypt and Jordan are at peace with Israel and, while Israel's ties with those countries is far from ideal, it does not appear that military force will factor into those relationships in the future.
Iraq is clearly not going to be a military threat to Israel for a considerable period of time, if ever. Iran's policies are of great concern to Israel, but purely within the sphere of ballistic missiles as the Iranian Army lacks the capacity to launch a conventional attack against distant Israel. Syria is still an implacable and dangerous enemy, but its conventional military threat to Israel is limited. Of more concern is Syria's large arsenal of missiles, which could cause considerable devastation.
At the same time, Israel's deterrence capability is presently extremely low. This is largely because of Israel's inability over the past three decades to decisively defeat terrorist and guerrilla threats, whether emanating from the Palestinian territories or Lebanon. As Americans well know from experience in Iraq, defeating an organized state with a conventional military force is one thing, and defeating ragtag forces of terrorists and guerrillas with minimal infrastructures and no territory to defend is quite another.
Moreover, on two separate occasions, in the spring of 2000 when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and in the summer of 2005 when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, Israel has evacuated territory under what was perceived by the Arab world and Iran to be military pressure exerted upon it. While one might argue as to whether Israel was truly "withdrawing under fire," the important point is that, in politics and policymaking, people act on perceptions, and the Israeli withdrawals were universally perceived in the Middle East as acts of weakness.
Israel's adversaries consequently moved to exploit Israel's perceived weakness and achieve their long sought-after goal of destroying the Jewish state. Yasser Arafat, then the Palestinian leader, made it clear in launching the Al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000 that Israel was in decline and one final push was all that was needed to achieve total victory over it.
Arafat, of course, was proved wrong (at great cost to Israelis and even greater cost to Palestinians), but Israel's inability to stamp out terrorism from the West Bank or prevent rocket attacks from the newly evacuated Gaza Strip has continued to erode its ability to deter its enemies.
The targeting of roads and bridges in Lebanon and Gaza is also designed to deny the enemy mobility. At the same time, the targeting of roads and bridges, power plants, and, in the case of Lebanon, ports and airports, as well as the cutting off of Gaza and Lebanon from the outside world, is also designed to illustrate Israel's overwhelming military might. It must convince not only Hezbollah and the Palestinian groups that they should abandon their attacks on Israel, but also send a broader regional message that proxy wars against Israel executed by Iran and Syria will no longer be tolerated.
Two immediate objectives
In order for Israel to achieve its goal of deterrence capacity in Lebanon and Gaza, it must achieve two immediate objectives.
First, Israel must continue both military campaigns to the point that neither Hezbollah nor the Palestinians in Gaza are able to launch rockets and missiles at Israel. This requires that the international community give Israel time in Lebanon, so that it can severely damage Hezbollah's ability to launch rockets and missiles against Israel and cripple the organization's ability to rule southern Lebanon.
Similarly, Israel must continue its ongoing operations in Gaza until the Palestinian militants' ability to operate is so severely disrupted, and their personnel so denuded through Israeli arrests and assassinations, that they agree to cease launching attacks against Israel.
Second, the present crisis on both fronts cannot be brought to a close without Syria and Iran paying some price for their continued arming, funding, and training of Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups.
Keeping the international community at bay in order to accomplish the first goal, while actively engaging with it in order to accomplish the second goal will require some impressive juggling on the part of Israel's leaders.
- Nadav Morag is chair of the department of political science at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and lectures at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. He previously served as a senior director at the Israeli National Security Council for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
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