LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
JULY  22/2006

Latest News From The Daily Star for 22/07/06
Israel builds up forces for expected ground invasion of South
Day 10 sees heaviest damage in Bekaa, South
Rice dismisses growing pressure for cease-fire
Confusion over journalists
Cyprus seeks help as evacuees strain resources
The time to to prepare for Lebanon's uncertain future is now
UN mediator urges Israel to ensure humanitarian access
Tyre lays dozens to rest in mass grave, girds for coming attack
Israel builds up forces for expected ground invasion of South
Mitri seeks UN protection for world heritage sites
South faces shortages, clogged evacuation routes
Nasrallah says headquarters, fighting capacity still intact
Leaders issue call for Israel to face trial for 'crimes it committed in Lebanon'
Nasrallah's speech gave 5 key insights into Hizbullah's position
Maronite Bishops urge UN to call for immediate suspension of hostilities
South Lebanon residents torn between fleeing and standing fast
Construction boom goes bust - for now.By Lysandra Ohrstrom
Insurers breathe easy despite massive loss of life, destruction
Effects of war come ashore in form of oil slick at Beirut's Ramlet al-Baida beach
Exhibition looks back on Beirut's violent past, now made cruelly present
Discrediting Fouad Siniora to save him -By David Ignatius
Latest News From miscellaneous sources 22/07/06
French plan south Lebanon rescue-BBC News - UK
Rockets Hit a UN Post in Lebanon-FOX News - USA
Israel Preparing Lebanon Ground Offensive-ABC News - USA
Why 40,000 Canadians are in lebanon-National Post - Canada
Is Full-Scale Invasion of Lebanon Necessary to Dislodge Hezbollah?FOX News - USA
LEBANON: UN and other humanitarian agencies step up relief-Reuters AlertNet - London,England,UK
US to back expanded Lebanon border security force-Washington Post - United States
A Must read Two Editorials
Letter from a Lebanese Army Officer-Paris – France July 21, 2006
Hostage to Hezbollah -Lesson for Nasrallah:"The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you."
BY FOUAD AJAMI Friday, July 21, 2006
Back home, Sfeir calls assembly of Maronite bishopsAsiaNews.it - Italy
Israel calls up troops, warns Lebanese-AP
Rice to present peace plan, travel to Mideast-AP
PM OKs Lebanon humanitarian corridor-Jerusalem Post - Israel
Peretz: Israel won't occupy Lebanon-Ha'aretz - Tel Aviv,Israel
Casualties mount in Lebanon-Reuters - USA
Israel weighs next move in Lebanon-Chicago Tribune
Israel, Hezbollah Intensify Fighting in South Lebanon (Update1)Bloomberg - USA
Flee south Lebanon now, Israelis warn-Deseret News - Salt Lake City,UT,USA
Hezbollah nourished by Iran, Syria roots-Seattle Post Intelligencer - USA
West divided over Israel-Lebanon crisis-ISN - Zurich,Switzerland
Israel Warns South Lebanon To Evacuate-Tampa Tribune - Tampa,FL,USA
Israel Issues Warning to Residents in South Lebanon-580 CFRA Radio
Olmert Strengthens Military Credentials With Hezbollah Fight-Bloomberg
Thousands more Lebanon evacuees pour into Cyprus-Swissinfo
Thousands more flee Lebanon-Reuters - USA
Israel continues to pound Lebanon; 500,000 displaced-People's Daily Online
Lebanon's Dividers-Washington Post - United States
IAF strikes 40 targets in Lebanon-Ynetnews - Israel
Lebanon's prime minister denied that he called for Hezbollah to -Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Interview with Elias Bejjani from the Canadian Christianity. COM 21/07/06
6 Cdn-Lebanese organizations praise Harper-940 News - Montreal,Quebec,Canada
Anguished over lack of US support in opposing Hezbollah-WorldNetDaily
Lebanese Army May Enter Fight-Wall Street Journal
Maronite Patriarch Visits US to Seek Solution to Israel-LebanonThe Universe
Lebanon crisis polarizes Christians-CanadianChristianity.com - Canada
Syria Blocks UN Efforts To End Lebanon Crisis, US Envoy Says-Washington File
A Mountain of Tears in Beirut-TIME
Israel and Hizballah at War: A Status Report-Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Lebanon's Weak Government-Council on Foreign Relations

Back home, Sfeir calls assembly of Maronite bishops
On his return from the United States, Sfeir gave assurance of US hopes that a “reasonable” ceasefire will be reached. Shelling continues in Beirut and south Lebanon, while in northern Israel, 50% of the people were forced to leave their homes.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – 21 July, 2006  -Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir returned to Lebanon yesterday and has called a special assembly of the Maronite bishops for this afternoon. The aim of the meeting is to assess what the church can do in the very difficult situation the country is passing through, which the patriarch said “I followed day in, day out, hour after hour”. Cardinal Sfeir returned to Bkerke at the end of a pastoral visit of a few weeks to Maronites in the United States. During his stay there, he had talks with the vice president, Dick Cheney, and also with the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
Talking about these meetings, Cardinal Sfeir gave assurance that the United States was following the Lebanese plight closely and hoped to manage to impose a ceasefire “under reasonable and acceptable conditions”.
The patriarch returned by American helicopter and was met at the heliport of the US embassy by the justice minister, Rizk, and the US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman. Cardinal Sfeir then traveled to the patriarchal seat in Bkerke by car.
Today, in Lebanon, people are eagerly awaiting developments following the statement of Olmert, who left open the possibility of creating humanitarian corridors, and for tonight’s meeting between Rice and UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, although no one has any information about this. As people wait for the arrival in the Middle East of the American Secretary of State, they are naturally hoping for Israel’s acceptance to call a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, in Beirut and south Lebanon, shelling, rocket launches and the flight of foreigners continue. The fear of bombs has touched not only Lebanon; Haaretz reported that in the north of Israel, 50% of the people were forced to leave their homes. In the cities of Naharya (57,000 residents), Kiryat Shmone (22,000) and Safed (26,000), the percentage of displaced people is 50%. In Karmiel (50,000) only 30% of residents left their homes. There are no proper figures for Tiberiade (40,000) as yet, although hotels “have emptied completely”. The daily did not manage to find out how many of Haifa’s 267,000 residents were still in town.
In Nazareth, Israel’s main Arab city, calm has returned after the launch of a rocket by Hezbollah that killed two Muslim children on 19 July. The population is however on alert, because it feels “unprepared” to face possible new attacks. Sources of AsiaNews said people were now expecting Olmert’s government to provide facilities like tents and medicines to tackle a possible emergency. Today, the leader of the “Party of God”, Hassan Nasrallah, apologized to families of the two victims of the rocket attack, saying it was “unintentional”. Even analysts on the spot held that the attack on Nazareth was accidental and did not aim to target a Christian symbol to get a message across to Europe, as many immediately claimed.
Meanwhile, a statement by the Lebanese defence minister, Elias Murr, on Al Arabiya satellite television, confirmed the differences between the government of Beirut and Hezbollah. Declaring that if the Israelis invaded the country, “the army will fight”, the Lebanese minister said the army “has no contacts and no coordination with the resistance” and the government “will not allow the resistance to fight in the place of the army nor will the army fight alongside anyone.”

Lebanon crisis polarizes Christians
By David F. Dawes
AFTER a week of steady bombardment, Israel has sent ground troops into Lebanon.
While an unidentified Israeli military spokesman told Australia's ABC News that the ground forces are conducting "restricted, pinpoint attacks" on terrorist outposts, various Western nations are nevertheless still attempting mass evacuations of their citizens from Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has maintained a tough stance toward Hezbollah, the Shiite militia group which precipitated the latest crisis just over a week ago by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing eight others.
In a speech to Israel's parliament, Olmert stated: "We shall seek out every installation, hit every terrorist helping to attack Israeli citizens, destroy all the terrorist infrastructure, in every place. We shall continue this until Hezbollah does the basic and fair things required of it by every civilized person."
Meanwhile, the United Nations, backed by the United States, Great Britain and other countries, is attempting to engineer a diplomatic solution.
They are getting help from some unusual sources. According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia is unequivocally condemning the Hezbollah action. The country's official news agency, SPA, stated: "A distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements inside [Lebanon] and those behind them without recourse to the legal authorities and consulting and coordinating with Arab nations."
According to the latest available figures,at least 235 people have died in Lebanon since the Israeli attack began; and 25 have died in Israel as a result of terrorist retaliation. At least eight Canadians are known to have died in Lebanon.
As the fighting rages, Christians are expressing a variety of views on the crisis.
Approximately 100 protesters rallied July 12 at the Israeli consulate in Boston. Among them were various Episcopal priests, and Thomas Shaw, Bishop of Massachusetts -- who called for "an immediate and peaceful halt to the hostilities . . . and for the peaceful coexistence of Israel and Palestine."
"Is there ever to be an end to violence in the land we call holy?" asked the National Council of Churches (NCC) and its humanitarian counterpart, the Church World Service (CWS). In a joint statement issued July 14, the organizations further asked: "What has violence solved these last 60 years?" The two groups called upon various nations to build upon "the success of former peace initiatives," and urged their members to "pray for all those who have suffered and died . . . and to engage in humanitarian and advocacy actions for peace."
A statement released July 17 by the Canadian branch of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) placed the blame squarely on both Hezbollah and Hamas extremists, declaring: "The inspiration behind their agenda is fanatical Islam, which seeks the total destruction of Israel. Now, in concert with their devious sponsors in Damascus and Tehran, they have unleashed a war against Israel. Israel now has no alternative other than to destroy the terror infrastructure and capabilities of these two groups."
ICEJ executive director Malcolm Hedding further stated: "We fully support Israel in her right to self-defence and in her measured military campaign now being waged against this terror militia. Israel's response is entirely just." He added: "We are not without sympathy for the vast majority of Lebanese citizens, who have been forced into war."
In this country, six groups representing much of the Lebanese Canadian community issued a statement July 19 in Mississauga, Ontario.
The statement extended "heartfelt gratitude to the Canadian government . . . for the correct, just and prompt positions they have taken with regard to Lebanon and the unfortunate military confrontations that are occurring on its soil." Further, they stated: "The actions and conduct of Hezbollah are extremely harmful to the interests of Lebanon and the Lebanese people."
The statement concluded by urging Canada to lobby for "an immediate truce in Lebanon based on UN Resolution 1559, which explicitly calls for the disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias, the deployment of the Lebanese army along the border with Israel, and the extension of the authority of the Lebanese government over all Lebanese territory."
The statement was signed by representatives of the Lebanese-Canadian Coordinating Council (LCCC), the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation, the Phoenician Club of Mississauga, Canadian Phoenician Community Services Club, the Canadian Lebanese Christian Heritage Club and the World Lebanese Cultural Union, Canadian Chapter.
LCCC head Elias Bejjani, a Maronite Catholic, said he could understand why the Israeli government would consider their actions a legitimate form of self-defense. "This is how they see it. They had no choice but to act, if you understand their situation and point of view." Further, he said, "Israel's reputation as a mighty power was threatened."
Bejjani characterized Hezbollah's provocation of Israel as a "reckless and adventurous action." He also suggested that those critical of Israel for the deaths of Lebanese civilians were not seeing the whole picture.
"I'm not sure Israel is targeting civilians. Hezbollah moves from one neighbourhood to another. According to reports we have heard from Christian villages in south Lebanon, Hezbollah come into the villages and fire their rockets; then they run away. And these villages pay the price."
Bejjani did, however, express some concerns over Israel's military campaign. "Why are they destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon?" Perhaps "to cut aid coming from Syria and Iran," he conjectured.
"Israel's reaction is massive," he continued, adding: "But what led to this reaction? Why is Hezbollah on Lebanon's borders? Why has an armed militia been allowed to patrol a neighbouring country? Why have the Lebanese people let things get to this level? It's a bizarre situation; it's not just black and white."
Israel, Bejanni said, "could be an enemy or a friend" to Lebanon. "Israel did not come to south Lebanon to occupy it." While he acknowledged that Israel previously had its forces in Lebanon for almost two decades, he noted: "Israel stayed there all those years, but didn't build one settlement. They helped Lebanese villagers. In the eyes of many Lebanese in south Lebanon, the Israelis were not occupying."
Asked how Israel should deal with ongoing terrorist violence against its people, he said the embattled nation "is fighting for its existence" -- and that some of Israel's opponents, such as Hezbollah, are motivated by "pure religious belief." Thus, he asserted, "If I was Israel, I'd take that very seriously."
Nothing, he emphasized, "justifies loss of life. But we are in a war -- and war justifies everything for those who are in it." LCCC, he stressed, is "against violence, no matter where it comes from. This conflict shouldn't just end with a truce. What is needed is an agreement which will disarm all militias."
He said he was encouraged by the fact that some Arabic nations have condemned Hezbollah's actions. "This has set a precedent. They have acted boldly. They are saying that Hezbollah is threatening the peace process."
Asked how his group views the efforts of both Christian Zionists and Christians conducting disinvestment campaigns against Israel, he responded: "They can advocate what they want as long as they use peaceful means." He added: "What we advocate has nothing to do with religious beliefs. We are a Christian community, but we don't work on 'Christian issues.' We are Lebanese. We work for democracy, independence and human rights. We want a country where Christians can be Christians."
Noting that Lebanon was split evenly between Christians and Muslims, CC.com asked Bejjani whether he believed the two groups could get along.
"Yeah," he replied, "if we are left alone and have no interference from outside forces -- like Iran, Syria and the Palestinians."

Lebanese Patriarch Tells Cheney Israeli Response Inappropriate
July 20, 2006 2:05 p.m. EST
Jacob Cherian - All Headline News Staff Writer
Washington, DC (AHN) - Lebanon's Maronite Catholic patriarch has told U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney that Israel's actions against the Hezbollah are inappropriate. However, he stated that Israel does have the right to defend itself.
Cardinal Nasrallah P. Sfeir told the Catholic News Service, "The country is nearly destroyed, the runways, bridges, ports are all destroyed."
The cardinal added, "The Lebanese government is so weak, it is not able to oppose (its offenders). It has no means to."
Cardinal Sfeir met with Cheney at the White House before celebrating Mass at Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Washington for peace in the Middle East. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, and Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington were among those who were also present at the Mass.
The Lebanese bishop also met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department before his trip back to Cyprus. Rice said that the U.S. was "very concerned" about Lebanese civilians, although she did not mention a timeline or specifics other than a long-lasting peace.
The patriarch commented that Cheney had assured him that "he will see what he can do for us. It's not so easy because of a lot of complicated situations with a lot of countries." He also felt that the Vice President did not share the plan of the U.S. government on the Middle East: "He doesn't have a plan; at least he hasn't told me. I think, I hope he will intervene and put an end to this conflict...I think the U.S. government must be just."
Cardinal Sfeir said he had told his priests back in Lebanon, instructing the parishes to "receive all the refugees in their classrooms and homes."
He added that he had no contact with officials or Catholics in Israel, noting "it is not possible for me to contact there."
Approximately 400 people, including representatives of the Lebanese Embassy, attended the cardinal's midday Mass.

Syria Blocks U.N. Efforts To End Lebanon Crisis, U.S. Envoy Says
Syria refuses to meet with U.N. special envoy
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- Syria is becoming a serious stumbling block in international diplomatic efforts to end the fighting in Lebanon, U.S. officials say.
In the U.N. Security Council July 20, Secretary-General Kofi Annan outlined his plan for a wide-ranging settlement and reported on the efforts of the three-person mission, led by Vijay Nambiar, that he sent to the region July 13 as the fighting intensified. However, Syria's refusal to receive one of the secretary-general's envoys -- experienced diplomat Terje Roed-Larsen -- cast a shadow over the meeting. Roed-Larsen is the secretary-general's special representative on Resolution 1559, passed by the council in September 2004 calling for "the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias."U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said Syria's rejection of the U.N. mission "in effect applies to all of our collective efforts to get an international solution" to the crisis in Lebanon. "We know the root cause of the present conflict is Hizballah's terrorists acts supported by Iran and Syria, but now, I think, we see more clearly the role Syria has and has been playing in frustrating efforts to bring this to a resolution," Bolton said.
During a closed-door meeting with the 15-nation Security Council, Annan emphasized that he would assert his right to select whomever he felt was qualified for such missions. However, the United Nations did not press the point with Syria because the team was needed back in New York to brief the council, he said. Other U.N. officials point out that the United Nations has other means of approaching Syria, as well as Iran, another backer of Hizballah.
It was reasonable to have the Nambiar mission at U.N. headquarters for the Security Council meeting, Bolton said, "but I don't see how the council can be fully informed or the U.N. can play a full role if a major party to the conflict -- Syria -- just isn't even interested in talking."
The action raises "a more profound question of how one gets Syrian involvement and commitment . . . to a solution if they don't talk to the representatives of the secretary-general," he said. Bolton said that in the absence of a meeting between the Nambiar team and the Syrian government, it is difficult to get a complete picture of to what Syria would agree, including how Damascus is going to terminate its support for Hizballah terrorist activities. "I don't think there's any question but that Syria, along with Iran is a principle supporter of Hizballah. It has rejected many critical elements of Resolution 1559 and now we find that it has not indicated even a willingness to even speak with the secretary-general's mission," Bolton continued. The Nambiar mission "has to have access to all governments involved or the secretary-general's role will be severely limited," he said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Syria, as well as Iran, stood apart from the rest of the region by not condemning the Hizballah attacks that started the crisis. "States in the region condemned this attack, Syria and Iran didn't. So they are outside that consensus in the region," McCormack said. They have isolated themselves "through their actions, through their support for Hizballah, through support for Hamas."

A Mountain of Tears in Beirut
On Scene: In the peaceful hills above the besieged city, Shi'ite refugees are taking shelter — but even they can't fully escape the conflict's bloody toll
By CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON/BEIRUT
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Posted Thursday, Jul. 20, 2006
Lebanon has become two countries.
For a change of pace, and a desire to get away from the incessant worries over the Westerners' evacuation plans (relax folks, you'll get out), I went up into the hills above Beirut Thursday, into the Christian enclaves where small shrines to Mary mark the sharp switchbacks in the roads leading up into the cedar and pines. It's peaceful up here. Broummana is particularly picturesque, perched as it is on the side of steep hills that look down into valleys that then spill out into Beirut. During the 1975-90 Civil War, residents of the city would flee into these hill towns and watch the artillery duels between the various militias, between the Israelis and the PLO, between the PLO and the militias, between the Israelis and the militias... Well, you get the idea.
Stopping for lunch at an upscale Crepe-Away diner, I'm taken aback by the sheer normality of the scene. Young people hanging out and flirting? Check. Bad American pop music on the loudspeakers? Yeah, got that. Families playing peek-a-boo with their kids over menus? That, too. It was a typical Lebanese scene and one that would be instantly recognizable in, say, northern California. It was easy to forget that just a few miles down the mountain roads, people could suffer an Israeli air strike at any minute — in fact, if there had been any bombings, we would have had a great view.
But the war had reached Broummana; we just had to look for it.
We found it at the local public school. Shi'ite refugees from the south had taken shelter here, in the heart of this Christian community that splits its loyalties between Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, which has a political alliance with Hizballah, and Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces, which are virulently anti-Hizballah and even anti-Muslim.
A few families fleeing the south arrived on Saturday, but numbers surged on Monday, said George Abisamra, an Aoun supporter who had volunteered to help out at the school. As of today, 400 people had taken shelter here, he said, and his party had taken it on themselves to organize care for them. "We have to help them," he said, "They are Lebanese."
In some cases, there's only so much one can do. I met Abisamra while witnessing a tragic, but increasingly common, scene. An extended family of Shi'ites from Tyre in the south was seated on a semi-circle of white plastic chairs. The men wore grim expressions. They had just been told that Hussein Zikehammede, 40, and his father, Hajj Zikehammede, 70, had been killed in an Israeli missile strike yesterday on their way south to fetch Hussein's wife and six children and bring them to safety. According to Hussein's cousin, Majid Hammadi, the two men were about a mile from their house when an Israeli missile struck their car, killing both. When a rescue truck attempted to retrieve the bodies, Hammadi said, the Israelis struck again. Today, they say, after a day in the street, the bodies are still unclaimed because people are too scared to approach the destroyed cars. Neighbors who witnessed the attack had called Hammadi with the news about an hour before we arrived in Broummana.
Hammadi's eyes brimmed with tears as he related the story. Then, he turned. Hussein's sister was being told the news. She kneeled before an older man, who was speaking softly to her, his face drawn, his eyes tortured. She cried out, "Hussein! Hussein!" in a long, shrill lament. She held her head in her hands and began to pull at her hijab while screaming out her brother's name. A young man tried to help Hussein's sister to her feet, but she couldn't bear to stand. Small children began to cry, and one little girl had a purple star sticker affixed to her forehead, a jarring symbol of childhood pasted over more grief than she should have to experience at such a tender age.
Hammadi pressed his thumb and fingers to his eyes and turned away, trying to push the tears back inside. But then he pulled himself together and turned to me. "We are with Hizballah, even if everybody dies," he said. "God forbid." Then his eyes again filled with tears.

PolicyWatch #1128: Special Forum Report
Israel and Hizballah at War: A Status Report
Featuring Moshe Yaalon, David Schenker, and Dennis Ross
July 20, 2006
On July 19, 2006, Brig. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, David Schenker, and Dennis Ross addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum. General Yaalon, a distinguished military fellow at the Institute, is the former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff. Mr. Schenker, a senior fellow in Arab politics at the Institute, served until 2005 as Levant country director of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Ambassador Ross, the Institute’s counselor and Ziegler distinguished fellow, is a former U.S. Middle East peace envoy and author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.
MOSHE YAALON
Since the Israeli operation in Lebanon began, Israel has attacked more than one thousand targets, destroying an estimated 180 katyusha and longer range rockets, and at least one Iranian-made Zilzal rocket, capable of reaching Tel Aviv. Ammunition trucks coming from Syria and Hizballah headquarters in the southern suburbs have also been attacked. Meanwhile, at least eight hundred rockets—most of them Iranian-made—have been fired at Israeli villages and towns from Haifa to the Galilee. Some of these were 220-milimeter Syrian-made rockets that had been modified with shrapnel in order to inflict more civilian casualties. There have been relatively few Israeli casualties because the rockets have generally been inaccurate and people have largely obeyed orders to move away from dangerous areas.
Israel’s objectives in this operation are threefold: (1) the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559’s call for disarming Hizballah; (2) the deployment of Lebanese forces along the border, also as called for in Resolution 1559; and (3) the release of kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Anything short of this will be the starting point for the next wave of hostilities. This operation is an opportunity to move from the strategy of withdrawal back to the offensive strategy against radical Islam. The world is facing a war of proxies, with Iran as the mastermind and Syria as the facilitator. Israel would prefer that the international community apply political and economic sanctions to these two countries.
There is no way to destroy all the rockets through air strikes. Hizballah has twelve thousand katyushas; it has launched only a few hundred of those. These are rockets that can be stored in cars and launched anywhere, so the idea of a ground operation would be to suppress the rocket launching, not to destroy the rockets. In the end, the way to end the rocket barrages is to exact a price for the use of such weapons.
The targets Israel attacked in the north of Lebanon were Lebanese army radar stations and active air defense positions. The soldiers were warned to leave their positions. In some cases they did not do so, resulting in Lebanese Armed Forces casualties. But after those strikes, the ground-to-air strikes against Israeli planes ceased.
DAVID SCHENKER
Initially, with the notable exception of the Lebanese Shiites, the vast majority of Lebanese were shocked at the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers, angry at Hizballah, and quietly pleased that Israel was responding in a serious fashion. The anger with Hizballah has not diminished, but there is a growing frustration with continued Israeli air operations—particularly those seemingly focused on Lebanese infrastructure.
The initial position of the Lebanese government and several leading politicians largely reflected this sentiment. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora announced that the government “did not condone” Hizballah’s kidnapping raid. Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, condemned Hizballah’s actions, albeit mainly on procedural grounds: Geagea said Hizballah did not have the authority to take such provocative actions without government approval. For his part, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has remained, true to form, candid in his observations, alternately describing the crisis as Iranian- and Syrian-generated.
Most Lebanese politicians, including President Emile Lahoud, have reacted according to their affiliations with Syria. The outliers in this regard are Gen. Michel Aoun and Saad Hariri. General Aoun, head of the Hizballah-allied Christian parliamentary bloc known as the Free Patriotic Movement, has made two statements focused only on prisoners and the occupation of Shebaa Farms. Aoun is in a precarious position; it seems likely he will need to distance himself from Hizballah to maintain credibility with his Christian constituency. As for Hariri, initially he did not condemn Hizballah. However, after Saudi Arabia released a statement criticizing Hizballah’s provocation, Hariri too issued a statement criticizing the Hizballah “adventurism” that brought Lebanon to war.
In the Shiite community today, Hizballah likely retains much of the widespread support it held prior to July 13. Yet although Hizballah had a strong base of support, there is also a significant element of Lebanese Shiites who do not support Hizballah. Moreover, the developments of the past week have pushed many in Lebanon to the realization that all militias must be disarmed—that the “resistance” can no longer be tolerated.
Indeed, in the year since it took power, the Lebanese government has made no progress on the disarmament issue, largely because of the longstanding tradition of consensus that has guided Lebanese politics. Fearing civil war, Lebanese factions tend not to gang up against one another. Given the current stalemate, however, it has become incumbent on the Lebanese government to start taking a tough position on this issue, and to work with the international community to press for and enforce disarmament of militias. To achieve disarmament, a necessary step will be to first abandon the consensus politics that made disarmament impossible.
DENNIS ROSS
In the six years since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon to the internationally recognized Blue Line, Hizballah has essentially respected the line and not taken credit for attacks outside the disputed Shebaa Farms area. The significant change in Hizballah’s behavior cannot simply be explained as an effort to display solidarity with the Palestinians; indeed, the events in Lebanon have guaranteed that the international community is now largely ignoring the Palestinians. A much more likely source of Hizballah’s behavior is Iran. Hizballah carried out its kidnapping operation the very day Iran was due to respond to the European incentives package offered in exchange for a halt to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Iran is demonstrating through the use of its proxy, Hizballah, that it can respond to international pressure on the nuclear question by pressuring the international community in other areas. Rather than focusing on Iran as it was scheduled to do, the G-8 summit became riveted on the crisis in Lebanon while the Iranian question generally slipped from the agenda.
While some have attributed Israel’s harsh response to Hizballah’s attack as the effort of a new government to prove its security credentials, there is a more fundamental explanation for Israel’s actions. A consensus has developed in Israel that its unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza have been perceived in the Arab world as signs of Israeli weakness. Rather than securing Israel’s borders, the pullbacks strengthened Hamas and Hizballah. The country is now largely united in its desire to reestablish its military deterrent, to demonstrate to Hizballah and Hamas the costs of attacking Israel, and to severely weaken their infrastructures and capabilities in the process.
The events in Lebanon have drawn an unprecedented response from much of the Arab world. Saudi Arabia’s blunt public criticism of Hizballah represents a fear among Arab states that Iran is using Hizballah and Hamas to shape events and become a regional arbiter. This new thinking among the Arab states creates an opening for an Arab-backed plan to change the status quo. The United States should be working behind the scenes with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan to develop a plan for Lebanon to bolster the Lebanese government and its army and address humanitarian concerns. Similarly, the United States should pressure the Arab states to strengthen Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and provide funding for an independent security force capable of enforcing a ceasefire with Israel. In both the Lebanese and Palestinian cases, Hizballah and Hamas can be weakened, but political and economic alternatives must be built to replace their influence. One thing is certain: Israel will not go back to the status quo ante. Hezbollah cannot be allowed to emerge from the ashes or it will turn defeat into a victory. This rapporteur’s summary was prepared by May Habib.

Battered Lebanon counts the cost of Israeli onslaught
Infrastructure damage will cost 'billions of dollars to repair'
Brian Whitaker in Beirut
Friday July 21, 2006
The Guardian
The catastrophic scale of destruction inflicted on Lebanon's infrastructure and economy by the Israeli bombardment was becoming apparent yesterday as government officials released details to the Guardian of the damage so far.
With countless homes wrecked, 55 bridges destroyed and numerous roads made impassable, factories, hospitals and airports hit and fuel storage facilities destroyed, estimates of the reconstruction cost already run into billions of dollars.
"We know the cost is in billions," a government spokeswoman said yesterday. "But it's very difficult to estimate more precisely because there are many places we can't reach."
The prime minister, Fouad Siniora, has already said he will "spare no avenue" to to obtain compensation from Israel "for the barbaric destruction it has inflicted and continues to inflict upon us".
In imposing an air and sea blockade, Israeli forces have put Beirut airport out of action and damaged two smaller airports, one of them military, and knocked out all the civilian and military radar stations, according to officials.
Israeli forces have also attacked three of the country's main seaports - Beirut, Tripoli and Jamil Gemayel - as well as putting Beirut's lighthouse out of action and hitting an antenna in Tripoli that was vital for maritime operations.
The energy sector has been hit too, with the destruction of 17 fuel stores, four gas stores and the bombing of 12 petrol stations. An electricity generator in Sibline has also been damaged.
Various factories and warehouses have been destroyed or put out of action. Last night the social affairs minister, Nayla Mouawad, singled out two she said had been wrecked "on purpose". One was a milk plant in the Bekaa valley.
"It was our biggest milk factory in the Bekaa ... an essential asset for bringing milk to newborn babies and young children," she said.
The other was a detergent and foodstuffs warehouse for Procter & Gamble, which she described as "essential for food and hygiene".
Lebanon had also been expecting more than 1.2 million tourists - mainly wealthy Gulf Arabs and people of Lebanese descent - this summer. "It was going to be brilliant," Ms Mouawad said. "We were expecting an income of $2.5bn to $3bn [£1.3bn to £1.6bn], which was necessary to start repaying our debts."
Some hotels have temporarily closed, although others in Beirut have been full over the past few days with Lebanese fleeing the Israeli onslaught and foreigners awaiting evacuation.
Many shops and other small businesses have also closed, either through lack of customers or because staff can no longer travel to work.
According to Sami Haddad, the minister of economy and trade, Lebanon has enough essential supplies to last two months. The government's prime concern is food - especially getting flour and grain to outlying villages.
"Any large transportation vehicles are being bombed ... There is difficulty getting flour to some villages," he said.
Besides securing food supplies, the government's other main objective is to keep the price of essential goods stable.
Despite the attacks on fuel stores, Mr Haddad said supplies of petrol and diesel were "more than adequate" for the time being. To conserve fuel, though, electricity is being cut off in Beirut for six hours a day.
"Our fuel will last 45 to 60 days on this basis," the minister said.
In the meantime, the Lebanese government has launched a diplomatic initiative aimed at bringing in fresh supplies through the Israeli-imposed blockade.
There have been contacts with the US, Britain and France, and Lebanon is seeking international protection for transporting essential goods.
"We are asking for a humanitarian corridor to link Lebanon with the rest of the world - and a corridor within Lebanon to bring assistance to most of the villages in the south which are cut off from the rest of the country," Ms Mouawad said. "They are poor villages and they are lacking everything."
In one attack on Monday, Israeli missiles hit a convoy near the town of Zahle as it approached Beirut from Syria. Three trucks were damaged or destroyed, as well as four passenger vehicles.
Journalists at the scene reported that the trucks had contained supplies of medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice. The Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates said in a statement that the convoy had included medical supplies and medicines, as well as several ambulances. Officials in the UAE also said the convoy was clearly marked as a relief operation.
The mass exodus from Lebanon has led many people to empty their bank accounts, raising fears of a financial crisis.
The Central Bank has been propping up the Lebanese pound, but according to local press reports there is no need to panic because it has more than $13bn in foreign currency reserves.
By tradition, Lebanon has a dual currency system, and US dollars are in increasingly short supply. Banks have also been restricting cash withdrawals in dollars, with an upper limit of $2,000 to $3,000 a person.
Damage to date
Energy
· Jiye power station, 20 miles south of Beirut, repeatedly hit; electricity generator hit in Sibline.
· Electricity in Beirut said to be "feeble and flickering", with large areas cut off.
· In south, electrical supply almost completely cut. Estimated total of 750,000 people without electricity.
· Four gas stores hit; 17 fuel stores destroyed; 12 petrol stations bombed. Prices have rocketed sixfold in some cities, such as Tyre.
Water
· Treatment plant hit in Dair al-Zahrani, south of Sidon.
· Two trucks with water drilling equipment destroyed in Ashrafiyeh, Beirut.
Transport
· Of Lebanon's seven airports, Beirut airport out of action (runways damaged, fuel tanks destroyed), Qoleiaat in the north and Riyaq military airport in Bekaa severely damaged. All main civilian and military radar stations out of action.
· Three main seaports - Beirut, Tripoli and Jamil Gemayel - hit. Maritime operations antenna hit in Tripoli; Beirut lighthouse out of action.
· 38 main roads severely damaged from the air, including road to Damascus.
· 55 bridges destroyed, mainly those running to southern Lebanon.
Medical care
· Two hospitals hit, one in Nabatiyeh and one in the southern suburbs of Beirut; at least one destroyed (Mayss al-Jabal).
· Convoy of donated medical goods hit near Zahle.
Communications
· Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV station in Beirut hit.
Industry
· Liban Lait milk plant in Bekaa hit.
· Tissue paper factory in Sidon attacked.
· Paper mill in southern Beirut hit.
· Medical supplies company in southern Beirut hit; grain silos hit at port.
· Warehouse of Transmed company in Beirut caught fire; $10m losses.
· Stores of Procter & Gamble products hit in Choueifat.
Economy
· Stock market closed on Monday after falling 14%.
· Banks limit withdrawals by panicked customers to $1,000. Central bank keeping currency stable, say dealers.

Special Report: Situation Review
By George Friedman
We have been following developments in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict closely for several days. At this writing, the air-rocket war continues to rage, but the Israeli ground offensive that we would have expected by now has not yet been launched. There is some speculation that it will not be launched -- that a combination of air operations and a diplomatic process will be sufficient, from Israel's point of view, to negate the need for a ground attack.
While the various processes grind their way along, it is time to review the situation.
The first point to bear in mind is that the crisis did not truly begin with the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. The kidnappings presented a serious problem for Israel, but could not, by themselves, define the geopolitical issue. That definition came when Hezbollah rockets struck Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, on July 13. There were also claims coming from Hezbollah, and confirmed by Israeli officials, that Hezbollah had missiles available that could reach Tel Aviv. Israel's population is concentrated in the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor and in the Tel Aviv-Haifa corridor. In effect, Hezbollah had attained the ability to strike at the Israeli heartland. Hezbollah has been hitting the northern part of this heartland, as well as pounding Israel's northern frontier.
The capture of two soldiers posed a symbolic challenge to Israel, but the rocket attacks posed a direct geopolitical threat. Israel had substantial room for maneuver regarding the captured troops. The threat to the heartland, however, could not be evaded. To the extent possible, Israel had to stop the missile attacks. As important, it also had to eliminate Hezbollah's ability to resume such attacks. The Israelis can tolerate these strikes for a certain period of time, so long as the outcome is a final cessation. What was not an option for Israel was to engage in temporary solutions that would allow Hezbollah to attack the heartland regularly, at its discretion. Hezbollah has posed a problem that Israel cannot choose to ignore.
Hezbollah's reasons for doing so at this time are not altogether clear. It certainly has to do with the crisis in Palestinian politics: Hezbollah wants to stake a place for itself as Palestine redefines itself. It also has to do with the vacuum created by the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and freedom of action for Hezbollah that previously has been denied it by the Syrians. Finally, it is clear that Iranian and Shiite politics within the wider Islamic world have made Hezbollah action at this time attractive for the group's Iranian patrons.
However complex Hezbollah's motives might be, the consequences of its actions are crystal-clear: From the Israeli perspective, it is imperative that the rocket attacks must be shut down.
Israel's Imperfect Options
Israel has three tools at its disposal.
One is diplomacy. There is a general consensus, even among many in Lebanon and Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, that Hezbollah's actions have been unreasonable and undesirable. It would not be too difficult, we would think, to create a circumstance in which the two Israeli soldiers are released, a cease-fire is declared and an international monitoring team inserted into the region. That is what the French, for example, have proposed, and what is being discussed now.
The problem with this option, from the Israeli point of view, is that it puts off a solution to the deeper problem posed by Hezbollah to a later day -- one that might not be so advantageous for Israel. Israel has a built-in distrust of international peacekeeping operations -- dating back to May 1967, when the United Nations, without consulting Israel, withdrew peacekeepers from Sinai at the behest of the Egyptians. This cultural bias against peacekeepers is reinforced by the fact that Hezbollah could rearm itself behind the peacekeeping shield. Whether the peacekeepers would conduct operations to prevent this -- in effect, carrying out counterinsurgency operations in Lebanon in support of Israel's goals -- is doubtful in the extreme. Instead, the presence of a peacekeeping force might facilitate a more substantial Hezbollah capability down the road. This is, at least, how the Israelis think of it, and their position therefore has been consistent: The outcome of this conflict must be the destruction of Hezbollah, or at least its offensive capability, for an extended period of time.
That leads to Israel's other two options, both of which would be carried out with military force.
The first step has been the Israeli air campaign. All modern military operations by advanced powers begin with air campaigns. Their purpose is to prepare the battlefield for land attack and, in some cases, to force a political settlement. In Kosovo, for example, air attacks alone were sufficient to convince the Yugoslav government to concede its control over Kosovo. In the case of Desert Storm, the air campaign came in preparation for a ground attack.
Air forces around the world like to make extravagant claims as to what air power can do; the Israeli air force is no exception. However, while an air campaign can severely hamper Hezbollah -- particularly by attacking launch sites and storage facilities, and generally making launches difficult -- the likelihood that air power can, by itself, eliminate the threat is unlikely.
To reiterate a key point, the nature of the threat is continual attacks on Israel's geopolitical heartland. Now, it is possible that Israeli air operations could force some sort of political settlement, but again, as with the diplomatic option, it is difficult to conceive of a political settlement that guarantees what Israel wants. Even a Hezbollah withdrawal from southern Lebanon, coupled with occupation of the area by the Lebanese army, does not solve the problem. This solution assumes that the Lebanese army has the will and ability to prevent Hezbollah's return. For this to work, the Lebanese army would have to agree to dismantle Hezbollah's infrastructure, and Hezbollah would have to agree to let them do so -- and Israel would have to place its faith in both Hezbollah and the Lebanese army and government. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which the Israelis can reach a satisfactory political settlement. The air campaign as a political tool suffers from the same defect as the diplomatic track: It is of value only if Israel is prepared to accept a solution that does not guarantee a complete end to the threat posed by Hezbollah -- and potentially might leave the Israelis in a worse position, militarily, down the road.
There is an additional political fact and problem. Obviously, any threat to a heartland generates a unique political response. In Israel, the Olmert government is heir to Ariel Sharon's quest for an imposed political settlement on the Palestinians. This is a strategy opposed from the right, by Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud, who argues that any settlement that leaves military options in the hands of the Palestinians is unsustainable. The Hezbollah issue is the Palestinian issue on steroids. If Olmert were to agree to any settlement that does not include dismantling Hezbollah's capabilities or that relies on a third party to police that dismantling, Netanyahu would attack hard -- and we suspect that enough of Olmert's coalition would defect to force a political crisis in Israel.
There has been no attack from Netanyahu, however. This can be partly explained by the Israeli tradition that politics stops when war begins. But we suspect this goes deeper than that. Olmert is keeping Netanyahu informed as to his intentions and Netanyahu is content with the course being pursued, making it clear in public that his support depends on the government faithfully pursuing that course -- meaning the destruction of Hezbollah as an organized entity. Olmert does not have much room for maneuver on this, nor is it apparent that he wants any. The goal is the destruction of Hezbollah; anything less would not work, on any level, for Israel.
The Logic for a Ground Offensive
From this, we must conclude that the air campaign comes in preparation for what is Israel's third option: a ground offensive. If Israel's goal is the destruction of Hezbollah's ability to strike the Israeli heartland for an extended period of time, the only way to hope to achieve this is from the ground. Those conducting air operations can see only what can be seen from the air. And even if they can hit whatever they see, eliminating the threat requires a ground presence. Therefore, we continue to believe that logic and evidence argue for an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon -- and that any possible diplomatic or political resolution, however tempting, ultimately could not satisfy Israel's security requirements.
When we say invasion, we do not mean occupation. Israel has had its fill of counterinsurgency operations in Lebanon. This would be a raid in force. A large force would push into Lebanon, with two missions: the destruction of Hezbollah as an army and the location and destruction of all heavy weaponry. This solution would not be permanent, but it would achieve two ends. First, it would mean that for Hezbollah or a successor organization to regroup would take years. Second, it would leave no third party shielding Hezbollah while it regrouped. This strategy gives Israel what it wants now and options in the future.
Three more Israeli battalions were mobilized today. The United States, which certainly knows Israel's intentions, is now extracting U.S. citizens from Beirut. Israeli aircraft are working over Hezbollah positions in the Bekaa Valley. The United States, Israel's patron, is clearly in favor of the destruction of Hezbollah and there is no broad-based opposition to an Israeli offensive internationally. It is a window of opportunity that Israel will not pass up. The very thing that makes diplomatic solutions possible also makes invasion, for the Israelis, attractive.
Our analysis therefore runs as follows:
1. Only an invasion on the ground can provide Israel with the solution it wants to the threat Hezbollah has posed.
2. A diplomatic or political settlement not only cannot guarantee this outcome, but it would make later Israeli responses to Hezbollah even more difficult. Israel has more room for maneuver internationally now than it will have later.
3. The internal politics of Israel will make it very difficult for Olmert to come out of this with a less-than-definitive outcome.
4. Israel will seek to deal with Hezbollah without undertaking counterinsurgency operations in the long term. This means attack, sterilization of the threat, and withdrawal.
There has been much speculation about diplomatic solutions, the possibility that there will not be an invasion, and so on. But when we ignore the rhetoric and look at the chessboard, it is difficult to see how this conflict ends without some action on the ground. When we examine the behavior of the Israelis, they are taking the steps that would be needed for an invasion. Obviously we could be wrong, and clearly the invasion has not come at the earliest possible moment, as we had predicted. Nevertheless, when we step through the logic, we keep coming out with the same answer: invasion.

Christian Lebanese caught in crossfire
Anguished over lack of U.S. support in opposing Hezbollah
Posted: July 21, 2006
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Lebanese Christians who have been the staunchest backers of Israel and the Bush administration are perplexed with Israeli shelling of their homes and businesses as the Jewish state attempts to defeat Hezbollah. Sections of Beirut and certain towns throughout Lebanon are predominantly Christian Maronite and Orthodox. Other towns in the Muslim-majority country are in areas occupied and controlled by Druze, Shiites and Hezbollah. Among the Christian cities shelled is Junieh, north of Beirut along the Mediterranean coast, regarded as the "Jewel of Lebanon" due to its natural setting. A towering statue of the Virgin Mary overlooks the city, called "Our Lady of Lebanon." The city also is the home of the Christian patriarch of Lebanon, Cardinal Sfeir.
The Israelis argue they shelled the historic town because of concern over Hezbollah's use of the port to bring in arms or take out the kidnapped Israeli soldiers.
Now, a predominantly wealthy Christian sector in Beirut has come under Israeli bombardment and the Israelis have shelled the small town of Zahle in the Bakaa Valley north of Beirut. During the Lebanese Civil War from 1975 to 1990, devout Christian residents in Zahle successfully repelled Syrians who sought to occupy the town. At the time, the Israelis were major supporters of the Christians. Unlike Hezbollah, there is no Christian militia that can take on the Shiite terrorist organization. "They watch TV, too," one Christian Lebanese man living in the United States said, referring to Hezbollah. "If they see you criticizing them, they will kill you."
Christian Lebanese sources for this story asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution against family members who remain in Lebanon.
One source said remarks by Cardinal Sfeir, who is visiting the U.S, may have prompted Hezbollah to retaliate by setting up Christians as a target of Israeli bombing. "I have come to say that the Lebanese are determined to live far from terrorism, tyranny, corruption and despair," the patriarch said.
Sfeir said he's "very concerned and anxious" about the situation and condemns "Israel's recent retaliations against Lebanon's people and infrastructure" as well as hoping "Hezbollah will finally lay down its arms and join the other citizens of Lebanon in reaching political solutions to all of the Lebanese problems."
"We look forward to a united, sovereign, free, and truly independent Lebanon, where the Lebanese government exerts its sole authority over all of Lebanon's territory," he said.
Within 24 hours of the patriarch's statement, the Israelis attacked what was said to be two Hezbollah trucks carrying arms in a predominantly Christian section on the outskirts of Beirut. "You cannot put it past Hezbollah from purposely running their trucks through a predominantly Christian area as retribution for what the Patriarch said about the Hezbollah," the irate Christian-Lebanese said. The source, who has been prevented from returning to Lebanon this week due to the conflict, pointed out that since the Christian population has became the minority in Lebanon, it has had no outside political constituency to support it.
Another source, a Christian Lebanese man living in the U.S., believes this lack of support is reflected in what he describes as the Bush administration's slow response in evacuating Americans from Lebanon. He argued other nationals already had been transported by ship before any Lebanese-Americans were evacuated. Most of the French and Norwegians evacuated days earlier, he pointed out, were natural citizens of their country.
In contrast, most of the U.S. citizens waiting to be evacuated are Lebanese-Americans, meaning they are naturalized U.S. citizens. They include many Shiites as well as Christians. The source referred to a television interview with a U.S. admiral who insisted the delay in the evacuation was due to the need to move U.S. warships from the Indian Ocean. "That’s ridiculous," the source contended. "The Navy's Sixth Fleet has been in the Mediterranean for years. They could have brought up ships immediately, or chartered ships like other countries did."
The Christian-Lebanese source stranded in the United States can't understand why the Bush administration isn't providing more support to the Christian Lebanese against Hezbollah. But he pointed out that among the Christian Lebanese, there are various factions that have their own constituency and agenda, complicating the issue of who are the leaders to work with. Under the Lebanese constitution, a Christian-Lebanese occupies the presidency, while the prime minister is a Shiite. A possibility for the lack of support from the Bush administration, he said, may be due to the presence on the political scene of Christian-Lebanese General Michel Aoun. Once fervently anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah, Aoun recently returned from exile in France with the interest of becoming president of Lebanon.
However, Aoun recently signed a political agreement with Hezbollah, which represents the single most powerful bloc in the Lebanese parliament.
But the source asserted "signing such an agreement doesn't mean that the Christian Lebanese support Hezbollah's goals." "It reflects the political reality on the ground to acquire the support needed to survive in a country that is becoming increasingly Shiite," he said. The source believes, however, that the agreement between Aoun and Hezbollah may have cost the Lebanese Christians any support from the Bush administration. Given the increased influence of Shiites and Hezbollah in Lebanon, he added, the Bush administration may have determined that the political future of Lebanon is bleak and the ability of Christian Lebanese to influence that process has become very limited.

Lebanon/Israel: Israel Must Allow Civilians Safe Passage
Warnings Do Not End Duty to Avoid Civilian Casualties
(Beirut, July 21, 2006) – Israel must allow civilians safe passage out of Lebanon's embattled south, Human Rights Watch said today. Warnings by
the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to civilians that they must evacuate southern Lebanon within 24 hours do not absolve Israel of the duty to
avoid attacks likely to cause indiscriminate or disproportionate loss of civilian life.
Yesterday, the IDF advised all civilians south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon to evacuate the region within 24 hours for their own
safety. Through leaflets dropped by aircraft, radio broadcasts and a recorded message to mobile phones, residents were advised not to travel
on motorcycles or in vans or trucks lest they be "suspected of transporting weapons and rockets," and become "a potential target."
"Israel should warn people of attacks, but those warnings can't be used to justify harming civilians who remain," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director
of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. "Civilians who can't evacuate are still fully protected by international
law." The Israeli military's extensive destruction over the last several days of bridges, roads and vehicles, as well as shortages of food and fuel, have
made evacuation in 24 hours impossible for many. An estimated 300,000 people live south of the Litani River, which lies about 20 miles north of
the Lebanon-Israel border. Some 60,000 civilians have fled the area over the past week, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported.
International humanitarian law requires armed forces to give "effective advance warning" of attacks when circumstances permit. However, even
after warnings have been given, these forces must still take all feasible precautions to avoid loss of civilian life. This includes canceling an attack
when it becomes apparent that the target is civilian or that the civilian loss would be disproportionate to the expected military gain.
Human Rights Watch expressed particular concern over continued air strikes that have killed and injured civilians trying to flee. On Wednesday,
an air strike on a car reportedly killed four civilians: Ghassan Faqih, 31; Laila Aqil Abu Zayd Nami, 71; As'ad Habas, 42; and an unidentified
fourth woman, who were driving from their village of Aitaroun to the city of Tyre. Israeli air strikes the same day killed more than 50 people across the country, the highest daily death toll since the conflict began on July 12. Air strikes have hit civilian trucks, including those carrying sugar, flour
and rice. Other attacks have destroyed public infrastructure, notably bridges and roads needed by the civilian population to flee.
"The Israeli military is telling civilians to leave, but the casualties caused by its attacks on the roads have made many people too frightened to
travel," Whitson said. Israel's military campaign has already displaced 500,000 Lebanese residents, or one-eighth of the country's population, the United Nations said. The humanitarian situation is especially grim in Tyre, a few miles south of the Litani River, where an estimated 60,000 residents as well as
displaced people from nearby villages are trapped with dwindling supplies of medicine and food.
The IDF announced on July 19 that it is "operating with great caution in order to prevent any harm to uninvolved civilians." At the same time, the
military said, "Southern Lebanon is a combat zone in which Hezbollah terrorists operate against Israeli civilians from within the civilian Lebanese
population, using them as human shields." Deploying military forces within populated areas is a violation of international humanitarian law, but that does not release Israel from its obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian property during military operations.
On July 19, Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into Israel, killing two Israeli Arab boys in Nazareth. Human Rights Watch has condemned
Hezbollah for launching attacks that at best indiscriminately, and at worst deliberately, target civilians. More than 300 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began on July 12, most of them civilians. Twenty-nine Israelis have been
killed, including 15 civilians.

Hostage to Hezbollah
Lesson for Nasrallah: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you."
BY FOUAD AJAMI
Friday, July 21, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
Pity Lebanon: In a world of states, it has not had a state of its own. A garden without fences, was the way Beirut, its capital city, was once described.
A cleric by the name of Hassan Nasrallah, at the helm of the Hezbollah movement, handed Lebanon a calamity right as the summer tourist season had begun. Beirut had dug its way out of the rubble of a long war: Nasrallah plunged it into a new season of loss and ruin. He presented the country with a fait accompli: the "gift" of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped across an international frontier. Nasrallah never let the Lebanese government in on his venture. He was giddy with triumphalism and defiance when this crisis began. And men and women cooped up in the destitution of the Shiite districts of Beirut were sent out into the streets to celebrate Hezbollah's latest deed.
It did not seem to matter to Nasrallah that the ground that would burn in Lebanon would in the main be Shiite land in the south. Nor was it of great concern to he who lives on the subsidies of the Iranian theocrats that the ordinary Lebanese would pay for his adventure. The cruel and cynical hope was that Nasrallah's rivals would be bullied into submission and false solidarity, and that the man himself would emerge as the master of the game of Lebanon's politics.
The hotels are full in Damascus," read a dispatch in Beirut, as though to underline the swindle of this crisis, its bitter harvest for the Lebanese. History repeats here, endlessly it seems. There was something to Nasrallah's conduct that recalled the performance of Gamal Abdel Nasser in the Six Day War of 1967. That leader, it should be recalled, closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, asked for the evacuation of U.N. forces from the Sinai Peninsula-- clear acts of war--but never expected the onset of war. He had only wanted the gains of war.
Nasrallah's brazen deed was, in the man's calculus, an invitation to an exchange of prisoners. Now, the man who triggered this crisis stands exposed as an Iranian proxy, doing the bidding of Tehran and Damascus. He had confidently asserted that "sources" in Israel had confided to Hezbollah that Israel's government would not strike into Lebanon because Hezbollah held northern Israel hostage to its rockets, and that the demand within Israel for an exchange of prisoners would force Ehud Olmert's hand. The time of the "warrior class" in Israel had passed, Nasrallah believed, and this new Israeli government, without decorated soldiers and former generals, was likely to capitulate. Now this knowingness has been exposed for the delusion it was.
There was steel in Israel and determination to be done with Hezbollah's presence on the border. States can't--and don't--share borders with militias. That abnormality on the Lebanese-Israeli border is sure not to survive this crisis. One way or other, the Lebanese army will have to take up its duty on the Lebanon-Israel border. By the time the dust settles, this terrible summer storm will have done what the Lebanese government had been unable to do on its own.
In his cocoon, Nasrallah did not accurately judge the temper of his own country to begin with. No less a figure than the hereditary leader of the Druze community, Walid Jumblatt, was quick to break with Hezbollah, and to read this crisis as it really is. "We had been trying for months," he said, "to spring our country out of the Syrian-Iranian trap, and here we are forcibly pushed into that trap again." In this two-front war--Hamas's in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah's in Lebanon--Mr. Jumblatt saw the fine hand of the Syrian regime attempting to retrieve its dominion in Lebanon, and to forestall the international investigations of its reign of terror in that country.
In the same vein, a broad coalition of anti-Syrian Lebanese political parties and associations that had come together in the aftermath of the assassination last year of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, called into question the very rationale of this operation, and its timing: "Is it Lebanon's fate to endure the killing of its citizens and the destruction of its economy and its tourist season in order to serve the interests of empty nationalist slogans?"
In retrospect, Ehud Barak's withdrawal from Israel's "security zone" in southern Lebanon in the summer of 2000 had robbed Hezbollah of its raison d'être. It was said that the "resistance movement" would need a "soft landing" and a transition to a normal political world. But the imperative of disarming Hezbollah and pulling it back from the international border with Israel was never put into effect. Hezbollah found its way into Parliament, was given two cabinet posts in the most recent government, and branched out into real estate ventures; but the heavy military infrastructure survived and, indeed, was to be augmented in the years that followed Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
Syria gave Hezbollah cover, for that movement did much of Syria's bidding in Lebanon. A pretext was found to justify the odd spectacle of an armed militia in a time of peace: Hezbollah now claimed that the battle had not ended, and that a barren piece of ground, the Shebaa Farms, was still in Israel's possession. By a twist of fate, that land had been in Syrian hands when they fell to Israel in the Six Day War. No great emotions stirred in Lebanon about the Shebaa Farms. It was easy to see through the pretense of Hezbollah. The state within a state was an end in itself.
For Hezbollah, the moment of truth would come when Syria made a sudden, unexpected retreat out of Lebanon in the spring of 2005. An edifice that had the look of permanence was undone with stunning speed as the Syrians raced to the border, convinced that the Pax Americana might topple the regime in Damascus, as it had Saddam Hussein's tyranny. For Hezbollah's leaders, this would be a time of great uncertainty. The "Cedar Revolution" that had helped bring an end to Syrian occupation appeared to be a genuine middle-class phenomenon, hip and stylish, made up in the main of Sunni Muslims, Druze and Christians. Great numbers of propertied and worldly Shiites found their way to that Cedar Revolution, but Hezbollah's ranks were filled with the excluded, newly urbanized people from villages in the south and the Bekaa Valley.
Hassan Nasrallah had found a measure of respectability in the Lebanese political system; he was a good orator and, in the way of Levantine politics, a skilled tactician. A seam was stitched between the jihadist origins of Hezbollah and the pursuit of political power in a country as subtle and complex and pluralistic as Lebanon. There would be no Islamic republic in Lebanon, and the theory of Hezbollah appeared to bend to Lebanon's realities.
But Nasrallah was in the end just the Lebanese face of Hezbollah. Those who know the workings of the movement with intimacy believe that operational control is in the hands of Iranian agents, that Hezbollah is fully subservient to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The hope that Hezbollah would "go Lebanese," and "go local," was thus set aside. At any rate, Nasrallah and his lieutenants did not trust the new Lebanon to make the ample room that a country at war--and within the orbit of Syria--had hitherto made for them in the time of disorder. Though the Shiites had risen in Lebanon, there remains in them a great deal of brittleness, a sense of social inadequacy relative to the more privileged communities in the country.
That raid into Israel, the capture of the two Israeli soldiers, was a deliberate attack against the new Lebanon. That the crisis would play out when the mighty of the G-8 were assembled in Russia was a good indication of Iran's role in this turn of events. Hassan Nasrallah had waded beyond his depth: The moment of his glory would mark what is destined to be a setback of consequence for him and for his foot soldiers. Iran's needs had trumped Hezbollah's more strictly Lebanese agenda.
In the normal course of things, Hezbollah's operatives expected at least the appearance of Arab solidarity and brotherhood. And here, too, Hezbollah was to be denied.
A great diplomatic setback was handed it when Saudi Arabia shed its customary silence and reticence to condemn what it described as the "uncalculated adventures" of those in Hezbollah and Hamas who brought about this crisis. The custodians of power in Arabia noted that they had stood with the "Lebanese resistance" until the end of Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. But that was then, and there is a world of difference between "legitimate resistance" and "uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements within the state, and behind its back, exposing the region and its accomplishments to danger and destruction." Gone was the standard deference to Arab solidarity.
This had little to do with the Shiism of Hezbollah, but with the Saudi dread of instability. The Saudis are heavily invested in the reconstruction and stability of Lebanon: This had been the achievement of Rafik Hariri, and it was to continue under Fouad Siniora, the incumbent prime minister, a decent Sunni technocrat who came into politics as an aide of Hariri. Untold thousands of Saudis have their summer homes and vacations in Lebanon. A memory of old Beirut in its days of glitter tugs at older Saudis. On less sentimental grounds, the Saudis have been keen to shore up Lebanon's mercantile Sunni population against the demographic and political weight of the Shiites. Hezbollah's unilateral decision to push Lebanon over the brink was anathema to the Saudi way.
In due course, the Saudis were joined by the Jordanians and the Egyptians. The Arab order of power would not give Nasrallah control over the great issues of regional war and peace. Nor would it give sustenance to Syria's desire to find its way back into Lebanon's politics. The axes of the region were laid bare: The trail runs from the southern slums of Beirut through Damascus to Tehran--with Hezbollah and its Palestinian allies in the Hamas on one side, and the conservative order of power on the other. This isn't exactly the split between the Sunni Arab order and its Shiite challengers. (Hamas, it should be noted, is zealously Sunni.) The wellsprings of this impasse are to be found in the more prosaic impasse between order and its radical enemies.
In time, we are sure to hear from Nasrallah's own Shiite community: There had been unease among growing numbers of educated Shiites about the political monopoly over their affairs of Hezbollah and its local allies, an unease with the zealotry and the military parades--and with the subservience to Iran. The defection will be easier now as the downtrodden of southern Lebanon take stock of the misery triggered by Nasrallah's venture. He will need enormous Iranian treasure to repair the damage of this ill-starred endeavor.
The Shiites are Lebanon's single largest community. There lie before them two ways: Lebanonism, an attachment to their own land, assimilation into the wider currents of their country, an acceptance of it as a place of services and trade and pluralism; or a path of belligerence, a journey on road to Damascus--and to the Iranian theocracy. By the time the guns fall silent and the Lebanese begin to dig out of the rubble, we should get an intimation of which Shiite future beckons. The Shiites can make Lebanon or they can break it. Their deliverance lies in a recognition of the truths and limitations of their country. The "holy war" they can leave to others.
There could have been another way: There could have been a sovereign state in Lebanon, and the Syrians would have let it be, and the distant Iranian state would have been a world apart. There needn't have been a Lebanese parody of the Iranian Revolution, a "sister republic" by the Mediterranean sustained with Iranian wealth. The border between Israel and Lebanon would have been a "normal" border. (The Lebanese would settle for a border as quiet and tranquil as the one Syria has maintained with Israel for well over three decades now, with the Syrians waging proxy battles on Lebanese soil and through Lebanese satraps.)
But the Lebanese have been given to feuds among themselves, and larger players have found it easy to insert themselves into that small, fragile republic. Now the Lebanese have been given yet again a cautionary tale about what befalls lands without sovereign, responsible states of their own.
In an earlier time, three decades ago, Lebanon was made to pay for the legends of Arabism, and for the false glamour of the Palestinian "revolutionary" experiment. The country lost well over a quarter-century of its history--its best people quit it, and its modernist inheritance was brutally and steadily undermined.
Now comes this new push by Damascus and Tehran. It promises nothing save sterility and ruin. It will throw the Lebanese back onto a history whose terrible harvest is well known to them. The military performance of Hezbollah, it should be apparent by now, is not a performance of a militia; nor are unmanned drones and missiles of long range the weapons of boys of the alleyways. A formidable military structure has been put together by the Iranians in Lebanon. In a small, densely populated country that keeps and knows no secrets, Hezbollah and its Iranian handlers have been at work on this military undertaking for quite some time, under the gaze of Lebanese authorities too frightened to raise questions.
The Mediterranean vocation of Lebanon as a land of enlightenment and commerce may have had its exaggerations and pretense. But set it against the future offered Lebanon by Syria, and by Tehran's theocrats seeking a diplomatic reprieve for themselves by setting Lebanon on fire, and Lebanon's choice should be easy to see.
The Lebanese, though, are not masters of their own domain. They will need protection and political support; they will need to see the will and the designs of the radical axis contested by resolute American power, and by an Arab constellation of states that can convince the Shiites of Lebanon that there is a place for them in the Arab scheme of things. For a long time, the Arab states have worked through and favored the Sunni middle classes of Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli. This has made it easy for Iran--overcoming barriers of language and distance--to make its inroads into a large Shiite community awakening to a sense of power and violation. To truly turn Iran back from the Mediterranean, to check its reach into Beirut, the Arab world needs to rethink the basic compact of its communities, and those Shiite stepchildren of the Arab world will have to be brought into the fold.
Lebanon's strength lies in its weakness, went an old maxim. And the Arab states themselves were for decades egregious in the way they treated Lebanon, shifting onto it the burden of the Palestinian fight with Israel, acquiescing in the encroachments on its sovereignty by the Palestinians and the Syrians--encroachments often subsidized with Arab money. Iran then picked up where the Arab states left off. Now that weakness of the Lebanese state has become a source of great menace to the Lebanese, and to their neighbors as well.
No one can say with confidence how this crisis will play out. There are limits on what Israel can do in Lebanon. The Israelis will not be pulled deeper into Lebanon and its villages and urban alleyways, and Israel can't be expected to disarm Hezbollah or to find its missiles in Lebanon's crannies. Finding the political way out, and working out a decent security arrangement on the border, will require a serious international effort and active American diplomacy. International peacekeeping forces have had a bad name, and they often deserve it. But they may be inevitable on Lebanon's border with Israel; they may be needed to buy time for the Lebanese government to come into full sovereignty over its soil.
The Europeans claim a special affinity for Lebanon, a country of the eastern Mediterranean. This is their chance to help redeem that land, and to come to its rescue by strengthening its national army and its bureaucratic institutions. We have already seen order's enemies play their hand. We now await the forces of order and rescue, and by all appearances a long, big struggle is playing out in Lebanon. This is from the Book of Habakkuk: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you" (2:17). The struggles of the mighty forces of the region yet again converge on a small country that has seen more than its share of history's heartbreak and history's follies.
Mr. Ajami, a 2006 Bradley Prize recipient, is the Majid Khadduri Professor and director of the Middle East Studies Program at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book, "The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs and the Iraqis in Iraq," has just been published by the Free Press. He is the author of, among others, "The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey" (Pantheon, 1998), and "Beirut: City of Regrets" (Norton, 1988).

Why 40,000 Canadians are in Lebanon
Migrants from civil war often go back every summer
Graeme Hamilton and Kelly Patrick; with files from PaulVieira, National Post
Published: Friday, July 21, 2006
MONTREAL - The current chaos on the docks of Beirut has its roots in another escape in the 1980s, when thousands of Lebanese fled their war-torn country to begin new lives in Canada.
With the return of relative stability to the country in recent years, it has become increasingly common for members of Canada's Lebanese diaspora to return to their homeland, most commonly for summer vacations, but also to take up residence.
That explains how close to 40,000 Canadian citizens found themselves in the country when fighting erupted last week. Sami Gedeon, a Montreal travel agent who specializes in travel to Lebanon, said that every year as many as 15,000 people from the city's Lebanese community -- Canada's biggest -- return to the country.
"At this time of year most of the people go there for tourism, as well as to go back and show the kids to their grandparents or meet the family," said Hatem Hariri, the past president of Montreal's Lebanese Islamic Centre. Mr. Hariri, who is helping co-ordinate community efforts to receive evacuees, said that before the shelling began, he had been trying to book flights for his family to visit Lebanon.
"We were not able to get tickets on any airline. They were all sold out. It was unbelievable."
Different sources provide varying numbers on the size of Canada's Lebanese community. Statistics Canada's 2001 census identified 143,635 people as being of Lebanese origin. But a briefing book prepared for the government from the 2002 Francophonie Summit put the number at 250,000. Because most speak French, a large proportion have settled in Quebec, primarily in Montreal. In the early 1990s, Lebanon was the second most common source of immigrants to Quebec, after Haiti. Other large communities are in Ottawa, Edmonton and Toronto.
For the duration of Lebanon's bloody civil war, from 1975-1990, Canada took special administrative steps to allow Lebanese with Canadian relatives into Canada. When Ottawa temporarily closed its full-service Beirut embassy in 1985, the federal government set up an emergency immigration office in Nicosia, Cyprus, to expedite the immigration process.
As in Montreal, most Lebanese immigrants in Toronto arrived with the swell fleeing the Middle Eastern country's bloody 1975-1990 civil war and have remained close to family members back home. After hostilities tapered off, many made it a tradition to return every summer for vacation. Some even moved back.
The membership rolls at Our Lady of Lebanon, Toronto's only Maronite Catholic church, illustrate this pattern.
Before 1985, fewer than 100 families worshipped there. After 1985 a wave of Lebanese immigrants flooded in, pushing the church's membership to between 1,000 and 1,200 families representing between 4,000 and 5,000 parishioners.
Because most of the parishioners immigrated so recently, their ties to Lebanon remain strong, said Father Emmanuel Nakhle, Our Lady of Lebanon's pastor. "So they go regularly for visits. Maybe not the whole family goes, but every year ... one or two members of each family goes back to visit."

U.S. Is Pressured By Mounting Calls For Mideast Peace
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
By Yochi J. Dreazen
NEW YORK -- The Bush administration's effort to buy more time for Israel's military offensive against Hezbollah is itself running out of time, as calls from other nations for an immediate cease-fire mount.
The Hezbollah attacks that triggered the current surge in violence altered the contours of the standard diplomatic response to Middle East bloodshed, with European countries quickly lining up behind the Bush administration's insistence that Israel be given adequate time to forcibly disarm the Hezbollah militia and evict it from its quasi state in southern Lebanon. Sunni Muslim Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt also lent tacit support to the Israeli offensive because of their concerns that the Shiite Muslim militia's attacks on Israel were emboldening Shiite-led Iran, a regional rival, and sparking unrest among their own Shiite minorities.
But that consensus is splintering as European and Arab countries increasingly demand that Israel agree to a cease-fire in Lebanon, where more than 300 civilians have been killed by Israeli strikes. The upshot is that the Bush administration finds itself increasingly isolated in its support for Israel and its refusal to pressure the Jewish state to wind down or terminate its military operations in Lebanon.
That is forcing Washington to scramble to head off action at the U.N. while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gears up to travel to the Middle East as early as next week. The White House is concerned that a continued run-up in civilian casualties in Lebanon could trigger Security Council resolutions condemning Israel that the U.S. would feel obliged to veto, further straining its ties with allies.
The growing divide between the U.S. and its allies was on display at the U.N., where Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded an immediate cessation of hostilities and painted a grim picture of the human toll being exacted by the ongoing bloodshed. Mr. Annan's request for a cease-fire was quickly rejected by both the U.S. and Israel as premature, increasing the likelihood of more diplomatic clashes in the days ahead.
Mr. Annan acknowledged the difficulties himself, telling the U.N. Security Council that "there are serious obstacles to reaching a cease-fire, or even to diminishing the violence quickly."
Mr. Annan said he believes the current U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, which has proven itself powerless to stop the violence, is no longer tenable. Mr. Annan urged the Security Council to decide quickly whether to withdraw the force altogether, strengthen it, or replace it with a larger and better-armed force that would be capable of militarily confronting Hezbollah to enforce any future cease-fire. France, Italy and Russia have all said they would consider contributing troops to such an effort.
Mr. Annan said Hezbollah provoked Israel's incursion by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers, and he stressed that Israel has the right to defend itself against the militia's attacks. But he reserved his strongest comments for Israel, accusing it of weakening the elected government of Lebanon and triggering a humanitarian crisis there.
"Israel's disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop," he said.
American U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said the Bush administration is interested in a "long-term cessation of violence" that would include Hezbollah being disarmed and the Lebanese government wresting control of southern Lebanon from the militia.
"No one's explained how you conduct a cease-fire with a group of terrorists," he said. "It is not appropriate to talk about a cease-fire as if that is the Alpha and Omega of the situation."
Israel's U.N. representative, Dan Gillerman, said Israel won't agree to participate in any diplomatic efforts until it had met its goal of substantively weakening Hezbollah. "We have no timeline," he said.
Mr. Gillerman also criticized Iran, asserting that Tehran was responsible for giving Hezbollah $100 million in annual aid, as well as supplying the powerful long-range rockets the group has been launching into Israel. Mr. Gillerman described Iran as "the main perpetrator, harborer, financier and initiator of terror," and said Hezbollah is simply its "proxy."
The American and Israeli focus on Iran as well as Syria is emerging as another point of friction with world powers such as Russia, which at last weekend's Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg criticized the U.S. for attempting to hold the two Mideast nations responsible for the region's violence. Many European countries are similarly uneasy, fearful the harsh rhetoric about Syria and Iran could be a prelude to an Israeli military strike on one or both of them that could trigger a broader war.

Order Vs. Disorder
Friday, July 21, 2006
The New York Times
By Thomas L. Friedman
Tel Aviv
There was a small item in The Jerusalem Post the other day that caught my eye. It said that the Israeli telephone company, Bezeq, was installing high-speed Internet lines in bomb shelters in northern Israel so Israelis could surf the Web while waiting out Hezbollah rocket attacks.
I read that story two ways. One, as symbol of Israeli resilience, a boundless ability to adapt to any kind of warfare. But, two, as an unconscious expression of what I sense people here are just starting to feel: this is no ordinary war, and it probably won't end soon. At a time when most Arab states have reconciled to Israel and their dispute is now about where the borders should be, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite militia, armed with 12,000 rockets, says borders are irrelevant; it is Israel that should be erased.
That's why I find in talking to Israeli friends a near total support for their government's actions - and almost a relief at the clarity of this confrontation and Israel's right to defend itself. Yet, at the same time, I find a gnawing sense of anxiety that Israel is facing in Hezbollah an enemy that is unabashedly determined to transform this conflict into a religious war - from a war over territory - and wants to do it in a way that threatens not only Israel but the foundations of global stability.
How so? Even though it had members in the national cabinet, Hezbollah built up a state-within-a-state in Lebanon, and then insisted on the right to launch its own attack on Israel that exposed the entire Lebanese nation to retaliation. Moreover, unprovoked, it violated an international border with Israel that was sanctified by the United Nations.
So this is not just another Arab-Israeli war. It is about some of the most basic foundations of the international order - borders and sovereignty - and the erosion of those foundations would spell disaster for the quality of life all across the globe.
Lebanon, alas, has not been able to produce the internal coherence to control Hezbollah, and is not likely to soon. The only way this war is going to come to some stable conclusion any time soon is if The World of Order - and I don't just mean "the West,'' but countries like Russia, China, India, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia too - puts together an international force that can escort the Lebanese Army to the Israeli border and remain on hand to protect it against Hezbollah.
I am not talking about a U.N. peacekeeping force. I am talking about an international force, like the one that liberated Kosovo, with robust rules of engagement, heavy weapons and troops from countries like France, Russia, India and China that Iran and its proxies will not want to fight.
Israel does not like international forces on its borders and worries they will not be effective. But it will be better than a war of attrition, and nothing would set back the forces of disorder in Lebanon more than The World of Order helping to extend the power of the democratically elected Lebanese government to its border with Israel.
Too often, assaults like Hezbollah's, which have global implications, have been met with only "a local response,'' said Gidi Grinstein, who heads Reut, an Israeli defense think tank. "But the only way that these networks can be defeated is if their global assault is met by a global response.''
Unfortunately, partly because of China, Russia and Europe's traditional resentment and jealousy of the U.S. and partly because of the foolish Bush approach that said unilateral American power was more important than action legitimated by a global consensus, the global forces of order today are not at all united.
It is time that The World of Order got its act together. This is not Israel's fight alone - and if you really want to see a "disproportional'' Israeli response, just keep leaving Israel to fight this war alone. Then you will see some real craziness.
George Bush and Condi Rice need to realize that Syria on its own is not going to press Hezbollah - in Mr. Bush's immortal words - to just "stop doing this shit.'' The Bush team needs to convene a coalition of The World of Order. If it won't, it should let others more capable do the job. We could start with the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton, whose talents could be used for more than just tsunami relief.
The forces of disorder - Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Iran - are a geopolitical tsunami that we need a united front to defeat. And that united front needs to be spearheaded by American leaders who understand that our power is most effective when it is legitimated by a global consensus and imbedded in a global coalition.

Look What Democratic Reform Dragged In
Friday, July 21, 2006
The New York Times
By Ted Koppel
The United States is already at war with Iran; but for the time being the battle is being fought through surrogates.
That message was conveyed to me recently by a senior Jordanian intelligence official at his office in Amman. He spoke on the condition of anonymity, reflecting gloomily on the failure of the Bush administration's various policies in the region.
He reserved his greatest contempt for the policy of encouraging democratic reform. "For the Islamic fundamentalists, democratic reform is like toilet paper," he said. "You use it once and then you throw it away."
Lest the point elude me, the official conducted a brief tour of recent democratic highlights in the region. Gaza and the West Bank, where Hamas, spurned by the State Department as a terrorist organization, was voted into power last spring and now represents the Palestinian government; Lebanon, where Hezbollah, similarly rejected by the United States, has become the most influential political entity in the country; and, of course, Iraq, where the Shiite majority has now, through elections, gained political power commensurate with its numbers.
In each case, the intelligence officer reminded me, the beneficiary of those electoral victories is allied with and, to some degree, dependent upon Iran. Over the past couple of months alone, he told me, Hamas has received more than $300 million in cash, provided by Iran and funneled through Syria. He told me what has now become self-evident to the residents of Haifa: namely, that Iran has made longer-range and more powerful rockets and missiles available to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. We'll come back to the subject of Iraq.
Only a couple of days after my meeting in Amman, I visited a then-superficially peaceful Lebanon, where I was introduced to Sheik Nabil Qaouk, the commander of Hezbollah forces in the southern part of the country. Sheik Qaouk, who also holds the title of general, wears the robes and turban of a Shiite religious leader. Indeed, he studied religion for more than 10 years in the Iranian holy city of Qom. He received his military training in Iran and his wife and six children still live there.
Sheik Qaouk portrayed Hezbollah as being a purely defensive, Lebanese entity. But the more than 12,000 missiles and rockets that the sheik said were in Hezbollah's arsenal were largely provided by Iran.
I asked about those newer, longer-range rockets mentioned by my Jordanian intelligence source. The sheik implicitly acknowledged their existence, but refused to talk about their capacities, with which the world has since become familiar. "Let our enemies worry," he said.
When Sheik Qaouk talked about Israel and Hezbollah, his organization's ambitions were not framed in purely defensive terms. There is only harmony between Hezbollah's endgame and the more provocative statements made over the past year by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president. Both foresee the elimination of the Jewish state.
Are the Israelis over-reacting in Lebanon? Perhaps they simply perceive their enemies' intentions with greater clarity than most. It is not the Lebanese who make the Israelis nervous, nor even Hezbollah. It is the puppet-masters in Tehran capitalizing on every opportunity that democratic reform presents. In the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Egypt, should President Hosni Mubarak be so incautious as to hold a free election, it is the Islamists who benefit the most.
But Washington's greatest gift to the Iranians lies next door in Iraq. By removing Saddam Hussein, the United States endowed the majority Shiites with real power, while simultaneously tearing down the wall that had kept Iran in check.
According to the Jordanian intelligence officer, Iran is reminding America's traditional allies in the region that the United States has a track record of leaving its friends in the lurch - in Vietnam in the 70's, in Lebanon in the 80's, in Somalia in the 90's.
In his analysis, the implication that this decade may witness a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq has begun to produce an inclination in the region toward appeasing Iran.
It is in Iraq, he told me, "where the United States and the coalition forces must confront the Iranians.'' He added, "You must build up your forces in Iraq and you must announce your intention to stay."
Sitting in his Amman office, he appeared to be a man of few illusions; so he did not make the recommendation with any great hope that his advice would be followed. But neither did he leave any doubts as to which country would benefit if that advice happened to be ignored.

West's Strategic Failure Lit The Fires In Middle East
Friday, July 21, 2006
Financial Times
By Philip Stephens
Ten days ago, Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, visited Brussels for talks about his country's uranium enrichment programme. The meeting with senior officials from the European Union, Britain, France and Germany went badly. Mr Larijani offered nothing resembling a reply to the latest international offer to break the impasse over Iran's nuclear activities. Instead, he lectured his hosts for 45 minutes about alleged attempts to destabilise the Tehran regime. He knew that, in response, they would move to censor Iran in the United Nations Security Council.
Accompanied by an unusually large team of officials, including the head of the Iranian intelligence service, Mr Larijani travelled directly from Brussels to the Syrian capital of Damascus. The next day foreign ministers of the so-called EU3 and those of the US, China and Russia announced, as expected, plans to draft a new UN resolution. In between times, the Iranian-sponsored and Syrian-backed militia Hizbollah had launched their attack on Israel.
This sequence of events might well have been coincidental. The evidence is, as the lawyers say, purely circumstantial. One senior European official told me that Mr Larijani was not the natural point of contact between Iran and Hizbollah. Yet whatever the precise purpose of this particular mission to Damascus, it did say something about the depth of the alliance between the two regimes.
These are genuinely dangerous times. Israel is far from alone in believing that Hizbollah had Iranian and Syrian sanction for its rocket attacks and the abduction of two Israeli soldiers. Syria is still smarting from its enforced departure from Lebanon. From Iran's perspective, Hizbollah has at once diverted attention from the nuclear dispute and reminded the west of its capacity to make serious mischief.
George W. Bush has highlighted Syria's role. Tony Blair has laid more of the blame on Tehran. The British prime minister also talks of a rising extremist threat across the broader Middle East. The shared message is that, whatever the specifics of the present fighting, all this is about a much bigger threat.
President Bush has thus declined to restrain Israel's military operations in spite of the feeling among US allies that they are disproportionate and, in significant measure counterproductive. Bombing the Lebanese army and weakening the government of Fouad Siniora will not drive Hizbollah from southern Lebanon.
European diplomats aver that the ferocity of the Israeli response owes as much to the weakness of Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, as to the traditional use of massive force as a deterrent against future aggression. Israel, though, has persuaded Mr Bush that Hamas and Hizbollah should be seen through the prism of his own war on terrorism. The terrorists, in this flawed but, for Mr OImert, useful analysis, are all the same.
As a simple description of the many fires smouldering in the region, there is something to be said for Mr Blair's "arc of extremism". The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, Iran remains defiant about its nuclear ambitions, Iraq has fallen to sectarian civil war, Hizbollah threatens to destroy Lebanon's fragile stability, Hamas is fighting Israel in Gaza.
Much more dubious is the attempt to draw through these conflicts a single thread of extremism. That is to ignore their complexities and the myriad grievances and rivalries. These set Sunni against Shia, Arab against Iranian as well as political Islam against the west. Al-Qaeda and Hizbollah are not allies.
The multiple threats, though, do hold up a mirror to the strategic failures of the US and Europe. The west is not to blame for al-Qaeda nor for the noxious regime in Syria. It has played its part in creating the conditions in which fundamentalism and extremism flourish.
The results of the unconscionable refusal in Washington to think beyond the removal of Saddam Hussein are painfully obvious in Iraq. That country now resembles Lebanon at the height of its civil war. The fighting in Gaza speaks to the abandonment by the US of sustained engagement to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Mr Bush has paid lip service to the two-state solution set out in the so-called road map. So, too, has the Israeli government. Condoleezza Rice's US state department has shown occasional interest in reviving talks. But for most of the time Washington has endorsed Israeli unilateralism.
Even as Ms Rice prepares to travel to the region, officials with intimate knowledge of the diplomacy say that Israel is receiving two sets of messages from Washington. Ms Rice presses for Israeli restraint and urges diplomatic as well as military means. Elliot Abrams, the president's Middle East adviser, offers Mr Olmert a presidential blank cheque.
Europeans cannot escape blame. As the initial promoters of the road map, they have stood more or less idly by as Israel has redrawn its 1967 borders in the West Bank with the tacit support of the US. So much for a European foreign policy.
Here lies the danger in casting the various conflicts as a grand struggle between the forces of modernism and reaction across the greater Middle East. Mr Blair's arc of extremism becomes an excuse for inaction, a diversion from the tasks at hand. Exhortation replaces engagement, emotional rhetoric hard commitment.
What moderates – those in Iran and Lebanon as much as in Palestine – need from the west is a sustained and even-handed effort to secure a settlement that guarantees Israel's security and gives Palestinians the state they have been promised.
Mr Blair used to understand this. There was a time when the prime minister used every conversation with Mr Bush to press the case for US re-engagement. All the while Israel was building its barrier deep in the occupied West Bank and Hamas was building support among Palestinians.
As for Iran, the US must recognise that diplomacy is not synonymous with appeasement. However unpalatable the regime, Washington cannot ignore the reality of Iranian influence – the more so as the debacle in Iraq has greatly strengthened that influence. Sometimes, as the US well understood during the cold war, you have to talk to your enemies. Ms Rice has moved the administration in that direction. Half a step is not enough.
There are no magic bullets, as Israel has learnt many times over during its various military excursions in Lebanon. But when messrs Bush and Blair talk of a crisis of extremism they must understand they are describing in part their own failure.

Lebanon's Dividers
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Post
By Jim Hoagland
Once the region's business and pleasure center, Lebanon has allowed itself to become the killing ground of the Middle East. Today's Lebanon is a meeting place for the poisons and hatreds that six decades of conflict have spawned in its own citizens and its neighbors.
That is a brutal judgment on a country that is still bleeding from the pulverizing assault of the Israeli air force on neighborhoods housing the rocket depots and political leadership of the Lebanese Shiite guerrilla organization Hezbollah. But to understand this crisis -- and why it will not spark a broader regional conflict this summer -- you need to examine the responsibility the Lebanese bear for making theirs a disposable country.
Identifying that responsibility in no way absolves Syrians, Americans, Israelis, Palestinians and many others of well-earned blame in the ongoing tragedy of Lebanon. They have all manipulated the religious and cultural divisions within Lebanese society for their own advantage. Nor does it condemn the physically beautiful country where I lived for three years in the 1970s to unending doom. As in life itself, things in Lebanon are never as good, or as bad, as they seem at the time.
About 15 months ago we were reading and hearing about the Cedar Revolution rescuing Lebanon from its recent violent past and Syrian hegemony while launching an inevitable march to regional democracy. Today we are reading and hearing that the triangle of war linking Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel ends those hopes forever. But history in the Middle East follows no straight lines to a predictable horizon. Instead, history scuttles crablike from side to side, taking a step and a half back for every two forward.
After a promising start, the United Nations, France, the United States and the rest of the international community relaxed their efforts to bring Syria to justice for killing former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005. In that vacuum, Lebanese factions resumed making their own deals with Damascus and ultimately with the Iranian regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The United Nations and the Bush administration also failed to press the Lebanese to live up to their responsibility to deploy forces into the border areas evacuated by Israel in 2000. Instead, Hezbollah moved in its Syrian- and Iranian-supplied rockets and its irregulars, whose killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers this month unleashed hell from Israeli bombers.
Hezbollah's asymmetric guerrilla attacks provide Syria and Iran with whatever comparative advantage they have against Israel. Damascus and Tehran will not want the bloodletting to move beyond the borders of Lebanon and Israel. And Israel has its own reasons for confining the confrontation this summer to the land of cedars and sandy beaches. A year from now, when Iran's nuclear capability may be more threatening, that could be different.
This Israeli campaign will not erase Hezbollah as a force, alas. But a negotiated cease-fire could lead to two important steps. One would be to put an international military force on Lebanon's border with Syria to police the traffic of rockets and disguised Syrian intelligence units into Lebanon.
The other is to get the Lebanese army finally to take control of its territory in the south and make Lebanon more of a real country again. Israeli military attacks cannot accomplish those goals. Only united Lebanese resolve and skillful international support will.
The latest outburst of violence is more a result of the fragmentation of political forces in the Middle East than a region-wide regrouping of Arabs and Iranians into a dangerous new monolith of radical Islam. By losing control over Hezbollah, as it lost control of Palestinian guerrillas in the 1970s, the central government of Lebanon has once again made manifest the high cost of irresolution.
The muted responses of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and other Sunni governments to the Israeli assault make clear their strong fear of Hezbollah's developing into a local Shiite proxy for Iran. If Israel is bubonic plague for Arabs, Hezbollah and Iran are cholera.
The old regimes are condemned either way. The Arab political order constructed around Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein and the others is dying -- slowly, violently but inexorably. The shocks that have shaken the region over the past three years, including this month's pounding of Lebanon, cannot be absorbed and mastered by retreating into suicidal defiance or by standing still.
The instinct for survival is stronger in societies than the instinct of unending hatred and destruction. That is true even in the Middle East, as tiny Lebanon is condemned to demonstrate once again.

Next: More Suicide Bombers
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Miami Herald
By Ike Seamans
In my Feb. 24 column, I warned that Israel might soon confront an Islamist military pincer maneuver financed and orchestrated by Iran. It's happening.
Hezbollah -- an Iranian creation -- threatens from the north. Hamas -- bankrolled by the Islamic state -- menaces in the south. To the east lurks Syria, also a Hezbollah sponsor. Israel is retaliating in every direction. Yet, unbelievably, some shrill critics falsely accuse the tiny nation of prolonging this crisis, absurdly suggesting that expansionism is its ulterior motive. Are they not paying attention? To avoid such conflicts and to reduce territorial control is why Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and Gaza in the first place (instantly guaranteeing that both would become jihadist staging areas).
Treated like rock stars
Now I predict that the other shoe is about to drop: the resurgence of suicide bombers. ''A Palestinian recruiter tells me it's so easy to find candidates,'' says Israeli journalist Smadar Perry. ``They must be very selective. The flow is endless.''
A surprising number of wannabe ''martyrs'' are women. Last week, a female member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, revealed a secret unit for female fanatics, boasting 100 have joined so far. Israel's prisons hold 113 women captured in recent failed bombing attempts. Perry interviewed several of them. ''I met two 14-year-old girls who recruited each other,'' she says. ``Another is a Bethlehem University student who had lived on a kibbutz, member of Israel's Peace Now movement, fluent in Hebrew with many Jewish friends.''
These young women have disparate motivations that frequently have nothing to do with Israel. Most crave acceptance in a dysfunctional society that demeans them and treats suicide bombers like rock stars. In Army of Roses, a ground-breaking book that analyzes Palestinian female bombers, Barbara Victor writes, ``Without exception, every woman and girl recruited is marginalized: divorced; pregnant out of wedlock, forced into an arranged marriage; ridiculed because they're educated and intelligent. It is a misguided and pitiful attempt at liberation.''
What does she get? A husband
For years, Muslim clerics prevented female participation, ruling it violated Islamic law. That changed in 2002 after Yasser Arafat urged women to aggressively get involved. ''You are my army of roses that will crush Israeli tanks,'' he joyously declared. If male suicide bombers are promised eternal life and 72 virgins, what accrues to the distaff side? The Koran is silent. No problem for Hamas' co-founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin (assassinated by Israeli missiles in 2004). He simply issued a fatuous fatwa allowing women to commit suicide in Allah's name -- provided Israelis are destroyed in the process -- and elucidated their heavenly rewards: beauty if plain; loving husband if single; equality, respect and reverence, unachievable goals on Earth.
Like their male counterparts, they're skillfully exploited by extremists bent on eliminating Israel. ''They're taken in by delusions and empty slogans,'' writes Saudi columnist Yusuf Nasir Al-Suweidan in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa. ``What Palestinians need is food, medicine and clothing, not explosive belts and car bombs.''
An easy prey
In the powerful, fictional movie Paradise Now (filmed in the West Bank and Israel), Khaled and Said are forlorn and directionless, blaming their miserable existence on Israeli occupation and harassment. Yearning for ''paradise,'' they're easy prey for manipulative terrorist chieftains who persuade them to become ''martyrs.'' (As in real life, these charlatans wouldn't dream of sacrificing their own children or themselves.)
Said's girlfriend, Suha, daughter of a revered suicide bomber who believes he died in vain, scoffs that ''paradise'' exists only in their muddled minds. She fervently pleads, ''We must be moral.'' Ultimately, Said rejects the mission, but Khaled fulfills his deadly destiny on a Tel Aviv bus. Sadly, many young Palestinians identify more with him than Suha, a vociferous opponent of barbaric Islamic terrorism.
Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas must be ecstatic.

Bringing Peace To Israel's Borders
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Miami Herald
The report on the fighting in Lebanon delivered yesterday by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was disappointing for a variety of reasons.
• It called for an immediate cease-fire without insisting on the return of captured Israeli soldiers -- the trigger that detonated the fighting -- as a precondition.
• It failed to mention Syria and Iran, the state sponsors of Hezbollah.
• It failed to focus on the root cause of the problem -- the terrorist organizations and their incessant harassment of Israel.
To be sure, Mr. Annan rightly cited ''Hezbollah's provocative attack of July 12'' as the cause of the crisis. He also deplored Hezbollah's actions because they ''hold an entire nation (Lebanon) hostage.'' This point of view coincides with the extraordinary statement issued in Russia earlier in the week by the leaders of the G-8 nations that also put the blame for the crisis in northern Israel and Lebanon squarely on the responsible party: Hezbollah.
Decisive action
That is why it makes no sense to call for an instant cessation of hostilities that would leave Hezbollah free to move back in southern Lebanon and free to renew hostilities at a time of its choosing.
Instead, Israel and the international community should focus on a larger solution that removes Hezbollah from the southern border region next to Israel.
This would eliminate a threat that is keeping roughly 12 percent of the Israeli population in underground bunkers to avoid terrorist missiles. Better yet, the international community must take decisive action to enforce Provisions 3 and 4 of Security Council Resolution 1559 of 2004.
It called for ''disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias'' and allowing the government of Lebanon to exercise control over its entire national territory. The measure was part of a larger effort to drive Syria out of Lebanon.
Clearly, the Security Council understands that the existence of these militias -- a veiled reference to Hezbollah -- represents a threat to the region. Today's fighting is a testament to the failure of well-intended resolutions that lack an enforcement mechanism.
Troublemakers out
Indeed, a U.N. security force has existed in southern Lebanon since 1978, but it had no teeth. The group had no authority to disarm the militias. Now its members are fleeing the area along with hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees from the region.
The next U.N. force sent to Lebanon should be both well-armed and, like the multinational force in Afghanistan, be endowed with a clear mandate to drive troublemakers out of the area. As long as terrorist groups are given free rein to plot attacks and carry them out at will from a self-designated safe haven, there will be no peace in the region.

Moderate Islam On The March
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Los Angeles Times
By Irshad Manji
Intolerance is grabbing the Middle East spotlight, but there's good news from Muslim reformers too.
A LOT CAN HAPPEN in a week. We all know about the bombs, rockets and bullets ripping through the Middle East. Same week, different inferno: Terrorists, reportedly Islamist militants, blew commuter trains to shards in India.
Amid the hostilities, however, something else happened. Reform-minded Muslims made progress in reclaiming their future, both in the Islamic world and in the West.
Let's start with the Islamic world. For almost three decades, Pakistan has followed a controversial set of laws called the Hudood Ordinance. Supposedly based on the Koran, these decrees determine punishment in cases of rape and adultery.
Ready for the good news? The Hudood laws are finally being seriously challenged, and not a moment too soon. Under them, more than 4,600 Pakistani women have been thrown in prison for charges that include adultery. By contrast, virtually all men accused of rape have gotten off.
Thanks to a vocal but religiously respectful campaign by civil society groups, Pakistan's influential Council of Islamic Ideology recently recommended changing the Hudood laws. That move set the stage for President Pervez Musharraf to begin releasing the 1,300 women currently awaiting trial.
Even Muslim clerics in Pakistan now hint that the Hudood laws aren't divinely created. The politics behind them tell us so.
In 1977, a U.S.-backed coup installed Gen. Zia al-Haq as Pakistan's president. To cement his tenuous grip on the nation, the strongman surrounded himself with sycophantic mullahs who referred to him as "commander of the faithful," a term reserved in Islam for the Prophet Muhammad's successors.
To curry favor among village leaders, Zia mixed a selective reading of the Koran with tribal customs. In this way, stoning arose as a legal punishment for adultery, and it was required that a rape be witnessed by four men before any offender could be charged.
But suppose a rape doesn't have the benefit of so many male eyes or male voices willing to testify? Then it would be a case of adultery committed by the woman, who in turn could be condemned to jail, lashing or stoning. The injustices that followed have slandered not only women but Islam itself.
As more and more of Pakistan's Muslims recognize that the Hudood laws emanate from humans, they also acknowledge that the duty to rethink them rests in their hands, not God's. Muslims believe Allah is perfect. We're learning to appreciate that Allah's interpreters are not.
At the same time, the liberal reformation of Islam picked up speed - in Copenhagen, the city that served as ground zero for worldwide riots over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, first published the caricatures.)
Two weeks ago, I joined 99 other "Muslim leaders of tomorrow" who gathered in Copenhagen to debate how Islam and the West could enrich each other. We came from the United States, Canada, Australia and across Europe. Brace yourself, the statements made may shock you:
Man from the Netherlands: "We, as Muslims, need to look in the mirror instead of blaming everybody else!"
Woman from Germany: "I don't have an identity crisis. I'm Western and Muslim and grateful to be both."
Organizer from the United States: "None of my fellow Americans signed up to speak about integration. They don't see it as their priority. I think this means Muslim immigrants have it better in the U.S. than in Europe."
Imam from Britain: "The minute a woman becomes an imam, I will be the first to pray at her feet."
One delegate tested the young clerics. "Is Islam the only way to salvation?" A Danish imam gripped the microphone. "The short answer," he said, "is no." A British imam disputed that response, and an Italian took the middle road. Remarkably, they never accused each other of being evil or insincere. For the first time in my life, I heard the message that in Islam, unity isn't uniformity.
Maybe the most compelling insight came from a surprise guest: Flemming Rose, publisher of the reviled Prophet Muhammad cartoons. After addressing us and responding to our challenges, Rose confided that the reception we gave him was more civil than anything he'd experienced at the hands of humanist groups.
Any liberal reformation of Islam will have at least two features: the empowerment of women in the Islamic world, and the willingness of Muslims in the West to exercise our freedom of conscience. In one week this month, both got a promising boost.
We need to remember that as bombs grab the spotlight.

Bush's Burned Bridges
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Los Angeles Times
By Rosa Brooks
The Middle East cataclysm is the last gasp of America's wasted post-9/11 opportunity.
THINGS FELL APART so quickly.
At the beginning of this millennium, the Cold War was over, the prosperous United States was the sole remaining superpower and global opinion was largely sympathetic to U.S. aims. In the wake of brutal ethnic wars in Central Europe and Africa, the international community had forged a new determination to prevent conflict and atrocities. The volatile Middle East was quiet, and the world seemed headed toward stability rather than chaos.
Only six years later, things couldn't be more different. The Bush administration's tunnel-vision approach to foreign policy has pushed the U.S. and the world into a devastating tailspin of conflict without end.
In Afghanistan, this year is shaping up to be the deadliest yet for U.S. troops. In Iraq, which President Bush promised would be "a source of true stability in the region," the carnage has been mind-boggling, and by late September, the fighting will have dragged on for 3 1/2 years - the same length of time it took us to defeat Germany in World War II.
The total implosion of the Middle East highlights the continuing decline of U.S. prestige and influence. As Israeli planes - built with our money - pummel Lebanon, our world is becoming ever more perilous and American preeminence ever more fragile.
The violent Hezbollah incursion into Israel was a deliberate provocation, to be sure, but Israel's response has dizzyingly upped the ante. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians - a disproportionate number - already have been killed by Israeli airstrikes. More than a dozen Israeli civilians have died in retaliatory Hezbollah rocket attacks.
And that's just the beginning.
If Syria or Iran gets drawn into the conflict to bail out their Hezbollah client, Israel will retaliate against them as well. Spooked by Iran's burgeoning nuclear capabilities, Israel may be looking for just such an excuse to launch a punishing strike against Iran.
Even if the conflict doesn't spread, it is already hardening the battle lines between the U.S. and our allies and the Muslim world. The conflict will breed a new generation of martyrs, a new generation of hungry children growing up amid the rubble and a new generation of mistrustful, bitter fighters - some of whom will be willing to blow themselves up for the chance of taking Israelis or Americans down with them.
The cataclysm in the Middle East represents the final and total failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy. After 9/11, the world was on our side, and we had a unique opportunity to turn tragedy into triumph, to strengthen the alliances and global institutions that have long sustained American preeminence.
We wasted that opportunity. We promised to make the world safer, but we've turned it into a tinderbox. We promised to unite our allies, but we've sown rage and division. We promised to promote democracy, but we did so through violent and poorly thought-through "regime change" rather than through diplomacy, friendship and foreign aid.
Now Israel, our closest Middle Eastern ally, appears hell-bent on destroying Lebanon - the second most democratic state in the region, which has been struggling successfully to cast off the Syrian yoke.
A year ago, the administration was pledging to support Lebanon's fragile and hard-gained democracy. Today, "the country has been torn to shreds," as Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora bitterly told diplomats. "Is this the price we pay for aspiring to build our democratic institutions?"
And as the conflagration worsens, Washington is indecisive and impotent. We might use our leverage with Israel to push for an immediate cease-fire and a long-term political solution, but we lack the courage to criticize Israel. The administration's insistence on the right to unilateral self-defense (no matter how disproportionate) would make any U.S. criticism of Israel hypocritical anyway.
We could use our leverage with Syria to get Syria to make Hezbollah back off, but we have no leverage with Syria. We refuse to have direct discussions with Syria anyway.
We could use our leverage with Iran to get Iran to make Hezbollah back off, but we have no leverage with Iran. And we refuse to have direct discussions with Iran anyway, unless Iran agrees to all our nuclear demands in advance.
And Israel, Syria and Iran all know that they can do as they wish at the moment without fear of a meaningful U.S. response. They understand (as does North Korea's Kim Jong Il) that we're bogged down in Iraq, too overextended to spend time, money or troops to stop the latest catastrophe.
We've burned up every ounce of goodwill we ever had, we've burned every diplomatic bridge we ever had, and now we can do nothing but sit on our hands as the ashes rain down all around us.
Engraved on a wall at the British Imperial War Museum is a phrase attributed to Plato: "Only the dead have seen the end of war." It was meant as a warning about the perils of arrogance and empire - and the Bush administration seems determined to prove the aphorism's truth.

Rocket Science
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Times
By Austin Bay
How do you stop rockets fired from a hijacked state? That's a complex question, but Israel must answer it, or risk suffering the most drastic consequence -- its own demise.
Appreciating the thorny, multidimensional difficulties Israel confronts -- from bitter house-to-house battles to the highest levels of international diplomacy -- begins with a basic understanding of the Katyusha rocket Hezbollah fires at Haifa and other Israeli cities.
I should say Katyusha-type, for the rocket Hezbollah employs out-ranges Russia's World War II Katyushas and the improved models Moscow later aimed at NATO ground units in Western Europe. Even the updated versions are "dumb" -- unguided "barrage" or "area weapons." The dumb-but-deadly rockets are not fired at specific targets, unless "Haifa" and "Tel Aviv" are considered specific targets.
When fired from positions in southern Lebanon or Gaza, extended-range Katyushas threaten anywhere from 60 percent to 70 percent of Israel's population. Every Israeli citizen may soon be a bull's-eye -- Hezbollah leaders boast of striking "beyond, beyond Haifa." Indeed, there are indications longer-range rockets are employed. NATO handbooks once referred to these rockets as "FROG-type" -- Free Rocket Over Ground. Some can carry chemical warheads.
As range increases, these unguided rockets "scatter" over a wider and wider surface area. In northern Israel, Hezbollah is clearly targeting predominantly civilian zones. If a rocket hits a hospital in the civilian area, it hits a hospital. Hezbollah's attacks on Haifa -- especially compared to Israeli attacks in Gaza and Lebanon, which typically utilize modern precision weapons -- are quite indiscriminate. But then Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and the mad mullahs of Iran who arm, finance and guide him, believe the whole of Israel is a target, one Iran indicates it will hit some day with another area weapon: a city-busting nuclear warhead.
In the last week, 1,400 rockets have hit Israeli cities, most from within Lebanon. But now for the layer of complexity: Hezbollah hides these weapons among apartment houses and in villages, nesting rockets in Lebanese neighborhoods. Hezbollah -- not the Lebanese government -- controls these neighborhoods.
In other words, Israel suffers rocket attacks from a Lebanon that "is not quite Lebanon" in a truly sovereign sense. The rockets, of course, come from "somewhere," but Hezbollah's "somewhere" is a political limbo in terms of maps with definitive geopolitical boundaries. Lebanon is a peculiar form of failed state. It's not the madhouse of Somalia or the impoverished dreg of Zimbabwe. Rather, Lebanon is a hijacked state and will continue as such so long as the Lebanese government cannot control Hezbollah. Control means disarm and demobilize.
So Hezbollah attacks Israel with ever-more-powerful, longer-range rockets, then hides behind the diplomatic facade of the greater Lebanese nation-state. Iran and Syria -- the powers behind Hezbollah -- then appeal to the United Nations (a product of the Westphalian "nation-state" system) to condemn Israel for attacking Lebanon -- when Israel is attacking Hezbollah, which "is and is not Lebanon." Thus terrorists and terror-empowering nations, like Iran and Syria, abuse the nation-state system -- or exploit a "dangerous hole" in the system.
Everybody has to be somewhere, but maps and U.N. seats and press bureaus don't make an effective nation-state; they are the trappings of statedom. Weaknesses in the Westphalian system exist, partly because the system has never been complete. (The Westphalian system evolved from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and the series of peace settlements that ended the Thirty Years' War in Europe.) Westphalia's "nation-state" system has always faced "gaps" (anarchic regions) and "failed states" (which are often collapsing tribal empires with the trappings of modernity, not the institutions).
Israel says disarming Hezbollah is one of its objectives. But to truly achieve that goal -- to stop the rockets, in any permanent way -- means ending Iran's and Syria's ability to hijack Lebanese neighborhoods.
That means holding Iran and Syria responsible for hijacking Lebanon and supporting Hezbollah's rain of rocket terror. Holding Iran and Syria responsible may well mean taking the war to Tehran and Damascus.
Austin Bay is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Tipping Hands
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Times
By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
To the grizzled and disheveled stalwarts of Hezbollah and Hamas, may I say you did it to yourselves. Kapow. As another Israeli bomb lands nearby, as a shell whizzes overhead, may I remind you that you are hunkering down either on Gaza or on Lebanese soil that was evacuated by the Israelis so you could live in peace? And what did you donkeys do? You tunneled under the Israeli borders to infiltrate Israel and kill innocent civilians. You established an infrastructure of missiles to rain down destruction on Israeli cities that were at peace, providing security and prosperity for both Jews and Arabs. You captured Israeli soldiers in an unprovoked attack. Kapow. You are getting just what you deserve.
Moreover the terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas have revealed to any sensible observer they have no interest in peace with Israel or with the West, for that matter. Needless to say, they have no interest in a peaceful Gaza or Lebanon.
The same bellicosity afflicts the allies of these terrorists in Syria and Iran. The brutes in these governments are pitiless and belligerent tyrants. Listening to their sophistries about their need for nuclear power or their desire for a peaceful world puts me in mind of all the irenic poetry of the late Herr Hitler back when things were good for him in the middle 1930s. It all ended badly -- for everyone.
When in May 1940 Winston Churchill became prime minister, he thought himself a failure. He recognized all his admonitions against the Nazis in the previous decade had proved futile. Now only world war would bring peace.
The land from which Hezbollah has been firing missiles was supposed to be free of militias, according to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. The Taif Accords, by which the Lebanese civil war was ended, also called for disarming the militias and giving the Lebanese army control of its border. U.N. peacekeepers have been stationed there to see that these diplomatic measures were carried out.
Obviously once again U.N. peacekeepers have failed. Though at least in southern Lebanon the peacekeepers have not raped and pillaged. Pacifying the region will obviously be left to the Israelis. I hope our government resupplies them as soon as they finish the business.
Yet that leaves a large question. What are the next measures to be taken to secure peace in the Middle East? Again the terrorists have foolishly tipped their hand. Their attacks have revealed that the missiles they have access to are increasingly powerful. Now they are landing them on Haifa. Next they will land them on Tel Aviv. In time they will be able to hit anywhere in Israel. Israel will have to have to take action to see that no more missile attacks are possible and that Hezbollah's suppliers -- Syria and Iran -- stop arming them.
I would think this means Israel for the short term will have to take control of the border regions of Lebanon and of Gaza from which it withdrew. Reportedly some 50 percent of Hezbollah's missile-launching capacity has been destroyed. Perhaps, but only troops on the ground will be able to ensure the terrorists do not return with their missiles. Yet even troops in Lebanon cannot deny Hezbollah's acquisition of ever more powerful weapons. That means its suppliers must be dealt with.
Diplomacy does not seem to work with the Syrians or with the Iranians. We have been dealing with the Iranians diplomatically on their nuclear capacity for months. They remain obdurate and dishonest, and now their clients have unleashed war against Israel. The only recourse might well be that taken by Israel in June 1981 when Israeli aircraft destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities. Many, even many conservatives, get very agitated by such suggestions. Well, allow me to remind them of President Reagan's reaction when his national security adviser informed him in the Oval Office of the Israeli bombing. They used bombers we had sold them, the adviser harrumphed. "Well," said the Old Cowboy, "boys will be boys." That, of course, was how Reagan expressed what is the oldest idea known to man: philosophical acceptance of the inevitable.
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of the American Spectator, a contributing editor to the New York Sun and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His most recent book is "Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House."

Hezbollah And Main Street
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Times
By Diana West, The Washington Times
A thought-provoking sideshow to Israel's war on Hezbollah -- and what a precious gift Israel would bestow on the Free World by destroying the Hezbollah mini-state -- is the effort to extract "foreign nationals" from Lebanon, some of whom have had their summer vacations in Hezbollah strongholds interrupted by war.
Who are these people now clamoring by the thousands for international rescue? Press reports label many of them "dual nationals." Some, despite their British, Swiss, American or French passports, make Lebanon their home. I was quite startled to hear, in an online audio report posted by the Daily Telegraph, that British passport-holders evacuated to Cyprus were undergoing "Home Office screening" to determine whether they "might constitute a threat." The report reasoned that this made sense "because obviously we're talking about a large number of people who have lived in the Middle East most of their lives."
This presents a bizarre spectacle: Britain's navy re-patriating what you might call extreme expatriates who potentially pose a "threat" to Britain as a partner in the so-called war on terror. This makes the following headline from the Guardian all the more inapt: "Britain's biggest sea evacuation since Dunkirk." As I recall, none of the 300,000 Dunkirk evacuees required a security screening before returning home.
In this wide-open question of loyalties we may see the expanding emptiness of the modern nation-state, where basic identification with the nation itself is no longer at the core of citizenship. And that includes the United States, where, for example, a good stretch of Main Street follows the Israeli war on Hezbollah via Al Jazeera -- at least Main Street in Dearborn, Mich., which writer Debbie Schlussel has described as "the heart of Islamic America, and especially Shia Islam America."
As the New York Times reported from Dearborn, "For miles along West Warren -- in hair salons, restaurants and meat markets -- shopkeepers and their relatively few customers stared at televisions tuned in to Al Jazeera." Incidentally, there were "relatively few" customers out and about only because, as one baker knew, "most of his regular customers were home watching [Al Jazeera], just as they had all day, every day," since Israel's offensive began.
Why does this matter? Al Jazeera, of course, is the relentlessly anti-American, anti-Israeli, jihad-boosting "news" network. To find TVs in the heartland tuned in to this station today is roughly akin to coming across an American town, circa 1942, tuned in to Axis propagandists Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw.
But this isn't, as they say, your father's heartland. Hezbollah itself is popular in Dearborn, which can fill a banquet hall to celebrate "Lebanon Liberation Day" -- the day Hezbollah claims as victory when Israeli forces withdrew in 2000. Osama Siblani, the publisher of Dearborn's Arab American News, considers members of Hezbollah -- along with Hamas and other jihadist groups -- freedom fighters. And, as Mr. Siblani tells it to the Detroit News, he's not alone: "If morally supporting Hizbollah or associating with [Hezbollah spiritual leader Muhammad Hussein] Fadlallah is a crime, 'there is not going to be enough buses to haul the people out and take them to jail.'"
Mr. Siblani was speaking before the Israeli offensive began. But not before the 1983 Hezbollah bombings in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 U.S. servicemen, 63 U.S. Embassy personnel and 58 French paratroopers. And not before the 1984 Hezbollah torture-murder of CIA station chief William Buckley in Lebanon. And not before the 1985 Hezbollah hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the torture-murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem. And not before the 1988 Hezbollah torture-murder of Lt. Col. William Higgins. And not before the Hezbollah bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, killing 29; the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 96; or the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, killing 19 U.S. servicemen.
American sympathy for Hezbollah profanes the American dead. In our wide-open society, however, such allegiance isn't considered beyond the pale. But it should be. And it could be. I have long argued that the "war on terror" is an amorphous term -- sacrificing clarity for fuzzy political correctness. What if we, as a nation, belatedly declared war on specific jihadist groups -- al Qaeda and Hezbollah and other organizations dedicated to our destruction? This would have the tonic effect of clarifying not only our enemies' identity, but our own.
We can't fight if we don't know who we're fighting. We can't win if we don't know who we are.

Arabs Rally Behind Hezbollah
Friday, July 21, 2006
AP-By Salah Nasrawi, Associated Press Writer
The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah exposed divisions across the Arab world, not only between Shiites and Sunnis but also between Arab governments and their citizens.
Key Arab allies of the United States, predominantly Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, fear the rising power of Shiites in the region: Hezbollah militants who virtually control southern Lebanon, Iraq's majority Shiite government, and - most worrisome - the Shiite theocracy that has run Iran for decades.
Yet many ordinary people, Sunnis as well as Shiites, are cheering the Lebanese guerrillas because of their willingness to stand up to Israel.
Sitting in the shade as he sold figs in downtown Cairo, Hasan Salem Hasan, a 25-year-old Sunni, summed up a prevailing attitude of the so-called Arab street: "Although Hezbollah is a Shiite party, we are all Muslims, and all Arabs will defiantly support them and fight the Jews."
On the one hand, predominantly Sunni Arab states are tacitly encouraging the destruction of Hezbollah, concerned it could stage attacks and create militant cells outside of Lebanon. There is also fear that militant Sunnis could join with Hezbollah - as the Palestinian militant group Hamas has done - to build a super terrorist network.
"Whenever there is a paramount cause which can bring them together, such as a jihad against the Zionists, they will be united," Gamal Sultan, editor of the Cairo-based Islamic monthly Al Mannar Al Jadid, said of the Sunni and Shiite militants.
Yet on the other hand, Arab governments also fear their own populations will turn on them if they look weak and unable to challenge Israeli aggression against a fellow Arab state.
Saudi Arabia - the bulwark of the Sunni Arab world - has tried to balance both concerns, criticizing Iran and Hezbollah for provoking Israel but also condemning the Jewish state. Israel started bombing south Lebanon, Hezbollah's base, after the guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers July 12.
The Saudi foreign minister, Saudi Al Faisal, on Tuesday blasted what he called "non-Arab intervention in the Arab world" - a clear reference to Iran, Hezbollah's main backer along with Syria.
Saudi media were even more outspoken.
"We are facing a fierce Iranian offensive against the region. We see that clearly in Iraq where Iran is becoming the major player and in Lebanon through its agent, Hezbollah," columnist Mishari Al Thaydi wrote in the Saudi-owned London-based Asharq Al Awsat newspaper.
Yet on Thursday, Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud lashed out at Israel for its punishing airstrikes.
"We cannot tolerate Israel's playing with the lives of citizens, civilians, women, the elderly and children," he said after meeting with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris.
Other Sunni Arab leaders fear that growing Shiite power in Lebanon and Iraq will awaken Shiite minorities at home.
In April, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak angered Shiite leaders by saying Shiites across the Middle East were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries.
Former Jordanian information minister Saleh al-Qalab has described Hezbollah as an Iranian "land mine" in the Arab world. And Jordan's King Abdullah II warned of a Shiite crescent forming in the region.
Some blame Washington's Middle East policies for upsetting the region's sectarian balance.
"The whole problem started with the American invasion of Iraq with the cooperation of Shiites," said Mamdouh Ismail, an Islamic activist and lawyer who defends Muslim militants in Egyptian courts. "This will certainly resonate throughout the whole region, in the Gulf ... in Saudi Arabia," he added.
Yet events in Lebanon have further mobilized the Shiites across the Muslim world and, if Hezbollah survives the current Israeli onslaught, the sect stands to become even stronger.
In Iraq, the Hezbollah-Israel conflict has proved a rallying point for Sunnis and Shiites otherwise riven by sectarian violence.
On Thursday, Iraqis staged an anti-Israel protest with banners reading "Shiites and Sunnis unite" in the city of Samarra, where the bombing of a Shiite shrine in February brought the country to the brink of civil war.
Earlier this week, about 4,000 Iraqis answered the call of Shiite clerics to rally in the holy city of Karbala in protest of Israeli attacks, raising Iraqi and Lebanese flags.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - a Shiite - also condemned the Israeli destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure. "I call on the Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo to take quick action to stop these aggressions. We call on the world to take quick stands to stop the Israeli aggression," he said.
On Tuesday, thousands of Shiites demonstrated in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain in support of Hezbollah, two days after some 300 prominent Saudi Shiites wrote to the Bahraini government urging support to the Lebanese Shiite group.
Both moves were seen as an assertion of increasing Shiite solidarity across the Arab world.
Adding to the Shiite power base, the sect's faithful share a coherent religious view. Since splitting from their Sunni brethren in the 7th century over who should replace the Prophet Muhammad as Muslim ruler, they have developed distinct concepts of Islamic law and practices.
They also dominate by sheer number: Shiites account for some 160 million of the Islamic world's population of 1.3 billion people. Shiites account about 90 percent of Iran's population, more than 60 percent of Iraq's, and some 50 percent of the people living in the arc of territory from Lebanon to India.

Family Lays To Rest Soldier Killed In Ambush
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Post
By Jonathan Finer
MERHAVIA, Israel, July 20 -- Friends and relatives of Israeli army Staff Sgt. Yonatan Hadassi, and hundreds more who had never met him, gathered Thursday to mark his death in highly personal, and varying, ways.
Childhood friends of the infantryman, 21, who had died a day earlier in a Hezbollah ambush across the border in Lebanon, called him "the best one of us" and vowed to adopt his suffering family into theirs.
A member of his elite special forces unit managed a moment of levity -- albeit a grim one -- when he recounted Hadassi's prescient "last request" made the day before his death: for someone at his funeral to read aloud the lyrics to a pop song called "The Little Prince."
And as his coffin was lowered into the dry earth, Hadassi's mother, Mir, wailed at the hazy sky that she wanted to take her boy home.
When asked how his death affected their opinion of Israel's nine-day onslaught on Lebanon, almost all mourners interviewed answered with similar resolve, saying it had hardened their support for Israel's attacks against Hezbollah. "This has devastated our family, and I don't know how we will even wake up tomorrow morning. But I also know that we need to protect our country, and that means at any cost," said Chen Halman, 23, Hadassi's cousin, who said she loved him like a brother.
"Everyone talks about the Lebanese people and how they are suffering, but look how we suffer, even though we don't spread our dead around on television. We didn't start this, and we can't just sit here and accept their attacks."
Sentiments like these were echoed in dozens of conversations this week across Israel's north, where hundreds of Hezbollah rockets and other attacks had claimed the lives of at least 15 civilians and 16 soldiers over the past nine days. Heavy fighting Thursday evening near Avivim, the same border area where Hadassi was killed, resulted in two Israelis being killed and six wounded, the military said. Israeli strikes have claimed the lives of hundreds more Lebanese, most of them civilians, and displaced more than half a million from their homes.
Asked what was needed for Israel to bring an end to the conflict, which began last week when Hezbollah crossed the border and captured two soldiers, Chaim Tzouri, mayor of the small coastal town of Kiryat Motzkin, responded with only two words: "heavier bombs."
Tzlil Aplaton, 16, who along with her mother and two brothers fled her border town of Margaliyot on Monday to take refuge at a boarding school beyond the range of the rockets, said she felt for Lebanese civilians being bombarded relentlessly by Israeli warplanes. But she added that the campaign should continue until "Hezbollah is ended. We have to end them. Otherwise, what is the point?"
Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said support for the offensive was the highest he had seen for an Israeli campaign since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel repelled a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria. A survey conducted by the nonpartisan Dahaf Institute, published this week in Yedioth Aharonoth, Israel's largest newspaper, showed that 81 percent of respondents approved of the campaign in the north, with nearly 70 percent of those living in the north saying that the fighting should continue until Hezbollah is eradicated. "Given Israel's history of sometimes heated debates about wars, this is truly remarkable," Ezrahi said.
Support is certainly not universal. An antiwar demonstration in Tel Aviv earlier this week attracted about 1,000 people, according to local news reports. Smaller demonstrations were carried out in a pair of northern towns Thursday, though only a few dozen people attended. Dissent was also heard from Israel's politically marginalized Arab population, many of whom have relatives in Lebanon. In Nazareth, where two young brothers died in a Hezbollah rocket attack Wednesday, residents and local leaders demanded a cease-fire.
"The fact that Israel says it will keep going until the soldiers are released means the war will go on forever," said Mohammed Barakeh, an Arab legislator in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, as he stood near the scene of the attack. "The kids here have a mother who is crying. The kids in Lebanon have mothers who are crying. The Jewish kids have mothers who are crying. This must stop."
Ezrahi said the war "began with an attack on Israeli soil, across a border that is recognized by the United Nations. So the response is seen as justified." Hezbollah, he added, while based in Lebanon and highly popular there, draws substantial support from Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has publicly said Israel should be "wiped off the map."
One factor that could turn the Israeli public against the war, Ezrahi said, is mounting civilian casualties in Lebanon.
"All this is contingent on the ability of the army to be extremely careful in its targeting," said Ezrahi. "They have already made some great mistakes, and if these sorts of errors and miscalculations continue, public support will decline."
Friends and relatives of Hadassi, who died when his unit was sent across the border to destroy a suspected Hezbollah bunker, remembered him as a music lover, a gifted student and athlete and, above all, a patriot who believed wholeheartedly in his army service. His grandparents had come to Israel from Holland.
Mourners gathered for hours Thursday on plastic lawn chairs in his family's front yard before piling onto buses to the funeral site, about a mile away on a hillside. There, six soldiers carried his coffin, draped in a flag and a tallit , or Jewish prayer shawl, to a freshly dug patch. A military rabbi recited prayers into a microphone, and an honor guard fired a three-shot salute.
Hadassi's parents and his two younger sisters held each other throughout the ceremony. Between heaving sobs, his sister Eden, 10, asked her father, "How could he have died? I can't be without him. I just want to know how this can happen."
"Your son was an excellent soldier," his company commander said, reading from a small notepad as he wiped his eyes.
About half of the several hundred or so in attendance wore olive-green military uniforms, in stark contrast with the jeans and T-shirt informality of the other mourners. "He was the best of all of us, the bravest, the smartest, and we always said the luckiest," said Eitan Luria, 20, a lifelong friend and neighbor.
"I think we are all proud of the way he died, defending his country, defending his homeland," Luria said. "We can only take so much, and I think everyone is glad that the country is standing up for itself and fighting back."
A rare, and somewhat conflicted, voice of dissent came from Mely Wexler, 51, whose son is serving in an Israeli commando unit. "It's very difficult," she said, lowering her voice to a new whisper and pausing for nearly a minute when asked her opinion of the war. "I want them to stop it because I don't want my son to be killed. But I see the other side. If they don't fight now, they will only have to fight later."

Special correspondent Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.
In Mideast Strife, Bush Sees A Step To Peace
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Post
By Michael Abramowitz
President Bush's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in Lebanon is rooted in a view of the Middle East conflict that is sharply different from that of his predecessors.
When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been an immediate and public bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire, in the hopes of ensuring that the crisis would not escalate. This week, however, even in the face of growing international demands, the White House has studiously avoided any hint of impatience with Israel. While making it plain it wants civilian casualties limited, the administration is also content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah.
As the president's position is described by White House officials, Bush associates and outside Middle East experts, Bush believes that the status quo -- the presence in a sovereign country of a militant group with missiles capable of hitting a U.S. ally -- is unacceptable.
The U.S. position also reflects Bush's deepening belief that Israel is central to the broader campaign against terrorists and represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the United States plays an "honest broker's" role in the Middle East.
In the administration's view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq. Israel's crippling of Hezbollah, officials also hope, would complete the work of building a functioning democracy in Lebanon and send a strong message to the Syrian and Iranian backers of Hezbollah.
"The president believes that unless you address the root causes of the violence that has afflicted the Middle East, you cannot forge a lasting peace," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. "He mourns the loss of every life. Yet out of this tragic development, he believes a moment of clarity has arrived."
One former senior administration official said Bush is only emboldened by the pressure from U.N. officials and European leaders to lead a call for a cease-fire. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded yesterday that the fighting in Lebanon stop.
"He thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians," said the former official, who spoke anonymously so he could discuss his views candidly. "The tacticians would say: 'Get an immediate cease-fire. Deal first with the humanitarian factors.' The president would say: 'You have an opportunity to really grind down Hezbollah. Let's take it, even if there are other serious consequences that will have to be managed.' "
Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress, said Bush's statements reflect an unambiguous view of the situation. "He doesn't seem to allow his vision to be clouded in any way," said Rosen, a Democrat who has come to admire Bush's Middle East policy. "It follows suit. Israel is in the right. Hezbollah is in the wrong. Terrorists have to be eliminated, and he sees Israel fighting the war he would fight against terrorism."
Many Mideast experts warn that there is a dangerous consequence to this worldview. They believe that Israel, and the United States by extension, is risking serious trouble if it continues with the punishing air strikes that are producing mounting casualties. The history of the Middle East is replete with examples of the limits of military power, they say, noting how the Israeli campaign in Lebanon in the early 1980s helped create the conditions for the rise of Hezbollah.
They warned that the military campaign is turning mainstream Lebanese public opinion against Israel rather than against Hezbollah, which instigated the violence. The attacks also make it more difficult for the Lebanese government to regain normalcy. And what seems now to be a political winner for the president -- the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution yesterday backing Israel's position -- could become a liability if the fighting expands to Syria or if the United States adds Lebanon to Iraq and Afghanistan as a country to which U.S. troops are deployed.
"There needs to be a signal that the Bush administration is prepared to do something," said Larry Garber, the executive director the New Israel Fund, which pushes for civil rights and justice in Israel. "Taking a complete hands-off, casual-observer position undermines our credibility. . . . There is a danger that we will be seen as simply doing Israel's bidding."
Robert Malley, who handled Middle East issues on the National Security Council staff for President Bill Clinton, voiced skepticism about whether the current course would pay off for either Israel or the United States. "It may not succeed with all the time in the world, and Hezbollah could emerge with its dignity intact and much of its political and military arsenal still available," said Malley, who monitors the region for the International Crisis Group. "What will you have gained?"
Those who know Bush say his view of the conflict was shaped by several formative experiences, not the least of which was the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that made fighting terrorism the central mission of his presidency. Another formative experience was a helicopter ride over the West Bank with Ariel Sharon in 1998, when Bush was Texas governor -- a ride he later said showed him Israel's vulnerability. The cause of Israel has been championed by many of the evangelical Christians who make up a significant chunk of the president's political base.
Bush and his team were also deeply skeptical of the Middle East policy of the previous administration, and of what they see as an excessive devotion to a peace process in which one of the protagonists, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was not seriously invested. Explaining the reluctance to push quickly for a cease-fire, one senior administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record indicated a belief that premature diplomacy might leave Hezbollah in a position of strength.
"We don't want the kind of truce that will lead to another conflict," said this official, who added that, when the time comes, "you will see plenty of diplomacy."
Fred S. Zeidman, a Texas venture capitalist who is active in Jewish affairs and has been close to the president for years, said the current crisis showed the depth of the president's support for Israel. "He will not bow to international pressure to pressure Israel," Zeidman said. "I have never seen a man more committed to Israel."

Residents Of Besieged City Feel 'Just Left Here To Die'
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Post
By Anthony Shadid
TYRE, Lebanon, July 20 -- The warning came in the morning Thursday, a recorded message dialed to phone numbers in southern Lebanon. In flawless Arabic, it instructed: Leave now, beyond the Litani River that bisects the rock-studded wadis of the south. Don't flee on motorcycles or in vans or trucks. Otherwise, you will be a target. The message signed off simply: the state of Israel.
But leaving this southern Lebanese city Thursday was more complicated than a choice. Aid officials say that tens of thousands have already fled Tyre and its environs along the Mediterranean Sea but that perhaps 12,000 Lebanese remain stranded. The wartime circumstances of a besieged city keep them here: no gasoline for their cars, no money for taxi fares that have surged 75-fold, no faith in assurances from Israeli forces that have repeatedly attacked civilian vehicles and, most desperately, no hope of finding safety.
"We're just left here to die," said Maher Yassin, standing across from Tyre's harbor and wearing a shirt that read, "Mortal."
The plight of Tyre's people is the story of the latest Arab-Israeli conflict writ small: In nine days of attacks that Israel says have targeted the infrastructure of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Lebanon's civilians have suffered inordinately, with more than 300 dead, many times that number wounded and 500,000 displaced. As this city awaits the brunt of an Israeli attack that most think is imminent, resignation, hopelessness, occasional defiance and a sense of abandonment course through the beleaguered population.
"They evacuate the foreigners, bring them to safety, and they leave us like dogs in the street," said Therese Khairallah, sitting with friends in an alley near the seashore. "A small mistake turned into this mountain of a disaster, and we're the victims."
She shook her head, on a day when attacks had waned, more breather than respite. "God knows what's ahead."
God comes up often in conversations these days in Tyre, where residents trade rumors about when Israel will unleash an even worse attack, whether its troops will invade, whether the conflict will last one week, two weeks or perhaps far longer.
"We'll not go," insisted Ahmed Mroueh, the director of Jabal Amel Hospital. He repeated the words, perhaps to reassure himself. "What else can you do? There's just no alternative. Can we leave the wounded and run away? We have to keep working."
Mroueh flipped through the handwritten ledger on his desk listing the 228 wounded his hospital has treated since fighting began.
"Look at this," he said, running down the list.
"One 11 years old, one 5 years old, one 4 years old." He stopped, just briefly. "This is a 3-month-old." Each was highlighted in yellow to denote a death. "We have not received one injured, not one dead, who's not a civilian."
Jabal Amel Hospital sits next to a bomb site where missiles destroyed three villas four days ago. Doctors at the hospital said eight children, their mother and her sister were buried in the attack. One building was flattened, rubble strewn about as in an archaeological dig; the others were in various stages of destruction. Part of a red-tiled roof was intact; the rest suggested the aftermath of a tornado.
On the other side of the hospital, 13 Red Cross ambulances pulled up in the late afternoon to evacuate 20 wounded people to Beirut. Volunteers in orange overalls and white helmets emblazoned with a cross moved quickly in and out, carrying the injured. As the ambulances departed, blue lights flashed on top, their sirens sounding a tinny wail. They drove in batches of three, four, sometimes more; the roads were too dangerous for all to go at once. Each sped out of the parking lot. These days in Lebanon, fast is the only speed on the roads.
As the Red Cross volunteers worked, a Civil Defense station wagon careered into the parking lot, carrying 32-year-old Ibrahim Saksouk, whose lower right leg was a pulp of bloodied and burned flesh. An Israeli rocket struck his car Thursday outside Qana, to the east of Tyre.
"Move! Move!" his 32-year-old brother, Haitham, yelled, helping carry him in. "Make way!"
Haitham wiped his bloody hands on his pants. "When you enter any road, you don't know if you'll ever leave it," he said.
Physician Bassam Mtarik said that with just eight ventilators, the 125-bed hospital wanted the Red Cross to free up as much space as possible for an anticipated surge in patients. He predicted supplies would last a week, no more.
"We're worried about what's ahead," he said matter-of-factly.
Mtarik had arrived in Tyre from Sidon on Monday morning, bringing with him 52 units of blood. He has been here since.
"And I'm not leaving until this is over," he said.
Mtarik walked into the hospital's basement, tinged with the smell of too many people sharing too small a space.
"These are civilians," he said, waving his hand.
Along the hallway were family after family, perhaps 90 people in all, on mattresses and blankets or milling about. Plastic sacks bulged with clothes. Bread was stacked nearby, and bottles of water lined the wall. Trash cans overflowed. The families had all come to the hospital over the past week, seeking shelter. Stranded by circumstance, none had the means to leave.
"The only thing we need is for them to stop the fighting and let us go to Beirut," said Hussein Shihab, 60, who had come from the village of Aitait with his wife, four daughters, son and five grandchildren. "Just let us get our children out of here."
The cars they came in, a BMW and Oldsmobile, had no fuel. He had no money left.
"We're like meat at the butcher shop," he said, shaking his hands. "Who can endure this? They are crushing our spirit."
There were a few televisions at the hospital, but virtually everyone relied on radios, always turned on. Rumors swirled: The lull Thursday was a preamble.
"They say they're hitting Hezbollah, but they're hitting the people. They're hitting the children," said Hussein Yaacoub, who fled his border village of Houla on Saturday. He grabbed the shoulder of his 5-year-old son, Mohammed. "Is he Hezbollah?"
"Ask President Bush what's going to happen. Ask Condoleezza Rice. They should tell us what's ahead for us," he said.
In parts of the region, Israeli aircraft have dropped leaflets warning that any trucks traveling south of the Litani River would be suspected of carrying weapons and could be targeted. An Israeli radio station near the border urged Lebanese to flee, and the recorded telephone messages began Wednesday.
The response has been fear and flight. In the distance, off the coast of Tyre, was a cruise liner taking 600 people -- foreigners and U.N. staff members' families -- to the island of Cyprus.
"This city's going to be destroyed," said Sabrine Shabbash, a 19-year-old Swedish national waiting to depart on an orange dinghy for the ship. She stood with her fiance, 27-year-old Ahmed Zeid, her parents and her four brothers and sisters. They carried only enough clothes to fit into a single yellow shopping bag.
"Look," Shabbash said, as a blast threw up a plume of gray smoke across the harbor, the sound of the explosion smothering the call to prayer.
Near the dock, an organizer called out names: "Ali Jaafar." "Afif Wadie." "Dalia Sbatiya."
When the evacuation ended, at around 3 p.m., two U.N. armored personnel carriers blocked the blue gate to the port.
Across the street stood 18-year-old Abbas Muhanna.
"Why is it that the people of the south -- the women and the children -- die? And the foreigners are the only ones who can leave? What about the Lebanese?" Muhanna asked. "Why the foreigners and not us?" His friend Mohammed Aidibi, 20, jumped in. "The Lebanese aren't considered people," he said. "Foreigners are the only ones who have the right to live."
On the road outside the city, three young men loitered in front of a row of shuttered shops. They had no money. Even if they did, they probably couldn't afford the taxi fare to Beirut, which had gone from 2,000 Lebanese pounds ($1.33) to 50,000, sometimes 150,000($99.50).
"If I had enough money, I would have left a long time ago," said Haitham Akkasha, who worked on a banana plantation.
The three chatted about the pall cast over a paralyzed city. And they kept waiting for a car that might give them a ride for free. After two hours, they suspected they wouldn't find one."It's going to be like Iraq here," Akkasha said finally, "complete destruction."
His friend, Hamza Mahmoud, smiled, a grin that suggested a hopeless resignation.
"It's going to be worse than Iraq," he said.

For Evacuees From Lebanon, A Bittersweet Arrival At BWI
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Post
By Sudarsan Raghavan
An hour after he landed in Maryland yesterday with the first wave of American evacuees from war-torn Lebanon, Adib Mansour couldn't escape thoughts of his motherland.
The memories, some from only a day ago, took hold of the Lebanese American designer: the helicopter attack his young son witnessed, the heartbreaking pleas of his brothers to evacuate one of their sons with him, the sight of his beloved Beirut as he and his family were whisked away in a U.S. military helicopter.
"All I could think was, 'We're leaving everyone behind,' " Mansour said as he broke into tears and then fell silent.
In another corner of Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, a smiling Fady Lamaa picked up and hugged his daughter, Christina, 3, moments after she walked out of customs with her brother, Johnny, 7, and mother, Janine. After a frantic week of long-distance worrying, Lamaa had been waiting since 5 a.m. to reunite with them.
But his wife, who heard the bombs and the explosions, couldn't forget her parents, two brothers and sister still in Lebanon.
"All the time I've been thinking about them in the airplane. 'What's happening now?' " said Janine Lamaa of Ashburn. "I feel very happy and sad at the same time."
The first of thousands of American evacuees from Lebanon started flowing back to the United States yesterday, returning to their homes after a chaotic week of danger and uncertainty. Seven additional flights of evacuees are expected at BWI -- their primary entry point into the United States -- by tomorrow, including three that are tentatively scheduled to arrive by this morning. And at least one flight is expected in Philadelphia as early as today. U.S. officials say that as many as a third of the estimated 25,000 Americans in Lebanon want to be evacuated.
Many of yesterday's 150 evacuees were of Lebanese descent -- toddlers, senior citizens, students and film directors -- and their homecoming was bittersweet. Inside Lebanon, many said, they thought only of the immediate concern: how to escape. Now, they are starting to come to grips with the long-term consequences for their shattered homeland.
Their nostalgia and pride for a nation that resurrected itself after a 15-year civil war has given way to sadness and dread. Some said they feel guilt and helplessness for having the means, and the correct passports, to escape, while their relatives in Lebanon have no such options.
Yet the United States is also their home, they said, and they're looking forward to its normalcy.
"You're happy you're coming home to see your family and kids. At the same time, I feel guilty that I'm saving my life but I cannot save anybody else's," said Amal Kazzaz of Richmond, who emigrated from Lebanon in 1972 and has four adult children and 12 grandchildren in Virginia. "You cannot be happy when you know somebody else is dying behind you. But this is my home.
"God Bless America."
Like many other evacuees, she and her husband, Nassib, who suffers from heart and back problems, were evacuated by a U.S. military helicopter from Beirut to Cyprus on Wednesday morning -- Amal Kazzaz's 62nd birthday. A few hours later they were flown to England, where they boarded an Omni Air International DC-10 to Baltimore -- in total, a 12-hour journey.
They were given medical assistance on the plane, she said, and placed in first class. The flight was filled with other senior citizens, children and passengers with medical problems who were apparently given priority to board, evacuees said. The mood in the plane was somber, and many passengers appeared shocked and saddened by what they had experienced, said Elias Merhige, a Lebanese American film director from Beverly Hills, Calif.
"The kids were kind of sad," he said. "They were talking about Beirut and Lebanon, asking questions like, 'Daddy, why did this happen?' You could hear little bits of conversations, and you're thinking, 'This kid is never going to forget this.' "
As the plane landed in Baltimore at 6:30 a.m., the passengers erupted in applause. After going through customs, the evacuees walked into the waiting area, where Maryland state and Red Cross officials provided them with a host of services, including travel assistance, free phone lines, interpreters, health services and boxed lunches. Children were offered comfort kits that included coloring books and crayons.
Merhige, his wife, Nadja, and other family members were in Lebanon to attend a cousin's wedding. But when the violence erupted it was canceled, and a smaller ceremony was held last weekend in a monastery in the mountains, where it was considered safer.
But during the ceremony, "we heard heavy bombings," said Nadja Merhige, a Croatian American. "Everybody's cellphone started to ring as the bride and groom finished the ceremony. Then everybody started to panic."
They soon learned that an area about 110 yards from the hotel had been bombed, she said.
"People were sad and angry," said Elias Merhige, referring to other passengers on the flight. "We were all witnesses. We were not watching the news. We were living it with the Lebanese. You get the sense there's a horrible injustice taking place."
Adib Mansour, from New York City, arrived in Beirut with his wife and two small children a few days before the conflict erupted. His mother had sold her house in Lebanon and used some of the proceeds to pay for their visit.
Then the bombs started falling. Mansour, who lived in Beirut during its civil war, knew the sonography of war. He watched as highways and bridges were pummeled.
"Beirut was so beautiful," he said, his voice infused with nostalgia. "It had beautiful buildings, new highways. The sad thing is that within six days, all this was destroyed."
When the bombs sounded closer and closer to their residence, he took his family and fled to the port city of Junia, north of Beirut.
"I was kind of creeped out. It was scary," said Chloe, 12, his daughter.
But the war quickly followed them there. Mansour said he was swimming in a pool with his son, Luca, 7, when Israeli helicopters attacked the port nearby.
"All of a sudden, several dozen people started running and screaming," said Mansour, who ran with Luca to safety.
Mansour again drove his family along back roads, seeking refuge in the mountains. Meanwhile, they kept phoning the State Department in the United States to get on its evacuation list. Mansour is diabetic, which gave him preference. They were soon taken by helicopter to Cyprus.
Before they left, Mansour's relatives had heard a rumor that U.S. citizens could evacuate one Lebanese with every American family. It was false, and Mansour had to tell his brothers that he could not take one of their sons.
"It was heartbreaking," Mansour said.
And when he gave his mother cash to help her face the war, she replied, "I'm supposed to pay for you." As he spoke, Mansour struggled to fight off his tears again.
At the other end of the arrivals terminal yesterday, Sandy Wilda and her husband, Doug, waited for her parents, Amal and Nassib Kazzaz. Devout Christians, they said they had been praying for her parents' safety all week.
"It was an opportunity to trust God," Sandy Wilda said, as she nervously checked her watch.
Then she saw her parents, and the hugs and kisses flowed.
"My heart beat so fast," recalled Amal Kazzaz. "It was a happy moment."
Janine Lamaa returned with her family to their home in Ashburn yesterday. She took a shower, gave the kids a bath, ate and then slept. She didn't feel like celebrating.
"I don't feel like doing anything," she said. "I feel so sad. I have a family there, and Lebanon is a beautiful country, and a lot has been destroyed."
She called her parents in Lebanon to tell them they had arrived safely.
"They were so happy," she recalled. "I told them to be safe and to take care of yourself, and that I'll be watching the news. 'Hopefully,' I told them, 'the war won't last long.' "

Israel, Hezbollah Intensify Ground Conflict In Lebanon
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Post
By Scott Wilson And Edward Cody
JERUSALEM, July 20 -- Israeli ground forces and Hezbollah guerrillas engaged in heavy fighting inside Lebanon on Thursday, as senior Israeli defense officials braced the country for a long conflict against the radical Islamic groups on its borders and indicated that a large ground operation could still lie ahead.
The Israeli military said at least two soldiers were killed and six others wounded in the fighting, the most intense ground exchange in the current military campaign. Israeli military officials later said two Apache attack helicopters collided at Ramot Naftali, about two miles inside the Israeli border, just after midnight.
Israeli military aircraft pounded targets across Lebanon for a ninth straight day amid growing international calls for Israel to suspend a bombing campaign that has ravaged that country's civilian population. The airstrikes swelled the ranks of the displaced and accelerated the evacuation of U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals, thousands of whom sailed away from the tattered country in a chartered cruise ship and a military transport vessel.
Using local radio stations and other media, Israel warned the roughly 300,000 Lebanese civilians who live south of the Litani River, which runs about 25 miles north of Israel's border with Lebanon, to abandon their homes. Israeli officials, meanwhile, indicated that a large ground offensive could follow as rocket fire continued into Israel's Galilee region, although at a diminished rate.
During a tour of northern Israel, where more than 850 rockets have rained down since Hezbollah gunmen captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said the radical Shiite Muslim militia "must not think that we would recoil from using all kinds of military measures against it."
"We have no intention of occupying Lebanon, but we also have no intention of retreating from any military measures needed," Peretz said. The comments left open the possibility that Israel could move forces into southern Lebanon, the restive, Shiite-dominated region it has occupied before. Israeli military officials have raised the need to clear Hezbollah forces from a 12-mile-wide swath inside the Lebanese border to increase the distance between the group's increasingly long-range arsenal and the Israeli cities in the firing line.
Israeli officials have dismissed international proposals for a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, saying they need more time to bombard Hezbollah launch sites, bunkers and supply routes before considering a cease-fire. They say the bombing effort has severely damaged Hezbollah forces -- an assertion denied by the group's leaders in Lebanon.
Hezbollah gunmen fired about 40 rockets into Israel, about a third of the number they fired the previous day. There were no casualties reported from Thursday's rocket strikes, which have killed 15 Israeli civilians since fighting began.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday urged Israel to halt its military operations in Lebanon, claiming it is inflicting unacceptable harm on civilians while increasing Hezbollah's popularity and undercutting Lebanon's fledgling democracy. But he voiced pessimism about the prospects for a quick halt to the violence and urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties in the meantime and provide access for humanitarian relief workers throughout Lebanon.
"The Lebanese people, who had hoped that their country's dark days were behind them, have been brutally dragged back into the war," Annan told the U.N. Security Council. He was accompanied by former Indian diplomat Vijay Nambiar, who had just returned from leading a peace mission in the region.
"Let me be frank with the council," Annan said. "The mission's assessment is that there are serious obstacles to reaching a cease-fire, or even diminishing the violence quickly."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched her diplomatic effort at a working dinner with Annan on Thursday, with a Security Council briefing scheduled for Friday morning. The United States is now working on a package of ideas for Rice to take the region when she begins talks early next week, with timing and locations still up in the air, U.S. officials said.
The fighting near the Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras, just across the border from the Israeli farming community of Avivim, pointed up Hezbollah's skill at fighting in terrain it has spent years preparing against another Israeli invasion. Sixteen Israeli soldiers have been killed so far on the northern front, and 61 have been wounded.
Heavy fighting broke out several times throughout the day after Israeli tanks and bulldozers pushed a few hundred yards inside Lebanon in search of tunnels, bunkers and posts used by Hezbollah gunmen.
The clashes involved small-arms fire and antitank missiles. Israeli attack helicopters provided support as soldiers removed the wounded. Hezbollah's television station, al-Manar, said two Israeli tanks were destroyed in the clashes.
Lebanese officials say more than 300 Lebanese have died in the fighting, nearly all of them civilian, while more than 1,000 others have been wounded. It is unclear how many Hezbollah gunmen have died in the airstrikes or ground fighting.
In a statement, Hezbollah officials said bombing by Israel on Wednesday night that was described as an attack on a bunker in fact hit a mosque under construction and caused no injuries to senior Hezbollah leaders.
Hezbollah members of parliament, who number a dozen among the legislature's 128 members, appeared on Lebanese television to vow steadfastness and declare that the group's arsenal still has plenty of weapons for retaliatory strikes against Israeli towns. Hezbollah officials escorted journalists around their southern Beirut stronghold to show the damage to what they said were civilian residences.
Israeli aircraft roamed the southern Lebanese skies looking for targets, continuing their campaign to blast Hezbollah infrastructure and prevent vehicles from resupplying the militia's forces. But missile attacks seemed to diminish in the area around Beirut as foreign governments, including that of the United States, continued evacuation operations.
In the Gaza Strip, where Israeli tanks and troops clashed with gunmen from the governing Hamas movement's military wing, the death toll rose on Israel's second front. Palestinian hospital officials said four Palestinians were killed, including two children, as Israeli forces attacked Palestinian positions in the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza for a second day.
Hamas's military wing helped stage the June 25 cross-border raid on an army post in which a 19-year-old Israeli soldier was captured. Its members also regularly fire rockets into southern Israel, something Israeli officials say must stop. Hospital officials put the two-day casualty toll at 11 dead and more than 170 wounded.
About 40 Marines came ashore in a Maronite Christian area in Lebanon just north of Beirut to help U.S. nationals board a landing craft and move to the USS Nashville, a warship looming offshore. The Ocean Queen, a cruise ship chartered by Washington, returned late in the day for a second load of Americans.
U.S. authorities in Beirut also used a bus convoy Thursday to evacuate 341 American citizens from battered southern Lebanon and moved approximately 2,250 people out of the country on helicopters and sea vessels, military and diplomatic officials said. The departures marked the largest group of U.S. citizens to leave Lebanon on a single day since Israeli airstrikes began.
Since Marine helicopters first began lifting people out of Beirut on Sunday, the United States has been able to transport more than 3,850 citizens to safety, said Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs.
The U.S. move to rescue those in the south, the most dangerous area of the country, was hailed by U.S. officials as "successful," but they also said there could be more people there they just don't yet know about. Harty said another evacuation from southern Lebanon was possible. She urged U.S. citizens trapped there to "continue to stand fast" and monitor Lebanese radio for updates.
Harty said the 341 citizens who were bused out of southern Lebanon were scheduled to board a cruise ship for Cyprus.
European and other governments also proceeded with evacuations of their nationals, most of them Lebanese with foreign passports who had returned for summer vacations. Officials estimated that more than 12,000 foreigners have been taken out of the country in the past three days.
The Israeli public, while so far largely supportive of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's war effort, has been generally less tolerant of ground operations since Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the bloody 18-year occupation that followed. Israel left southern Lebanon in May 2000.
Amos Yaron, a retired general who commanded the paratroop division that entered Beirut in 1982, said that "people make a lot of mistakes when they are drawing lessons" from the Lebanon invasion.
"We didn't have any problem entering Lebanon in 1982," Yaron said. "The problem was leaving it."
Yaron said he believes a ground operation might be necessary before the fighting ends. "At the end of the day," he said, "you have to take Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon. No one will do it for you."
Yagil Levy, a professor of public policy at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba and author of the "The Other Army of Israel," said most of Israel's senior commanders served as young officers during the 1982 invasion and the Hezbollah attacks that followed during the occupation.
He said the leadership is suffering "schizophrenia" from the lessons it learned from that experience. On the one hand, he said, military commanders understand "never to get involved in a war of attrition" that turns the Israeli public against it.
"But the opposite element is that some of these people carry with them a lot of frustration," Levy said. "For some of these officers, this operation now is something like unfinished business."

Evacuees Jam Into Cyprus, And More Are Coming
Friday, July 21, 2006
The New York Times
By Renwick McLean
The international airport here, normally brimming with vacationers this time of year, was jammed today with thousands of evacuees from Lebanon as American and European officials struggled to cope with the growing number of people who have been seeking refuge on the island over the last few days.
The mass evacuations are threatening to overwhelm Cyprus, which was already saturated with vacationers during peak tourist season. Officials from several governments said today that they expect the tide of evacuees to rise in the coming days as more and more ships arrive in the region to help transport people from Beirut, which lies about 150 miles to the east.
The bulk of the evacuations have been by sea. Several cruise ships with a capacity of more than 1,000 passengers have arrived at the port here since Monday, and many more are expected in the coming days. Military vessels and helicopters are also being used.
Many of the evacuees appear to be tourists rather than foreign residents of Lebanon. They have generally arrived in good health, many coming from the relatively safer areas in northern Lebanon rather than from the southern zone where much of the violence is occurring, according to interviews with evacuees and officials from numerous governments.
But some still told of narrow escapes. Christine Michael, a 37-year-old optometrist from Chicago who was vacationing in Lebanon with her family, said she felt fairly safe until a bomb exploded on Saturday two blocks from the resort in Jounieh where she was staying.
"We decided it was time to go," she said this morning, minutes after getting off a cruise ship contracted by the United States government to American ferry citizens to Cyprus. "We went to the basement to wait out the bombing," she said, and then sought refuge in the nearby Broumana mountains as they searched for a way out of Lebanon.
Her husband, John, a 43-year-old ophthalmologist, said he was frustrated with the information he received from the United States embassy in Beirut, which he said contradicted itself numerous times and left his family unsure about how to evacuate the country.
"We appreciate the effort," he said. "We're glad to be out. We're glad to be safe. But it wasn't very well-organized."
Several other passengers said they had a difficult time reaching United States embassy officials in Lebanon or expressed frustration with the pace of the evacuation.
Asked if he was satisfied with the American response, Ronald Schlicher, the United States ambassador to Cyprus, told reporters today that "there's no such thing as fast enough" when it comes to helping Americans in need. But he said that American officials "were doing the best they can in very chaotic circumstances."
Mr. Schlicher expressed his gratitude to the government of Cyprus for its "remarkable" efforts to help the United States and other countries evacuate their citizens from Lebanon. "It's a huge, huge strain on their resources," he said.
The foreign governments operating here have said they intend to transfer their citizens out of Cyprus as soon as possible, but many have had to stay overnight while waiting to catch chartered flights home.
With hotel space limited because it is high season for the island's tourism industry, the government of Cyprus has provided temporary housing at the state fair grounds in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. The building has 300 cots, but about 600 people are staying there tonight, according to American officials.
The United States embassy here says that it has evacuated more than 1,600 people from Lebanon to Cyprus so far. France has evacuated about 2,000, according to French government officials on the island.
But thousands more are expected in the days ahead. American officials estimate that an estimated 25,000 Americans were in Lebanon at the start of the conflict last week. They also say it is unclear how many of those Americans will choose to evacuate.
Asked how many Americans would be coming to Cyprus in the coming days, Mr. Schlicher said he expected "several thousand, maybe five, maybe six, maybe seven."
"We'll just have to wait and see," he added.
France, which has one of the largest communities of foreign nationals in Lebanon, also expected a surge in arrivals in the next few days, according to French Foreign Ministry officials in Cyprus.
Many of the evacuees appeared to have left Lebanon not because they were afraid for their safety now, but because they were concerned about what would happen if they stayed.
"We were afraid that if we didn't leave now, we wouldn't be able to," said Nabil N. El Hage, a professor of business at Harvard University, who had been vacationing with his family in Lebanon. "You can't tell how bad it's going to get."
Mr. El Hage, an American citizen of Lebanese descent, said that he was confident that Lebanon would recover from the destruction caused by the conflict, and he vowed to return soon.
"It's going to cost billions to rebuild," he said. "But they'll do it."

Plucked To Safety From Lebanon, American Evacuees Return And Lament The Destruction
Friday, July 21, 2006
The New York Times
By Gary Gately
A cheering planeload of Americans evacuated from Lebanon arrived here Thursday morning, giving thanks for their escape and pleading for an end to the bombing there.
Haggard and wearing clothes they had slept in, but otherwise healthy and in good spirits, many of the roughly 150 evacuees exulted and applauded when the government-chartered DC-10 touched down at Baltimore/Washington International Airport.
Some wept tears of joy; others, tears of sadness. Some had worried that they and their loved ones would never make it out of Lebanon alive, while others feared for the safety of kin and friends left behind.
"We lived through horror; I've seen little kids burned alive," said Tom Charara, 50, an aerospace engineer from Long Beach, Calif., who with his wife, Rola, and two young children went to visit ailing relatives in Beirut. "A country is being destroyed, people are being killed, and the whole world is watching."
The flight originated in Cyprus, which the evacuees reached by helicopter and plane, as well as on freighter journeys as long as 16 hours. But inside the arrival terminal, there was calm efficiency.
Barely over an hour after the passengers shuffled into the waiting area, most had left with family members or had boarded connecting flights to other American cities. Few relied on the waiting Red Cross workers, interpreters, health aides and counselors or the bank of computers that Maryland officials had set up for e-mail.
The State Department said Thursday morning that 2,600 American citizens had been evacuated and that more than 5,000 were hoping to leave. The Baltimore airport expected as many as eight more planeloads by Sunday, said Christopher J. McCabe, Maryland's secretary of human resources.
Thursday's homecoming was bittersweet for many evacuees.
David Merhige, a musician from the East Village in New York, had gone to Lebanon for a cousin's wedding, which ended up being moved north, then disrupted, because of bombing. "My trip started out amazing and beautiful, and it turned into a terrible atrocity," he said.
Mr. Merhige, 39, recalled sitting in the relative safety of the United States Embassy in Beirut on Wednesday, with fighter planes and gunboats nearby, shaking as he thought of family members who remained.
"I had pretty much uncontrollable fears," he said. "I don't cry that often, but I did when I thought of the craziness I left. It's just going to be a disaster over there."
Several evacuees called on Israel to stop bombing Lebanon.
Stephen McInerney, a student completing a master's degree in Middle Eastern studies at the American University in Beirut, said he had felt no danger to himself, but expressed horror at seeing so much of the city in flames and ruins.
"I felt more sadness in the past week than I ever have before in my entire life," Mr. McInerney said. "The atrocities going on in Lebanon are out of control and are unjustifiable and unwarranted."
Marion Brannon, a minister from North Carolina, had been working in Beirut for seven years, watching the city continue to rebuild and thrive. "Now our hearts cry out for these people," she said. "Please pray for the peace of Lebanon."
The Lebanese people, Ms. Brannon said, want America's help in ending the violence.
"When they hit a target," she said, "one woman came to me and said: 'Please call America. Please call America for us.' So they do view you as a nation that stands with them."
Mohamad Barbarji, of Williamsburg, Va., had taken his wife and three children to Beirut to visit his parents and other relatives. "We heard the jets coming, and I jumped out of my bed at 3 o'clock in the morning," Mr. Barbarji said. "And all of a sudden I heard nothing but explosions everywhere."
His 8-year-old son, Haidar, woke again and again that first night.
On Thursday morning, back home again, the little boy trembled and fought back tears.
"I was just wishing that Lebanon and Israel would be friends in peace and love," Haidar said. "I'm afraid for my grandparents there where there's a war."

In Scramble To Evade Israeli Bombs, The Living Leave The Dead Behind
Friday, July 21, 2006
The New York Times
By Hassan M. Fattah
TYRE, Lebanon, July 20 - Carpenters are running out of wood for coffins. Bodies are stacked three or four high in a truck at the local hospital morgue. The stench is spreading in the rubble.
The morbid reality of Israel's bombing campaign of the south is reaching almost every corner of this city. Just a few miles from the Rest House hotel, where the United Nations was evacuating civilians on Thursday, wild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village of Hosh, officials said.
Officials at the Tyre Government Hospital inside a local Palestinian refugee camp said they counted the bodies of 50 children among the 115 in the refrigerated truck in the morgue, though their count could not be independently confirmed.
Abdelmuhsin al-Husseini, Tyre's mayor, announced on Thursday that any bodies not claimed in the next two days by next of kin would be buried temporarily in a mass grave near the morgue until they could receive a proper burial once the fighting ends.
"I am asking the families, if they can come here, to claim the bodies," said Mr. Husseini, whose bloodshot eyes hinted at his mad scramble to secure food rations and bring some order to the city. "Otherwise, we have no choice but to bury them in mass graves."
With the roads and bridges to many surrounding villages bombed out, few families have come to the hospital to claim their dead.
Even if they could make the journey, they would fear being hit by airstrikes along the way, Mr. Husseini said. Emergency workers have been unwilling to brave the risk of recovering many bodies left along the road, leaving them to rot.
For those relatives who reach the morgue, conducting a proper burial is impossible while the bombing continues. Many have opted to leave the bodies at the morgue until the conflict ends.
The morgue has had to order more than 100 coffins with special handles to make it easier to remove them from the ground to be reburied later.
"What? He wants a hundred?" a local carpenter said, half shocked, half perplexed. "Where the hell am I going to get enough wood to build that many coffins?"
At the hospital, members of the medical staff now find themselves dealing with the dead more than saving the living.
"This hospital is working like a morgue more than a hospital," said Hala Hijazi, a volunteer whose mother is an anesthesiologist at the hospital. Lately, Ms. Hijazi said, she has begun to recognize some of the faces arriving here as the scale of the Israeli bombings has continued to widen. "A lot of the people are from Tyre, and we know some of them," she said of the bodies.
A pall overtook Tyre on Thursday, as United Nations peacekeepers loaded more than 600 United Nations employees, foreigners and Lebanese onto a ferry to Cyprus, then promptly packed up their makeshift evacuation center at the Rest House and left for their base in the town of Naqura.
Hundreds descended on the hotel on Wednesday, desperate to board the ferry. Despite fears that many would be left behind, almost all who sought refuge were able to board the ship Thursday.
But as the last United Nations peacekeepers left town on Thursday, those who remained braced for an even heavier bombardment.
For Ali and Ahmad al-Ghanam, brothers who have taken shelter in a home just a few blocks from the morgue, the refrigerated truck of dead bodies is a vivid reminder of the attack that killed 23 members of their family.
When Israeli loudspeakers warned villagers to evacuate the village of Marwaheen last Saturday, the families packed their belongings and headed for safety. More than 23 of them piled into a pickup and drove toward Tyre, with the brothers trailing behind. Another group set off for a nearby United Nations observation post, but were promptly turned away.
As the pickup raced to Tyre, Ali al-Ghanam said, Israeli boats shelled their convoy, hitting the car and injuring the women and children in the back. But within minutes an Israeli helicopter approached the car, firing a missile that blew the truck to pieces as the passengers struggled to jump out, he said.
His brother Mohammad, his wife and their six children, were killed instantly along with several of their relatives. The only survivor in the car was the brothers' 4-year-old niece, who survived with severe burns to much of her body.
"The dead stayed in the sun for hours until anyone could come and collect them," Mr. Ghanam said. "The Israelis can't understand that we are people, too. Should they wonder why so many of us support the resistance?" he said, speaking of Hezbollah.
The 23 bodies now lie in the truck, waiting to be buried. Mr. Ghanam said it would be impossible for them to be buried in their village while the bombing continued. Holding a funeral is impossible, but even digging a grave could attract fire, he said, assuming the remaining family were able to return to the village.
The brothers walked to the hospital on Thursday to sign documents allowing the hospital to bury the bodies in a mass grave.

Israel's Hezbollah Fight Bolsters Syria's Assad
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
By Philip Shishkin
DAMASCUS, Syria -- Israel's military campaign in Lebanon is further entrenching the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, capping a tumultuous year in which the leader consolidated control over the ruling party, cracked down on the opposition and was forced to end his country's occupation of Lebanon.
Now, Syria's long-term backing of the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah is translating into greater popular support for Mr. Assad, who since Israel's recent attacks began has cast himself as a wartime leader immune to internal criticism. That Israel is a sworn enemy of Syria is an opinion so widely held here that it is difficult for the country's opposition to attack Mr. Assad.
"The actions of Israel play an important role in creating more support for the [Syrian] regime," says Akram al-Binny, a longtime opposition activist who spent 17 years in jail. At a time when Syria faces serious economic problems at home -- unemployment and poverty are rising, while oil reserves are about to run dry -- the pro-Hezbollah foreign policy provides the regime with a convenient rallying cry to shore up support among citizens.
The Syrian government's hardening stance is a direct result of the country's growing isolation, analysts say. Mr. Assad appears to have concluded he has little option but to continue Syria's unflagging support for Hezbollah and its alliance with Iran -- the very agenda that the Bush administration has hoped to reverse.
Damascus's stance poses a regional security challenge because it has little incentive to alter its policies, while the West and Israel don't have any real leverage to encourage change here, barring a direct military intervention.
"When the external environment isn't friendly, you close up, you get worried, you don't take risks of reform," says Nabil Sukkar, a Damascus-based economic consultant and a former World Bank official.
Barely more than a year ago, it still seemed to many here that Mr. Assad's regime was vulnerable to pressure for gradual change. A United Nations report implicated senior Syrian officials in the murder of a prominent Lebanese leader. Although Syria denied the charges, the murder helped pave the way for an end of Syria's longtime military occupation of Lebanon. Inside Syria, several opposition groups publicly called for greater individual rights and more political openness.
But Mr. Assad's regime was moving in the opposite direction. Last summer, he reshuffled senior ranks of the ruling Baath Party, installing loyalists in key positions and reaffirming the party's central role in Syrian society, at a time when dissenters were hoping the party was prepared to relax its decades-long dominance of politics and the economy here.
In May, more than a hundred Syrian and Lebanese activists, seeing a narrow political opening, signed a petition calling on Syria to normalize its relations with Lebanon after the military withdrawal. Shortly afterward, several Syrian signatories were arrested, including Mr. al-Binny's brother Anwar, a human-rights lawyer who Mr. al-Binny says could face a long prison term for forming an illegal organization. The substance of the petition was far from radical; the activist says he suspects the arrests were calculated to deliver a message that even innocuous-looking appeals for change can result in harsh punishment.
Israel's attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon has rallied Syrian public opinion around the group and, by extension, around Mr. Assad, who took power in 2000 after the death of his father, longtime President Hafez Assad. "Even the opposition now believes in national unity; it's not the time to speak of our internal problems," says Mohammed al-Habash, a member of Syria's parliament who runs an Islamic-studies center and says he takes issue with the government's track record on human rights. Tens of thousands of Lebanese refugees with stories of violence and death have flooded Syria, straining the country's resources and feeding the enduring Syrian anger at Israel -- and at Washington.
Mr. Assad's support for Hezbollah, an extreme Shiite Islamist group, also serves another important domestic purpose -- stealing the thunder from Syria's own Islamist opposition, long a thorn in the side of the staunchly secular Baath party. Syria's Muslim Brotherhood -- belonging to which is punishable by death or life imprisonment -- enjoys some support in the deeply conservative parts of the country. In an effort to dilute support for any Islamist opposition, Mr. Assad's secular regime is keen to burnish its Islamist credentials. It has done so by trying to co-opt some Muslim leaders in Syria, giving them more freedom to operate, and by supporting Islamist movements abroad.
"The Syrian leaders have very good ties with foreign Islamists, and that gives them legitimacy at home," says Ibrahim Hamidi, the Damascus bureau chief of Al Hayat, a pan-Arab newspaper.
In recent days, telling posters started appearing on the streets of Damascus. On one half is Hassan Nasrallah, the bearded, turbaned Hezbollah leader. On the other half is Mr. Assad, wearing a smart suit and looking directly at Mr. Nasrallah. Even Mr. Assad's father, who also supported Hezbollah, never attempted such a vivid public linking of himself to the militant group's leaders, analysts say.
The younger Mr. Assad's foreign policy has essentially become domestic policy at a time when there are few positive developments at home to raise his popularity.
The state-dominated economy is stagnating, and the Baath party, after tentative steps of economic overhaul, appears to have slowed down the pace. The economy is dominated by inefficient industrial and agricultural production, while oil, which Syria has long used to finance its bloated public sector, could run out as early as 2008, presenting the government with serious economic problems, particularly among the restive, unemployed youth. "A potential crisis is around the corner, because of oil," says Mr. Sukkar, the economic consultant.

Fighting Force Amid Ties To Iran, Hezbollah Builds Its Own Identity
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
By Jay Solomon And Karby Leggett
Shiite Group's Leader Vows Defiance After Israeli Hit; A Gift for Propaganda 'Frighteningly Professional'
A day after Israel dropped 23 tons of explosives in an attempt to kill him, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared on al-Jazeera television yesterday and struck a defiant pose. "Hezbollah has absorbed your strike and retaken the initiative," he told Israelis, wagging a finger for emphasis. "We have more surprises to come."
The theatrical threat was a reminder that, for all of Hezbollah's allegiance to Iran, the Lebanese militant group is a force with its own strong identity in the region. Mr. Nasrallah has tried to build himself into an anti-Israel symbol in the Arab world, while sharpening Hezbollah's military discipline and spreading its tentacles in Lebanese society.
Hezbollah's dual nature -- as a suspected tool of Iran's regional ambitions and as a Lebanese group with its own charismatic leader -- complicates the search for a solution to the crisis in the Middle East. The crisis started when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Israel retaliated by carrying out bombing across Lebanon and slapping a naval blockade on the country.
Hezbollah's flag, a fist reaching toward an AK-47, is modeled after the symbol of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. And Hezbollah maintains an office on Tehran's premier boulevard. Israel and the U.S. are eager to crush the group as a means to limit Iran's own military capabilities. Many U.S. officials believe Tehran has been inciting Hezbollah to act against Israel as a way of discouraging Western efforts to contain its nuclear program.
Virtually all Lebanese politicians and analysts agree that the current crisis is unlikely to end without Iran's involvement. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly praised Hezbollah's latest moves to confront Israel. Until Iran actively calls for Hezbollah to lay down its arms, few Lebanese believe it will.
Yet Hezbollah's history has been a balancing act between its Iranian backers and its Lebanese identity. "Some people try to make it look like Hezbollah is a mere tool in the hands of the Iranians in Lebanon," says Aly al-Amine, a Lebanese political analyst. "The fact is that Hezbollah has its ideology and beliefs as well as internal discipline and secret security system."
From its start in the early 1980s, Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group, had a close association with the leaders of Shiite-dominated Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Lebanon's Shiite community is estimated to be around 40% of the nation's population. Shiites have long been at the bottom of the country's economic ladder, with high unemployment and illiteracy rates. Lebanon's Christian and Sunni classes have dominated the country's political and business circles.
Iran's financial aid and religious oversight in the 1980s helped galvanize Lebanon's Shiites. U.S. intelligence officials based in Beirut during the period say cadres from Iran's Revolutionary Guard encouraged women to wear the Islamic veil and inspired social groups and charities in Lebanon's Shiite slums. Young Lebanese Shiite men went to Iran for military training.
Hezbollah, which means "Party of God" in Arabic, was born in this milieu. Iranian leadership instilled impressive discipline among Hezbollah's ranks and a flair for the dramatic. One former Central Intelligence Agency chief in Lebanon said he was amazed by the sight of Hezbollah fighters walking in goose steps down a Beirut avenue. "It seemed pretty clear that they were just an extension" of the Revolutionary Guard, he said.
Hezbollah quickly became the leading force in combating Israeli and U.S. influence in the region. After U.S. Marines occupied Lebanon in an attempt to enforce a United Nations-sponsored peace agreement between warring Lebanese factions, Hezbollah carried out a string of kidnappings and suicide bombings against American targets in Beirut and elsewhere. In October 1983, a Hezbollah bomber killed more than 241 Marines in a suicide attack on the Americans' barracks in Beirut. It was the largest terrorist attack on U.S. citizens at that time.
The ringleader of these and subsequent attacks, say U.S. and Israeli officials, is Hezbollah's chief military official, Imad Mugniyah. A former bodyguard for the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Mr. Mugniyah had been an engineering student at the American University in Beirut. He is at the top of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most-wanted terrorist list, with a $5 million bounty on his head.
Over the years, Hezbollah worked to develop its own identity and become part of Lebanon's social fabric. In the south, for example, the group provides its social services to significant numbers of Christians and Druze Lebanese. Last year, after Syria decided to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, elected Hezbollah politicians joined Lebanon's ruling coalition government for the first time. That forced the movement to focus more energy on Lebanese issues.
Leading the Push
The man who has led this push, say Lebanese politicians and analysts, has been the 46-year-old Mr. Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary general. He took control of Hezbollah in 1992, following the assassination of its previous leader, Abbas al-Musawi. Mr. Nasrallah wears glasses and a black turban and sports a salt-and-pepper beard.
Originally a member of a largely secular Shiite party, Mr. Nasrallah took a more Islamist outlook under Iranian influence, say people who have met him. He studied for three years at a Shiite seminary in the Iraqi city of Najaf.
Upon his return, he gained the respect of many Hezbollah fighters by spending significant time at the Israeli front, these people say. Mr. Nasrallah's own son was killed fighting against Israel, sealing Mr. Nasrallah's reputation as a man willing to sacrifice for his cause. He was held in even higher esteem when, upon viewing the bodies of the dead fighters, he didn't linger any longer over his own son's body than over the others.
One of Mr. Nasrallah's first changes as a Hezbollah leader was to separate its military and political arms, say those who worked with him. During the 1980s, Hezbollah fighters were often massacred in firefights with Israelis, say Lebanese military analysts, provoking concerns that politicians, intentionally or inadvertently, were tipping off the Israeli army. Today, the organization's military officers report only to Mr. Nasrallah among Hezbollah's Shura Council, its organizing body.
"Hezbollah is probably the best-organized group in the entire Middle East," says Fouad Hamdan, a Lebanese democracy activist and Hezbollah critic who now lives in Europe. "They are frighteningly professional."
Mr. Nasrallah also vowed to retaliate for every Israeli attack. Hezbollah began flying unarmed drones over Israel in response to the constant buzzing of Israeli jets and predator drones. One person who knows Mr. Nasrallah says the leader sought to make the drone as noisy as possible in an attempt to unnerve Israeli citizens, even though he knew it had limited military potential.
Hezbollah's secretary general is also described as a skillful propagandist. In recent years, al-Manar, Hezbollah's television network, has taken to dispatching reporters on military operations, filming battles and the slaying of Israeli military personnel. The goal is to galvanize support for Hezbollah among Palestinian and other Arab groups. The U.S. has blacklisted the channel as a terrorist organization and sought to block its advertising and signal.
"Al-Manar is Nasrallah's baby and has been very effective in the propaganda war," says Timur Goksel, a former spokesman for the U.N. in southern Lebanon. For Hezbollah's opponents, he says "it can be very demoralizing."
Even as Mr. Nasrallah has developed Hezbollah into an independent force, he has also deepened its ties with Iran. U.S. and Israeli officials say a steady stream of Iranian military hardware flows to Hezbollah through Syria -- including night-vision goggles, machine guns, explosives, rockets and missiles. These officials say Iran has also supplied a long-range guided missile known as the Zelzal, which military experts believe can reach Tel Aviv from Lebanon.
In all, Iran is estimated by some military analysts to provide Hezbollah as much as $120 million a year for its activities. Hezbollah's annual budget is estimated to be at least $250 million, experts on the group say. Revolutionary Guard agents continue to train Hezbollah fighters, both in southern Lebanon and in Iran itself, U.S. and Israeli officials say. Iran denies it has agents in Lebanon, as does Hezbollah.
As Shiites, Iranian and Hezbollah leaders share a common view of history, seeing their sect as a victim of mistreatment at the hands of Sunni Muslims, European colonialists, and today Israel and America.
Beyond Weapons
Iran's support for Hezbollah goes beyond weapons. In Hermel, a city in the northern stretch of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Iranian money helped Hezbollah set up an organic farm. Sitting in his office on a recent day, Hussein Kansoh extolled the virtues of Hezbollah's construction arm and the support it gets from Iran. Behind him was a picture of Iran's top cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "We have big plans for the future," he said.
Some say Hezbollah may have overstepped by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers -- a gambit that almost certainly was carried out with Iran's approval. Lebanon's prime minister, Fuad Siniora, has repeatedly criticized Hezbollah for threatening his country's economic and political future by unilaterally plunging Lebanon into a war with Israel. Many Sunni-majority nations that are wary of Iran's growing power, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are actively supporting the push by the U.S. and Israel to completely disarm Hezbollah.
Hezbollah runs the risk of depleting its military as it uses up its missile stocks and suffers the daily Israeli barrage. "Hezbollah might have been surprised by the Israeli response, or it might have been tricked into believing that other regional forces would join the war," said Mr. al-Amine, the political analyst.
But in yesterday's pretaped interview on al-Jazeera, which the Arab satellite channel said was conducted amid heavy security, Mr. Nasrallah said Hezbollah is well-prepared to keep fighting. He specifically mentioned the amount of explosives that Israel dropped on a Hezbollah compound on Wednesday, apparently trying to prove he survived the strike. Mocking Israel, he said: "Even if the whole universe comes, they will not be able to take back your two soldiers."
Mr. Nasrallah called again for a prisoner swap with Israel, which holds some Hezbollah fighters in its jails. Appealing for Muslim support, he said a defeat for Hezbollah will be "a defeat for the entire Islamic nation." His comments came as Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas were engaged in a fierce firefight about one mile inside southern Lebanon. At least two Israeli soldiers were killed as well as several Hezbollah fighters.
As a tight-knit guerrilla organization in an increasingly weak state, Hezbollah may be better-prepared to endure the Israeli onslaught than Lebanon's mainstream parties and organizations, say Lebanese analysts. Hezbollah is trying to position itself as the principal guarantor of Lebanese sovereignty.
"Israel has not been able to undermine Hezbollah's military capabilities...because the resistance has no fixed bases or bunkers," said Nawar Saheli, a Hezbollah lawmaker. "It fights in a way that the Israeli enemy fails to fathom."

Mariam Fam in Beirut, Lebanon contributed to this article.
Israelis Warned Of Extended Fighting
Friday, July 21, 2006
Financial Times
By Harvey Morris And Sharmila Devi
As Hizbollah rockets continued to fall across northern Israel Thursday, Dan Halutz, the Israeli chief of staff, warned his troops the fighting in Lebanon might continue for "an extended period of time".
A number of government ministers meanwhile made the two-hour drive to Haifa and points north, targets of more than a week of rocket attacks, to help sustain morale among more than 1m Israelis in the firing line.
Although a government spokesperson on Thursday referred to "wall-to-wall backing" for the military offensive against Lebanon, there was concern about the domestic impact of a prolonged conflict or a large commitment of ground forces.
"Going inside, with large forces, mainly tanks, is liable to break this fragile consensus," Effi Eitam, a parliamentarian and former wartime commander, told Israel Radio.Diplomatic pressure to halt the violence was also seen as a constraint on Israel's military campaign. Acknowledging extensive international activity surrounding the crisis, Amir Peretz, defence minister, said on a visit to the north: "If the conclusion is a diplomatic one, we will demand all the guarantees to ensure we won't return to the situation we were in on the eve of this operation."
Gen Halutz gave no timetable in his letter to the Israeli armed forces but other military officials said it would require up to two more weeks to crush Hizbollah or at least drive it out of south Lebanon.
Coupling events in Lebanon with the army's continuing offensive in the Palestinian territories, Gen Halutz said: "The terrorist groups misread the map and misinterpreted the resolve of Israeli society and the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces]."
However, nine days into the conflict, the campaign is going slower than expected by some Israelis and there has been little let-up in the bombardment on communities in the north. They suffered the worst barrages on Wednesday in spite of Israeli claims to have destroyed half of Hizbollah's military capability.
Hizbollah on Thursday fired more than 20 missiles into northern Israel.
Israel kept up its Palestinian offensive, with one person killed during clashes and another in an air strike in the Gaza Strip.

Annan Blames Both Israel And Hizbollah
Friday, July 21, 2006
Financial Times
By Mark Turner And Guy Dinmore
Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, on Thursday warned the Security Council there were significant obstacles to any quick end to the violence in the Middle East, but urged it to demand an immediate end of hostilities to save lives, send aid and to allow space for diplomacy.
In a speech that blamed the Islamist movement Hizbollah for triggering the crisis but also condemned Israel's "excessive" reaction, Mr Annan laid out a formula for a lasting ceasefire and revival of the peace process.
His package included the release of abducted Israeli soldiers, an expanded peacekeeping force, urgent aid and reconstruction measures, and an international conference to set timelines for the restoration of full Lebanese sovereignty and dismantling militia.
Mr Annan had tough words for both Hizbollah and Israel. "Whatever other agendas they may serve, Hizbollah's actions, which it portrays as defending Palestinian and Lebanese interests, in fact do neither," he said. "On the contrary, they hold an entire nation hostage."
But while reaffirming Israel's right to self-defence, Mr Annan condemned its disproportionate reaction: "Whatever damage Israel's operations may be doing to Hizbollah's military capabilities, they are doing nothing to decrease popular support for Hizbollah in Lebanon or the region, but are doing a great deal to weaken the government of Lebanon."
Dan Gillerman, Israel's UN ambassador, claimed that "three key elements of this crisis – terrorism, Iran and Syria" were not addressed in Mr Annan's speech.
"The first thing that must be addressed is cessation of terror, before we can talk about a cessation of hostilities," he said. "Diplomacy can play a part only after terror has been taken care of."
John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, insisted any solution would need to "fundamentally change the realities of the region", but added: "No one has explained how you conduct a ceasefire with a group of terrorists." Nouhad Mahmoud, Lebanon's envoy, described Mr Annan's calls as "the voice of reason. Our first impression is very positive."
Mr Annan said that even while hostilities continued, it was "imperative" to establish safe humanitarian corridors. "The humanitarian task facing us is massive and must be funded urgently," he said.
He also urged a peace track for Gaza, where Palestinians were "suffering deeply", and where he noted that a million people were without electricity after Israel's destruction of the Gaza power plant.
"I call for an immediate cessation of indiscriminate and disproportionate violence and a reopening of closed crossing-points, without which Gaza will continue to be sucked into a downward spiral of suffering and chaos, and the region further inflamed."
Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, were due to meet Mr Annan on Thursday night.

Bunker Strike Failed, Says Hizbollah
Friday, July 21, 2006
Financial Times
By Ferry Biedermann
The leader of Lebanon's Hizbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, emerged Thursday night from hiding to deny that the command structure of his group had been damaged by an Israeli attack earlier in the day.
Speaking on the Arab satellite television station al-Jazeera, the Hizbollah leader said that a massive Israeli strike on one of Beirut's southern suburbs, using more than 20 tons of explosives, had not hit its intended target. "I can confirm, without exaggerating or using psychological warfare, that we have not been harmed," he said.
The Shia fundamentalist group earlier took reporters on a visit to its devastated stronghold of Haret Hreik in south Beirut but did not provide access to the adjacent neighbourhood where Israel said it targeted a "leadership bunker".
In his interview, Mr Nasrallah ridiculed Israeli claims that it was making headway in its attacks on the military structure of the movement. "All this Israeli talk that they hit 50 per cent of our rocket capabilities and warehouses, this talk is all wrong and nonsense."
A Lebanese military expert also said he doubted that Israel had made much headway against the group. "Hizbollah has no visible personnel infrastructure on the ground. They are organised in cells, they look like civilians, they move fast and they are trained to hide," he said.
As for the missiles, the expert, a former Lebanese army officer who wished to remain unnamed, said the longest range rockets were buried in the south and in the eastern Bekaa valley, "so deep that bombs cannot reach them and guarded by suicide commandos".
The Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Beirut, where many Hizbollah offices were located, has been changed beyond recognition by the bombardments over the past nine days.
The damage was not limited to the intended targets – most of those were destroyed – but the explosions also caused heavy damage to surrounding buildings, with whole facades blown out.
Documents and visiting cards bearing the Hizbollah logo are mixed in with the gravel, twisted metal and splintered wood that litter the roads. Pictures from people's family albums, showing children playing, weddings and graduation ceremonies, flutter around.
One couple fled the deserted neighbourhood when the impact of more bombs could be heard in the distance. "We escaped after the first day and just came back to see how our house is doing," the husband said. "It's not there any more."
In the south, Hizbollah fighters were engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli soldiers on the border for a second day. The group's spokesman in Beirut said this showed that Israeli claims that only military targets were hit were clearly wrong. "We have no fighters here in Beirut, they are all in the south, on the front."
Thousands of foreign nationals continued to leave as evacuation efforts were stepped up. Many Lebanese who have to stay behind voiced concern that Israel would step up its attacks once foreigners had left.
On the edge of the bombed-out southern neighbourhoods of Beirut, some Hizbollah supporters have remained. One expressed his pride in the movement. "We are only a small group standing up to a mighty nation. I hope that they will come in with ground troops so that we can face them."
The Hizbollah supporters seemed to take the destruction in their stride.
"Lebanon will survive and will be stronger and more united because of the war," said one young man. He considered all the destruction a price worth paying for the capture of the Israeli soldiers who were meant to be exchanged for Lebanese prisoners in Israel

Israel Presses Hizbullah As Lebanese Flee
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Christian Science Monitor
By Joshua Mitnick And Nicholas Blanford
KIBBUTZ HANITA, ISRAEL AND TYRE, LEBANON
Israel continued its precision incursion Thursday over the border into Lebanon as the army seeks to destroy the Hizbullah bunkers and lookout posts that have been used to infiltrate Israel.
Israeli artillery cannons thundered and white plumes of smoke rose up from southern Lebanon as Israeli combat engineers and armored vehicles moved against Hizbullah positions.
After Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, the Shiite militia unfurled yellow flags over outposts in sight of Israel's border.
By the end of this round of fighting, Israel wants to ensure that the network of positions that allowed a proxy of Iran to peer over the border and collect intelligence is leveled.
"We need to be in a situation that there won't be any Hizbullah infrastructure near the border," says Reserve Gen. Yakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli army's planning division. "If we don't take care of it now Hizbullah can return and say they never left."
The general speculated that Israel would have to clear positions six miles north of the border.
Israeli media reported Thursday that Israel's army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said the offensive against Hizbullah will probably last a long time. And in an apparent attempt to counter the impression that Israel's government is reluctant to launch an invasion of Lebanon, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said there would be no constraints placed on the military.
"If they are hitting us from inside Lebanese territory, we will do everything necessary," he said. "It is entirely clear that we intend to settle the battle decisively.
One security official said Wednesday that a security buffer zone is being created that would "be clean of Hizbullah."
The Israeli army is moving in special forces to clear the area of mines before bringing in bulldozers "to flatten the area and remove any sign of Hizbullah outposts and even trees so that Hizbullah can't enter again," he said.
There is a reluctance in Israel to repeat the sweeping invasion in Lebanon in 1982 because many are concerned about the lack of an exit strategy. But many believe that Israel's achievement so far will be unfinished if there is no significantly stepped-up ground offensive. "We can't only do it from the air, that's too small," said General Amidror.
Deeper into southern Lebanon, Israeli units are believed to be moving against Hizbullah, who have fired more than 1,000 rockets into northern Israel over the past week, according to Israeli media reports.
"This is a minor operation. We are not talking about moving into and cleaning up southern Lebanon," says Shmuel Bar, a Middle East expert at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, a private university outside Tel Aviv.
In Lebanon's south, some 850 foreign nationals and Lebanese UN employees evacuated Tyre Thursday by sea. Their departure came shortly after Israel warned all residents to move north of the Litani River, about 25 miles from the border with Israel.
With Hizbullah showing little sign of breaking, some see Israel's ultimatum as suggesting that its week-long onslaught against south Lebanon, which has claimed at least 300 civilian lives, could indeed strengthen.
"The foreigners have gone and that means the war will really begin now," says Hassan Bazzi, a port worker.
Hundreds of people crammed into vehicles to undertake the perilous trip northward. Normally a city of 100,000, up to 80 percent of residents have left.
Thursday was calmer than previous days. But for Hassan Fawaz, it was the eighth day he had spent trapped with 25 people in a basement near Tibnine, 12 miles south east of Tyre.
"We are very, very scared," says Mr. Fawaz, a translator with the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon (UNIFIL), speaking over a cellphone. "The UN says we should stay where we are, but we have been hearing the sounds of bombing 24 hours a day since it began," he says. "We are praying all the time. Pray for us, too."UN officials estimate that about 60 percent of the population south of the Litani, which swells to about 290,000 in the summer, has already fled north.
Tyre Mayor Abdul Mohsen al-Husseini is struggling to cope with a humanitarian disaster. Some 20,000 people have fled their villages for the relative safety of the city, which has suffered only one air strike so far. "My house was destroyed two days ago," says Akhlas Jaber who had just arrived from Qana. She points to some of her children. "Are these fighters?" she asks angrily. "Is that baby a fighter? None of the fighters are dead, only the women, children, and sheikhs."
Further north, in Beirut, the city was constructing makeshift shelters and people slept in doorways and parks. The number of people who have fled homes has reached 400,000 to 600,000 people, says Asma Andraos of the newly formed governmental Higher Relief Council.
More than 100 public schools have opened their doors, but they are short on supplies. There are few showers or toilets. Most of the inhabitants are women and children who have only what could carry.
"This is the biggest crisis Lebanon has ever faced. When you have a population of 4 million and half a million are displaced, that's a catastrophe," she says.
Most of the displaced come from the south or the devastated southern suburbs of Beirut. Exact numbers are hard to come by. But "it's rising by the day. Thursday 10,000 people turned up at the schools," Mr. Andraos says.
Ali Makki, an IT consultant who volunteers for the Higher Relief Council, said he had fielded heart-breaking calls on Wednesday. One man called asking for food and mattresses because he had taken in two families. "He said, 'I had only $10 in my pocket, and now I don't have anything. But I gave these people somewhere to sleep and I can't ask them to leave,' " says Mr. Makki. He was put on a waiting list at the overwhelmed center.

Can Force Fell Hizbullah?
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Christian Science Monitor
By Howard Lafranchi
WASHINGTON
As Israel continues to strike inside Lebanon in a bid to rout Hizbullah, the radical Islamist group is using two weapons to wage war: rockets and, more effective, TV images of civilian destruction inflicted by Israeli bombs.
The latter "weapon," broadcast over the Hizbullah-run TV station Al Manar to pump up Arab sympathies, may in the end be more powerful than Israel's military punch - a counterpunch to Israel's assertion it can crush Hizbullah through use of force.
Though Israel has eroded the militant group's ability to inflict harm, Hizbullah may in fact be pleased with the results of the violent crisis it touched off over a week ago. Its position in the area - as a service-provider in a longtime stateless zone and as a vent for Arab anger and disappointment over dashed economic and political hopes - remains secure, many experts say.
Under this scenario, analysts add, Hizbullah is here to stay - at least for the indefinite future.
Military force, no matter how overwhelming, simply can't be counted on to crush the militants, they say. It might even be what they want.
"Since many terrorist groups are caught up in notions of cosmic war - grand struggles of religious dimensions - they in fact welcome overt warfare since it vindicates their views of the war, a war whose timelines are very long," says Mark Juergensmeyer, a specialist in "new terrorism" at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who visited Lebanon just before bombs began to fall. "A siege is exactly what they want - it keeps them motivated."
Military force has successfully eradicated radical groups in the past, but under very different circumstances. The Maoist Shining Path organization that dominated and terrorized parts of Peru in the 1980s was finally obliterated by relentless search-and-destroy missions and long-term imprisonment of leaders.
But perhaps the key factor was not the military campaign but the evolution of South America. Shining Path was doomed by the waning of radical thinking in a decreasingly ideological region.
That is not the case in the Middle East, where radical Islam, religious nationalism, and "jihadism" are on the rise - witness the electoral victory of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hizbullah's rise through elections to a minority role in the Lebanese government, and the tenacious popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
"Hizbullah is particularly deep-rooted, and the Hamas government [in the Palestinian territories] is a fixture for some time to come, so they have to be seen as factors that are here to stay, at least for the medium to long term," says Mahan Abedin, an expert in radical Islamic groups at the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence in London.
What Israel can accomplish through its military campaign, others say, is a weakening of Hizbullah's ability to strike Israeli territory with missiles and rockets. But even that effort, they add, comes with collateral risks.
"Can Israel considerably reduce the threat posed by Hizbullah as a paramilitary group? That it can probably do," says Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. in Arlington, Va. "But will Israel be able to destroy Hizbullah in terms of its identity, the determination of its leadership, the devotion of its followers, and their dedication to continuing the struggle? No, that's not realistic."
The US has some experience with that reality in its pursuit of Al Qaeda, he says. While cautioning against "lumping together" radical Islamic groups, Jenkins says the US has made progress in undermining Al Qaeda's operational capabilities. On the other hand, he cautions, the US has been less successful at reducing the appeal of Al Qaeda's message, which "continues to radicalize and deepen the zeal of large numbers of young Islamic men."
Turning to the US experience in Iraq, Jenkins sees a trajectory that mirrors Israel's. "There is no military challenge in Iraq that can defeat us," he says. "But has our presence reduced a radicalization of parts of the population or pacified the country? No it hasn't."
Even if Israel destroys 80 percent of Hizbullah's arsenal - estimated at more than 12,000 rockets - the supply could be replenished within four months, says Mr. Abedin. Iran, Hizbullah's chief supplier, is capable of manufacturing 10,000 rockets a month of the types Hizbullah is using, he says. "The best Israel may be able to achieve is to make it more difficult for Hizbullah to receive the armament and use it in the future."
Beyond that, Israel's aim is to "impose on the region its military hegemony, and to impress its enemies," Abedin says. "It's showing Iran it is capable of this kind of sustained military campaign."
That will not reduce the long-term threat from the Islamist movement opposing Israel, he says. "Whenever the Israelis use disproportionate force they strengthen their enemies and rally popular support [for them]. The fact Israel hasn't learned this lesson," he adds, "is quite extraordinary."
Jenkins, who has a military background, sees the same dilemma posed by short-term necessities and long-term interests. "Right now, Israel's primary obligation is to end the barrage of rockets and mortars coming into its territory," he says. "But they should also understand that accomplishing that will not do much to advance - and can even complicate - what is, after all, a long-term political fight."
For countries facing this challenge, a priority is "to broaden strategies to be far more effective at political warfare," says Jenkins. In some cases "negotiations are in order," he says, noting that the British negotiated with the IRA and the Spanish with the radical Basque group ETA. The Iraqi government is signalling its willingness to talk with part of the insurgency (the more traditionally political opposition, not the Al Qaeda-inspired forces).
In the long run, military campaigns won't be the answer, most analysts agree. "There may be military battles that have to be fought," says Jenkins, "but the real answer is to focus more on how to diminish the appeal of the radical message."

Fleeing Home For A Haven
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Los Angeles Times
By Vita Bekker And Ken Ellingwood, Special To The Times
Many northern Israelis head south to escape the rockets, leaving behind towns almost abandoned, but taking the fear with them.
HOLON, Israel - Dror and Alexandra Brami finally decided they had had enough.
The echoing booms of landing rockets fired by the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah had left 8-year-old daughter Lotem jumpy and begging to leave. The Bramis were fed up with huddling with their two daughters and newborn son in a windowless reinforced "safe room" in their home.
And they were dismayed to see that the forest around their small hillside community of Hatzor Haglilit, in the Galilee region about 12 miles from the border with Lebanon, had been scorched by rocket-ignited fires.
So the couple crammed the family and belongings into their car - bringing clothes, money, mattresses and diapers - and headed south to seek a rocket-free haven in Holon, a small industrial city just south of Tel Aviv.
"We're afraid of the rockets," Dror Brami, 35, a plaster factory worker, said as he sprawled on an armchair in his brother's apartment in Holon.
Lotem shyly recollected, "We heard booms, and the house shook after one boom, and we saw fire after a rocket fell."
"We won't go back until the situation calms down," her father said. "Here in Israel's center, you don't feel the war yet."
Thousands of northern Israel families like the Bramis have fled the rocket barrages since the conflict flared after Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a July 12 border raid.
Throughout cities and small communities in the north, streets have been deserted, stores and businesses have closed and trains stopped running.
In Hatzor, as many as half of the 10,000 residents have left. As many as 30 rockets have slammed into the community, which had last experienced shelling during the Six-Day War in 1967.
The exodus from the north has lent the normally scenic region an otherworldly feel. Most towns have all but closed, and there are few signs of the residents. In some places, the only vehicles on the roads are military trucks loaded with artillery rounds and other gear. Restaurants that would usually be brimming with summertime travelers have the forlorn look of the abandoned.
The eerie silence is broken only by alarms warning of an impending rocket strike.
Residents are growing weary of clambering into reinforced public shelters, or ducking behind the nearest sturdy-looking wall.
On one recent day at a hummus restaurant in Rosh Pina, employees went scrambling for a safe spot behind the eatery - in the direction away from the border. An Israeli soldier continued eating intently despite the siren. He was still dabbing at his bowl of hummus with pita bread after the alert had ended and the employees had returned to their places.
Many residents appeared to have left the town, near Hatzor. But the sudden exodus has not been without complications.
As those escaping the rockets join relatives in central and southern Israel, they - and their hosts - are learning to cope with the lack of privacy in the crammed homes.
Twelve people are occupying the two-bedroom apartment of Brami's brother, including Brami's parents, who had also come south to escape the rockets.
Daytime has the house buzzing with activity. The soft hum of the air conditioner is drowned out by the noise of the children as they shout and play and the television as it blares 24-hour news coverage of the conflict.
At night, the adults sleep on sofas or spread out air mattresses on the living room floor, while the four children share two small beds in one of the rooms.
"It's not the most comfortable situation," said Sarit Brami, who was playing host to her relatives from the north.
She sat cross-legged on the living room floor and cradled her sleeping baby in her arms, as the muted television behind her showed images of the rockets and of Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
"No one gets any privacy, and the children run around and don't listen to anyone," she said.
Even in safer surroundings, the family could feel the effects of the fighting it fled. A loud thud from a garbage truck one morning made Lotem jump in fear, thinking it was a rocket strike.
And despite Holon's remove from the rocket fire, there was worry the barrages would soon reach the center of Israel as well.
Sarit Brami said she was concerned that the Israeli army might not achieve its goals in its fight against Hezbollah.
"I support the government, but I'm angry at the lack of results," she said. "The kidnapped soldiers haven't been returned. People are getting killed. And with every passing day, I feel like the rockets are getting closer."
Special correspondent Bekker reported from Holon and Times staff writer Ellingwood from northern Israel.

Angry Words From Those Left Waiting
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Los Angeles Times
By J. Michael Kennedy
Sherrie Saadi, her face reddened by frustration and a day in the sultry Lebanese heat, didn't know where she would go for the night Thursday after American Embassy personnel turned her away and said she would have to return in the morning.
Along with her two daughters, the San Antonio nurse had been told only minutes before that the evacuation ship was full. All she had to show for more than nine hours of waiting was a sheet of greem paper that purportedly guaranteed her and her daughters a place at the head of the line when she returned. She couldn't imagine another day like the one she'd just been through.
"There were people who were fainting and passing out all over the place," she said bitterly. "We're the biggest country in the world and we can't do anything right."
Saadi, who was visiting her husband's family in the southern port city of Sidon when the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants broke out, was not alone in her frustration. Hundreds of people were turned back Thursday as the United States and other countries tried to get a grip on the huge task of evacuating thousands of people from Lebanon in the face of ongoing Israeli airstrikes.
As part of that effort, about 40 U.S. Marines went ashore on landing craft Thursday morning to help with the evacuation of Americans. Early Thursday, a cruise ship, the Orient Queen, arrived in Cyprus from Beirut with 1,066 American evacuees aboard. About one-third of them had been bused to Beirut from southern Lebanon in a convoy, the State Department said. Later Thursday, the U.S. warship Nashville sailed from Beirut after taking on about 1,000 passengers.
But for those left behind, it was a day in which they stood in line with crying children, confusing instructions, short-tempered rescue coordinators and what little food they had brought themselves.
By day's end, when told they had to leave and come back in the morning, those who didn't make the cut complained that they had been packed together in the heat and treated poorly. They also said the U.S. Embassy had been virtually impossible to reach by phone for days.
Compounding the frustration was the knowledge that they didn't have much choice, because the only other way out of Lebanon was through Syria, along a road the Israelis had bombed. And Syria, which supports Hezbollah in its attacks on Israel, wasn't an attractive option.
"Look at her," said vacationing American restaurateur Jerry Jrab, pointing to his wife's blond hair. "I'm not going to take her to Syria. And she just wouldn't go anyway."
He and his wife, Angela, were angry over what they viewed as sloppy work by the embassy. They also were given a voucher and told to return at 7 a.m. with their two children.
"There's going to be 10,000 people here tomorrow," Jrab said, standing a few feet from the barbed wire barrier that marked the beginning of the line. "Right now we're the first of 10,000. She doesn't want to leave. She wants to stay here all night."
Sue Mansour of Clearwater, Fla., who waited in line all day with her three sons, had been vacationing with relatives in the mountains south of Beirut before deciding to join the evacuation.
"We were told this is the safest and that we would be helped by the Americans, but that's not what happened," she said. "We were treated like animals."
She said her 9-year-old son, Randy, passed out during the afternoon and had to be treated by first aid workers. Embassy officials were rude, she said, and simply left the area when they ran out of the vouchers.
"He turned his back and he left us," she said of one official. "People who came last went first. Something has to be done."
By shortly after 5 p.m., most of the stranded Americans had found a way to leave for the night. Sherrie Saadi was eager to get to a hotel so she could treat her 4-year-old daughter's asthma. Saadi had joined forces with another evacuee, Susan Kraydiech, who speaks Arabic.
"This is just humiliating," Kraydiech said. She also said she would be in line again at 5 a.m.
As for Jerry and Angela Jrab, their children had been taken to a relative's home after the day of waiting. The parents sat on a curb next to the barbed wire as the crowd thinned to almost nothing. Jrab said the uncertainty of it all was one of the worst things about the waiting.
"We need to know what we're going to do," he said. "If the Americans aren't going to help, we'll find our own way out. But we need to know."
Times staff writer Johanna Neuman in Washington contributed to this report.

Fleeing For Their Lives Into The Grim Unknown
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Los Angeles Times
By Megan K. Stack, Times Staff Writer
TYRE, Lebanon - The orders from Israel spread at dawn Thursday by radio, leaflet and menacing cellphone text messages: All civilians south of the Litani River should clear out immediately or risk death.
Panicked by the evacuation order, families packed into cars and poured north on a tortuous route of one-lane dirt roads and bomb-pocked highways. Smoke boiled into the sky over the treetops as bombs rumbled in the hills. Jets sliced the sky overhead. As they sped past abandoned cars, they glimpsed corpses seated inside.
Many rode with their hearts in their mouths, faces hard with fear and fatigue. They tied strips of white cloth to antennas and waved white rags and undershirts out of windows as if they could flag away death. They convoyed with neighbors; one family had carefully packed a black and white cow into the bed of a pickup.
When they hit the main coastal highway and found themselves exposed to the sky and a flat blue stretch of sea, they gunned it as fast as their rusting cars could go. They were trying to outrace their fears, terrified that stopping for a moment would invite a strike from above.
Craters the size of minivans gaped in the road. Eerie quiet had settled over the hillside villages, where houses stood shuttered in the shade of orange and pomegranate trees. The sea was ominously empty.
Many didn't know where they were going or when they'd return. Having endured death and destruction for more than a week in the crossfire of Hezbollah and Israel, the last holdouts in the 20-mile strip between Israel and the river were being forced from their homes.
Asked where she was going, 65-year-old Zakiya Aour burst into tears. "Wherever we can," she said. Her 80-year-old husband had just undergone surgery and was still bleeding, she said. He sat on a bench and leaned dazedly against a walking stick, his eyes glassy.
The couple had arrived at a hotel lobby in Tyre with a small mountain of much-used luggage, a pet bird in a bright red cage and a grown daughter who was deafened in an Israeli missile attack in the invasion of 1982.
"I've heard people say that if the foreigners leave, get out because they're going to attack," Aour said. "Can't you do something for us?"
The displaced, who are washing up here with their elderly and babies in tow, spoke of villages besieged for days while missiles crashed down. Many seemed too dazed and exhausted to form articulate escape plans or think through the dangers they faced.
Civil structure appears to have broken down almost completely. Ambulances haven't been able to operate. The dead are rotting in the rubble of smashed homes. Food and clean drinking water are running out. Nearly 100 bodies have piled up in a poorly refrigerated container at a hospital in a Palestinian refugee camp close to Tyre; there's too much violence to pick up the dead or to hold funerals.
How the evacuation messages were transmitted en masse to cellphones was not clear. The order also was repeated on Voice of the South, an Israeli-run radio station that had gone silent after Israeli soldiers withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 - only to be resurrected last week as combat flared between Israel and the Hezbollah militants who control Lebanon's southern borderlands.
Asked about the evacuation orders, an Israeli military spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal, warned that "it's for their overall safety not to be there."
Townspeople and villagers who stayed behind braced themselves for a heavier onslaught of bombing and traded guesses about how many troops Israel might send to fight a ground war - and how far north they would come.
Whatever befalls the south, there are plenty of civilians left to endure it. Many lack the cash or wherewithal to evacuate. They have nowhere to go - and no roads or bridges to get them there if they did.
"We're going to sleep in the streets. Where can we go?" said Jihad Daoud, a 22-year-old who was stranded with his two cousins in a hospital in Tyre. The family had been driving through a fruit orchard, looking for a path to the main coastal highway north, when a missile struck so close to their car that the force lifted it into the air and slammed it to earth again.
At his side, his two cousins looked on miserably. Their faces bore deep purple bruises and raw cuts from the strike. Other family members had already been evacuated to Beirut by the Red Cross, snatched from the south by the questionable grace of serious injuries.
"I'm still in shock," Daoud said. "I can't explain what happened."
Muna Nasr, a 43-year-old deli worker from the southern village of Harees, had spent days working her way north. She and her family fled their home because food was running out and they made their way to Horsh, where they found shelter with a relative.
But Horsh also proved unbearable. Seven people lay dead in the house next door, struck by an Israeli missile. Ambulances couldn't get through to collect the corpses, and so the stench of death swelled in the long, sticky summer days. There had been no medicine, food or water for days.
"We just want transportation out of here," Nasr said.
"This morning the dogs were eating the neighbors," added Ali Deeb, Nasr's 50-year-old husband.
But the family had no money. So they sat on couches in a hotel lobby, waiting to see what would happen. They couldn't afford the Rest House, a fading, rambling resort slung along the Mediterranean coast.
The United Nations peacekeeping forces had taken over the back wing of the hotel; soldiers slept in flak jackets alongside an enormous plastic wedding cake. Unsure of where to go and drawn to the security of the international soldiers, hundreds of evacuees had crowded the lobby and lawns of the hotel in recent days.
"Can't you take anybody with you?" a man yelled at foreign reporters.
By the hotel's front desk, a volunteer from the local civil defense, Lebanon's catchall rescue service, stood watching the evacuees glumly.
"We can't work now - even our car is a target," said Freddy Kayyal, a 22-year-old rescue worker. "And we don't have a headquarters anymore. We're just roaming around."
Tyre's civil defense headquarters, a central office for rescue workers, was bombed by Israeli jets days ago. Some bodies are lost in the rubble.
"Every time we try to go recover the dead, we hear Israeli jets overhead," Kayyal said. "Destruction, poverty and disgust greater than this, I can't imagine."
Tyre's main hospital has become a clearinghouse for the war's wounded, receiving hundreds of casualties from all over southern Lebanon. It's the only emergency room accessible to most of the south, and many people can't get here.
Patients aren't given much time to heal. They are patched up hastily, then loaded onto Red Cross ambulances that bump along the dirt and gypsum roads, swerve around bomb craters and hope they aren't struck by missiles before they get to Beirut. A trip of less than two hours in times of peace, the journey now takes upward of five hours.
"We have so many people coming in that we can't guarantee follow-up treatment," said nursing director Abdellah Shehab. "We need the free beds."
In a back waiting room at Tyre's main hospital, grim-faced men and women sat on plastic chairs, staring wordlessly at one another. The dull roar of explosions sounded in the distance. None of them, it turned out, was waiting for hospitalized loved ones. They just hoped a hospital might be spared in the attacks.
"I have nowhere else to go," said Yacoub Yacoub, a 43-year-old man with a full beard and bags under his eyes. He fled the southern village of Houla six days ago with his three children; on Thursday he sat wearily in the waiting room. A forgotten cigarette dangled from his fingers, slowly burning to ash.
"We sleep in the corridors," he said. "We just want a cease-fire so we can go home."
Times staff writer Laura King in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Hezbollah Trained For 6 Years, Dug Deep Bunkers
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Times
By Abraham Rabinovich, The Washington Times
JERUSALEM -- Hezbollah has dug dozens of bunkers in the difficult hill country in Lebanon close to the Israeli border, some as much as 130 feet deep, from which fighters can emerge at night for forays against Israeli positions, according to Israeli military officers.
Numerous mines have been planted by Hezbollah against personnel and armor, and their mortar squads have the area zeroed in.
According to Israeli intelligence sources cited in newspaper reports, the bunkers were dug deep apparently to withstand the bunker-buster bombs such as the ones Israel dropped on suspected Hezbollah bunkers this week.
Hezbollah fighters can ride out the heavy artillery and air attacks in the bunkers, which are fitted with communications equipment to remain in touch with headquarters and adequate supplies for a long stay below ground.
"They've been preparing for this battle for six years, ever since Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon," a senior Israeli officer said.
The Israeli political and military leadership is reluctant to undertake a massive ground incursion into Lebanon and hopes that air and artillery attacks and political pressures within Lebanon will bring Hezbollah to heel.
However, the unflinching battle Hezbollah is waging thus far has raised questions about whether such a strategy will work.
"I'm against going in on the ground," said Tzahi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, yesterday. "At least at this time. The disadvantages are greater than the advantages."
The disadvantages were demonstrated Wednesday when an elite Israeli unit that had penetrated a mile into south Lebanon at night in search of Hezbollah rocket teams was ambushed by a well-hidden guerrilla force. Two soldiers were killed and nine were wounded. Two Hezbollah fighters were also reportedly killed.
Yesterday, Israeli troops crossed into Lebanon for a second day in search of tunnels and weapons, and faced fierce resistance, the Associated Press reported. Hezbollah's Al Manar television said three Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday. Al Jazeera television put the number at four.
When Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, it was after years of skirmishing with Hezbollah in which the Shi'ite militia proved itself an efficient guerrilla force. Since then, thousands of Hezbollah fighters have undergone training in Iran, which has also provided Hezbollah advanced armaments as well as intelligence and communications capabilities it did not have previously.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a television appearance last week said that Hezbollah would welcome an Israeli incursion.
Despite heavy Israeli artillery attacks on southern Lebanon and frequent air strikes, Hezbollah has managed to fire about 100 missiles into Israel almost every day since the confrontation began last week. The aggressiveness of the front-line Hezbollah fighters has also been demonstrated by several attempts in the past week to penetrate the border and attack Israeli villages despite the heavy Israeli military presence. These attacks were driven off.
Gen. Dan Halutz, Israeli chief of staff, told the Israeli Cabinet Wednesday that Hezbollah wanted to drag Israel into a war of attrition. He said that plans have been laid for a ground incursion, but the army is not implementing them at the moment.

First U.S. Evacuees Arrive From Lebanon
Friday, July 21, 2006
AP-By Brian Witte, Associated Press Writer
The first plane carrying U.S. evacuees from Lebanon landed early Thursday, state officials said.
The flight, which was expected to carry 145 people, touched down at Baltimore-Washington International/Thurgood Marshall Airport at about 6:30 a.m., the Maryland Emergency Management Agency said.
State officials were making plans to welcome the first wave of Americans with lodging, money, e-mail access, telephones and medical care.
Gov. Robert Ehrlich said he has directed the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Human Resources and other state agencies to help the evacuees when they arrive from Cyprus. The American Red Cross will provide medical assistance and other services.
"Pretty much anything that a traveler in this situation would need will be provided when they arrive at the airport," said Jeff Welsh, a spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.
The flights are part of a mass U.S. evacuation from Lebanon following the start more than a week ago of Israeli airstrikes. An estimated 8,000 of the 25,000 U.S. citizens in Lebanon asked to be evacuated.
A luxury cruise ship, the eight-deck Orient Queen, arrived in Cyprus early Thursday carrying about 1,000 Americans. The ship, which arrived at the port of Larnaca after a nine-hour trip, was the start of a massive relay to evacuate thousands of U.S. citizens from the war-torn area.
U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey D. Feltman said the evacuation would swell to up to 2,000 Americans a day, both by sea and by helicopter.
Relatives of Americans in Lebanon said they were frustrated and criticized the U.S. government for acting too slowly. The first Americans departed two days after the first Europeans left on ships.
Feltman said the evacuation's slow start was intended to safeguard Americans. A call to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was answered by a Marine who said he could not comment.
"I'm getting angrier and angrier. The American government seems to have money for everything else except its citizens," said Joseph Rizzuto, a high school teacher in Queens, who was trying to get his daughter, Paola Rizzuto, 22, home. She was in Beirut with her boyfriend, Rafael Greenblatt, on a monthlong visit at the American University in Beirut.
In a telephone interview, she said they watched everyone else leave.
"They all got out - the Turkish, the British, the Danish, the French, the Spaniards and the Italians," Paula Rizzuto said.
After registering for evacuation with the U.S. Embassy via e-mail, "we were supposed to receive an e-mail confirmation that we're on the list, that they've received our registration," she said. As of Wednesday, they had heard nothing.
In Baltimore, the health department planned to have licensed social workers on hand for people who might need counseling, especially any children traveling along. Extra U.S. Customs inspectors were being deployed, and the Transportation Security Administration was sending additional screeners to the airport to speed up the process for those making connecting flights, officials said.
"These folks have had a very quick disruption in their lives," Ehrlich said. "They are coming with nothing. They need help."
Associated Press Writer Verena Dobnick in New York contributed to this report.

Lebanese PM Says Paper Misquoted Him
Friday, July 21, 2006
AP-Hezbollah has created a "state within a state" in Lebanon and must be disarmed, an Italian daily on Thursday reported Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora as saying, but his office later said the premier had been misquoted.
Saniora reportedly told Milan-based newspaper Corriere della Sera that the Shiite militia has been doing the bidding of Syria and Iran, and that it could only be disarmed with the help of the international community and once a cease-fire had been achieved in the current Middle East fighting.
"Hezbollah has become a state within a state. We know it well," Saniora was quoted as saying, for the first time leveling such an accusation against guerrillas that effectively control southern Lebanon.
"It's not a mystery that Hezbollah answers to the political agendas of Tehran and Damascus," Saniora was quoted as saying. "The entire world must help us disarm Hezbollah. But first we need to reach a cease-fire."
Later Thursday, Saniora's office said the prime minister had been misquoted, adding that his words had been translated from English into Italian and that Corriere's journalist had chosen sentences that were not connected and did not report the literal meaning of what he had said.
According to the statement, the premier had said that international help was needed to persuade Israel to withdraw from the Chebaa Farms, a disputed territory that Lebanon claims and Hezbollah uses as a pretext for attacking Israeli forces.
"What the prime minister said was that the international community has not given the Lebanese government the chance to deal with the problem of Hezbollah weapons, since the continued presence of Israeli occupation of Lebanese lands in the Chebaa Farms region is what contributes to the presence of Hezbollah weapons," the statement said. "The international community must help us in (getting) an Israeli withdrawal from Chebaa Farms so we can solve the problem of Hezbollah's arms."
No one was immediately available at the newspaper to respond.
In the interview, Saniora reportedly said that Lebanon was still too weak to attack Hezbollah.
"The important thing now is to restore full Lebanese sovereignty in the south, dismantling any armed militia parallel to the national army," he was quoted as saying. "The Syrians are inside our home, and we are still too weak to defend ourselves. The terrible memories of the civil war are still too alive, and no one is ready to take up arms."
The prime minister has said in the past that disarmament is impossible while some Lebanese territory is still under Israeli occupation, but he has never accused Hezbollah of following Iran's and Syria's agenda or of acting like a state within a state.
In the interview, Saniora reportedly reiterated his harsh criticism of Israel's air and sea attacks against Lebanon, saying that "Israel's criminal bombardments must be stopped immediately," and adding that these were counterproductive for all sides.
"They are bombing civilians and creating sympathies for Hezbollah where otherwise there wouldn't be any," Corriere quoted him as saying.
Israel says it is acting in self-defense in response to Hezbollah's July 12 cross-border attack on a military patrol and capture of two soldiers, as well as the subsequent launch of hundreds of missiles on northern Israeli cities and communities. It has vowed to press on with the offensive until the soldiers are freed and until it destroys Hezbollah's vast arsenal of missiles and drives the group far from Israel's northern border.

To Save A Revolution
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Post
By David Ignatius
You could sense the hurt and anger as Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora pleaded this week to the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats in Beirut for a halt to Israeli attacks on Lebanese targets. "The country has been torn to shreds," he said. "I hope you will not let us down."
The challenge for the Bush administration as the Lebanon war explodes into its second week is just that -- to keep faith with Siniora and his Cedar Revolution, even as it stands by its close ally Israel. This isn't simply a question of appearances and public diplomacy. Unless Siniora's government can be strengthened, there is little hope for achieving the U.S. and Israeli goal of bringing Hezbollah's guerrillas under lasting control.
"America's role is to energize a political outcome that helps to satisfy Israeli military objectives by other means," says one administration official. The problem is that the American diplomatic timetable is so slow that by the time a cease-fire is reached -- more than a week off, by U.S. estimates -- Lebanon may be too broken to be put back together anytime soon.
Administration officials rightly insist that returning to the status quo in Lebanon would be a mistake. After last year's triumph of forcing a withdrawal of Syrian troops, Siniora's government was struggling (and largely failing) to establish a viable nation. This nation-building effort was hamstrung by Hezbollah's insistence that it maintain what amounted to a state within a state.
The administration's strategy is to let Israel do the dirty work of breaking Hezbollah and then move in a foreign "stabilization force" to bolster the Lebanese army. Once Israel has pushed the guerrillas north, this international force would help the Lebanese army deploy to the southern border with Israel and the eastern border with Syria. The plan is for a beefed-up successor to the existing United Nations force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.
The administration's informal deadline for getting a U.N. mandate for this new international force is July 31, when UNIFIL's current mandate expires. The French now command that force, and the United States hopes they can remain in that role, with new troops coming from such robust military powers as Italy, Turkey and Canada.
Siniora has privately warned the Bush administration that by bombing so many targets in Lebanon, Israel is undermining its own strategic goals. Lebanese are angry with Hezbollah for starting the war by kidnapping Israeli soldiers, and most want to see the militia under government control. But Siniora has asked why the Israelis are hitting Lebanese airports, ports, roads, villages and other targets that primarily affect civilians. And he has criticized attacks on the Lebanese army, which even the Israelis say is the key to long-run stability and security.
Some Bush administration officials share Siniora's concern about the scope of Israeli attacks. These officials are said not to understand Israeli targeting decisions. The administration is understood to have communicated this concern to Jerusalem.
The Lebanon crisis has put the administration in a double bind. U.S. officials know they need to move soon toward a cease-fire to preserve any chance for the Siniora government to regain control of the country. But they don't want to move so quickly that they prevent Israel from completing its primary military mission of destroying Hezbollah's arsenal of missiles and pushing the Shiite guerrillas back from the border. The administration's two-track approach is perhaps summed up in Augustus Caesar's famous admonition: "Make haste slowly."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will head for the Middle East this weekend to try to animate this diplomacy. She has no plans to stop in Syria, and that's a sensible decision. It's up to the Syrians to demonstrate that they can play a positive role -- not least to their Sunni Arab neighbors, who are angry about President Bashar al-Assad's alliance with Shiite Iran and its proxies. A recent claim by Syrian intelligence officials that they have no control over Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is said to have infuriated Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who responded indignantly: "Don't give us that! We are not Mauritania! We are Egypt!"
Supporting Israel and Lebanon at the same time is a tricky task -- especially at a moment when the bombs are flying between one nation and the other. Unless the administration moves quickly to demonstrate that it supports the Siniora government, and not just Israel, its larger strategy for defusing the conflict may begin to unravel. Administration officials recognize that a stable Lebanon cannot be achieved by military action alone. But for now, all the world sees is Hezbollah rockets and Israeli bombs.

Marines Return To Beirut To Aid U.S. Evacuation
Friday, July 21, 2006
The New York Times
By Jad Mouawad And Steven Erlanger
United States marines landed in Beirut on Thursday for the first time in more than 20 years to help evacuate Americans from Lebanon, as Israeli officials suggested that Israeli ground troops might take a more active role in combating the Hezbollah militia. There were also more strong condemnations of Israel's heavy use of force in Lebanon.
With the fighting continuing for a ninth day, fierce clashes erupted between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters inside Lebanon. Hundreds of Israeli troops were trying to destroy Hezbollah outposts and storage facilities, Israeli Army officials said.
Two Israeli soldiers and a Hezbollah fighter were killed late Wednesday as Israel discovered a warren of storage rooms, bunkers and tunnels. The death toll in Lebanon for the nine days passed 300; the vast majority were said to be civilians.
On Thursday evening, two Israeli soldiers were killed and three others wounded in further fighting. At least two Hezbollah fighters were believed to have been killed.
The Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz, visiting northern towns hit by scores of Hezbollah rockets, hinted at a broader ground operation. "We have no intention of occupying Lebanon, but we also have no intention of retreating from any military measures needed," he said. "Hezbollah must not think that we would recoil from using all kinds of military measures against it."
Mr. Peretz continued, "You can mark one thing down: Hezbollah flags will not hang over the fences of Israel."
At the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned the Israeli operation as an "excessive use of force."
Russia, which reduced parts of Chechnya to rubble in its fight against rebels there, also sharply criticized Israel, with the Foreign Ministry calling Israel's actions in Lebanon "far beyond the boundaries of an antiterrorist operation" and urging a cease-fire.
At the White House, President Bush's press secretary, Tony Snow, said, "I'm not sure at this juncture we're going to step in and put up a stop sign," although he called on Israel to "practice restraint" and said Mr. Bush was "very much concerned" about a growing human crisis in southern Lebanon.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is arranging a trip to Asia and the Middle East; she could be visiting this region as early as Sunday.
Diplomats are investigating the idea of a more robust international force under United Nations auspices but more likely made up of European troops, that could help the weak Lebanese government move its army to the Israeli border and push back a weakened Hezbollah.
Ephraim Sneh, Israel's deputy defense minister and a former Israeli commander in Lebanon, told Israeli television: "We have no choice but go in and physically clean up Hezbollah posts on the ground. The air force can't do that. So when we talk about a ground operation, the intention is not necessarily a massive incursion but more pinpoint operations."
The small force of about 40 marines who landed in Beirut on Thursday were the first American military personnel to be deployed in Lebanon since the withdrawal of forces after a Hezbollah suicide bomb attack killed 241 Americans, mostly marines, in 1983. The marines who landed Thursday were from the same unit as those killed 23 years ago.
Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown of the United States Naval Central Command in Bahrain said a small number of marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit landed on a beach north of Beirut, near shorefront belonging to the American Embassy on Thursday morning. They helped American citizens board a landing craft that ferried them to the amphibious assault ship Nashville stationed offshore.
By late afternoon, 1,052 evacuees had been boarded, and the Nashville was preparing to head to Cyprus, Commander Brown said.
Helicopters also evacuated 161 Americans on Thursday, the military said, and the Orient Queen, a cruise liner that had transported the first large group of American evacuees to Cyprus on Wednesday, was expected to reach Beirut on Thursday night for reloading.
A planeload of Americans who had been on the Orient Queen's first trip to Cyprus arrived at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport on Thursday morning. Five more naval vessels are expected to arrive in the area on Friday, along with a high-speed ferry hired to transport evacuees to Cyprus, the military said in a statement.
Citizens of Britain and other countries were also evacuated.
On Thursday, Israel continued its large-scale air attacks on Hezbollah positions and equipment. It also leafleted southern Lebanese villages, made taped phone calls, informed local leaders and broadcast messages in Arabic to warn residents to move north of the Litani River if their villages contained Hezbollah assets or rockets, but gave no deadline.
Israel dropped similar leaflets on Thursday in Gaza as well, possibly foreshadowing more attacks on populated areas where Israel believes Hamas is storing Qassam rockets.
The air attacks on Thursday also hit Beirut's southern suburbs, following Wednesday night's heavy attack by Israeli jets, using special burrowing bombs, to try to penetrate a bunker believed to be used by senior Hezbollah officials, including its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah said no one had been hurt in the bombing, which Israeli officials said had involved 23 tons of explosives in the Burj al Brajneh neighborhood.
According to Al Jazeera's Web site, Sheik Nasrallah said in an interview on Thursday that the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a raid last week would be freed only in the context of a prisoner exchange and otherwise would not be released even "if the whole universe comes against us."
Hezbollah said its military capacity was largely undiminished. "The resistance has only used a small, small part of its strength," Hussein Hajj Hassan told LBC television. "Nothing has been destroyed."
Despite the continuous shelling of the Hezbollah strongholds of southern Beirut, the militia remains very much in control there, barring access to outsiders.
On Thursday, the militia led reporters on a tour of the area, where Hezbollah's headquarters are. Buildings as high as 12 or 15 stories had collapsed; some were still smoking.
According to Lebanese reports, four civilians were killed in a strike on a car in the coastal city of Tyre. Israeli jets also attacked a detention center in the town of Khiam in south Lebanon on Thursday, according to local television reports. The prison, formerly run by Israel's Lebanese militia allies during its occupation of south Lebanon, was destroyed.
Israeli planes also struck at Shiite areas in the eastern towns of Baalbek and Hermil, where some Hezbollah leaders are said to live, and several southern villages.
About 50 rockets hit Israel on Thursday, the Israeli Army said, a sharp drop from 150 the day before.
The Israeli military said two of its helicopters had collided Thursday night near the border with Lebanon.
In Gaza, Israel continued its military operation in the central sector, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding six in fighting around the Mughazi refugee camp. An airstrike on the same refugee camp killed one fighter and wounded eight more. One of the dead was a Palestinian girl, 10, wounded in an airstrike on Wednesday, when nine Palestinians, eight of them militants, were killed, according to The Associated Press.
The Israeli Army dropped the leaflets Thursday throughout Gaza warning that "anyone who has, or is keeping an arsenal, ammunitions or weapons in their house must destroy it or will face dangerous consequences."
On the West Bank, Israeli forces continued to surround the Mukata compound in Nablus, where Palestinians wanted by Israel have been taking refuge since Wednesday morning. About 15 wanted men gave themselves up but at least 10 remain inside. Tanks fired five shells at the buildings and army bulldozers worked to knock down the exterior walls, while warning those inside to come out or risk being buried underneath the rubble.
Israeli troops fired rubber-coated bullets at Palestinians who demonstrated against the troops, wounding five, one seriously, Palestinian medics said. About 4,000 Palestinians demonstrated in Nablus in support of Hezbollah, calling on the militia's leader, Sheik Nasrallah, to attack Israel with rockets.
"Nasrallah, our dearest, strike, strike Tel Aviv!" the Palestinians shouted. Five Palestinians were killed in the Nablus operation on Wednesday.
The Lebanese government said it had so far sheltered as many as 120,000 refugees, mostly in schools. It is considering setting up tents and temporary barracks in public parks and sports fields. The United Nations estimates that a total of 500,000 people have been displaced.
"The losses are immeasurable," said Nayla Moawad, the Lebanese minister for social affairs.
Ms. Moawad blamed Syria for setting off the crisis, saying that she was expressing her personal opinion. "The decision of the Hezbollah operation was not taken in Lebanon," she said. "Lebanon was taken a hostage, a mailbox of other people's interests. It has been taken in Damascus, probably with an Iranian coordination."
Ms. Moawad was one of the leaders of the Lebanese revolt last year that led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
"Syria has tried to destabilize Lebanon since her troops pulled out," she said.

More Than A Cease-Fire Needed
Friday, July 21, 2006
The New York Times
Lebanon needs more than U.S. marines to evacuate Americans. It needs the fighting to stop and the international community to step in and guarantee the security of Israel and Lebanon. That will require not only a cease-fire and peacekeepers but also a guarantee that Hezbollah will be forced to halt its attacks on Israel permanently and disband its militia.
Israeli officials, with strong backing from Washington, are saying privately that it could take days or even weeks more of pounding to destroy Hezbollah's huge missile stocks, cut off its supply lines from Syria and Iran, and prove to the Lebanese people the high cost of sheltering the terrorist group. It's doubtful that air power will ever be able to achieve those goals, and Israel should not repeat the mistake of occupying Lebanon.
More fighting will mean more suffering on both sides of the border, more anger toward Israel in the Arab world, and more problems for those Sunni Arab leaders who have been trying to distance themselves from Hezbollah.
The United Nations called on Hezbollah to disarm nearly two years ago. But the United States and Europe never brought real pressure to bear, believing that Hezbollah would shed its weapons as it was drawn deeper into electoral politics. It did not. Hezbollah, which sparked this crisis, believes mayhem is in its long-term interest, especially if it further weakens the Lebanese Army and government.
So it is not surprising that the Israelis are skeptical that another Security Council resolution will make any difference. A robust resolution is nevertheless a prerequisite for robust diplomacy and clear threats of punishment for all who resist. Ideally, the resolution would not only require all sides to stop fighting and authorize the deployment of a peacekeeping force, it would also order Hezbollah to withdraw from Israel's borders and begin to disarm - and order Syria and Iran to stop supplying their client. The price for refusing should be international sanctions and complete isolation.
The resolution should mandate the return of Israel's kidnapped soldiers and, finally, pledge major international contributions to help Lebanon rebuild from the destruction of the last week and bolster its weak democratic government. If the Security Council isn't willing to issue such explicit demands or link them to clear punishments, the United States, Europe and key Arab allies, who are also eager to see the fighting end and Hezbollah contained, will have to bring serious pressure on their own. While the Council negotiates, Western powers and responsible Arab leaders, who more often than not sit on the sidelines, should begin a major diplomatic push in the region.
Everyone's first stop needs to be Damascus, to tell President Bashar al-Assad of Syria that he will be persona non grata if he keeps meddling in Lebanon. The same message needs to be delivered to Tehran. The Europeans have resisted placing Hezbollah on their terrorism list, with the attendant denial of visas and freezing of bank accounts. They need to make clear they will do so now if the group doesn't immediately bow to international demands.
The United States will have to take the lead, not least because it's the only country Israel trusts. That means Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - who has been dragging her feet to give Israel more time to fight - needs to get on a plane and visit Damascus as well as Jerusalem. The longer she delays the more lives will be lost, and the harder it will be to build a lasting peace.

How Iran Uses Wars To Divert Attention From Nuclear Program
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Christian Science Monitor
By Daniel Schorr
It appears Iran's threat that Israel would be wiped off the map was not just rhetoric.
WASHINGTON
You don't hear much any more about "road maps," the "peace process," or "land for peace."
The struggle for the Middle East has apparently entered a new phase in which Iran hijacks the Palestinian cause in order to establish its own influence in the region.
In the year 2000, Israel exited from south Lebanon as a peaceful gesture. This past August, Israel left Gaza as a peaceful act. It appears now that these were taken by the jihadists not as gestures of peace, but of weakness.
And it appears that the threat of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel would be wiped off the map was not just rhetoric. According to American intelligence, Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon have an agreement for joint attacks on Israel.
That may explain the look-alike forays across Israel's southern and northern borders. On June 25, Hamas fighters entered Israel by tunnel from Gaza, killing two Israeli soldiers and capturing one. On July 12, Hizbullah fighters crossed Israel's northern border, killing eight soldiers and capturing two.
They could be sure that their provocations would draw a violent response from Israel, and they did. Israel has unleashed a series of rocket and bomber attacks on facilities in Lebanon. Hizbullah is responding in kind. The organization appears to have several thousand missiles made in Iran and shipped through Syria. Some of them have a longer range than Israel has seen before, reaching to Haifa and farther.
As the conflict goes on, the Lebanese government is basically a helpless spectator to an Iranian-Syrian war fought through Hizbullah in Lebanon.
A United Nations team has been in Beirut trying to broker a cease-fire, but the prospects for subtle diplomacy are not very promising. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning a trip to Lebanon, but Lebanon may be the wrong address.
And meanwhile, Iran has already gained one advantage from the conflict that it helped to launch. It has diverted attention from the issue of Iran's nuclear program.
• Daniel Schorr is the senior news analyst at National Public Radio.

Donnybrook Or Imbroglio?
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Washington Times
By Arnaud De Borchgrave
"By doing the Lord's work," as columnist Lawrence Kudlow put it, "Israel is defending... its very existence but also America's homeland as our frontline democratic ally in the Middle East."
Hyperbolic rhetoric on all sides of the latest Middle Eastern crisis has been a boon to the law of unintended consequences. The Israel-can-do-no-wrong school holds we are now in World War IV (World War III was the Cold War). Notwithstanding Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic heft, the situation is clearly beyond diplomacy. Nothing will deter Israel from obliterating both the Hezbollah and Hamas militias, as the U.S. obliterated the Saddam Hussein regime. Then come the insurgencies.
In Iraq, 31/2 years after the U.S. invasion, the civilian casualty toll has grown to about 100 a day. In Afghanistan, almost six years after Operation Enduring Freedom, a resurgent Taliban took over a town and a village with weapons purchased with the local hard currency -- opium poppies and heroin.
Iraq proved to be a force multiplier for jihadi recruitment in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Beirut, already a martyred city after 15 years of civil war bloodletting, will now be the next big boost for those who blame a U.S.-Zionist conspiracy for the latest wave of death and destruction.
Quickly forgotten is the capture of three Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hezbollah that triggered Israel's air, sea and ground offensives in both Gaza and Lebanon. From the Arab world's radical media to Europe's liberal media, a consensus has emerged that Israel has far more ambitious objectives: the toppling of the Assad dictatorship in Syria and the Mullahocracy in Iran.
A regional war is in the offing. Israel's ultimatum to Hezbollah to cease and desist its military activities in Lebanon is not Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's decision to take. Hezbollah's chain of command goes up to Revolutionary Guard headquarters in Tehran to Iran's Supreme Religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Qom. Such a decision would bypass President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who does not control the Revolutionary Guards, the armed forces or the intelligence services. But Mr. Ahmadinejad would welcome a regional upheaval as an opportunity to "wipe Israel off the map." Israeli and/or U.S. air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, in his optic, would be the detonator for mayhem throughout the region. And Mr. Ahmadinejad has powerful supporters among Qom's retrograde clerics.
President Bush seems to believe Syrian President Bashar Assad holds the whip hand over Hezbollah and is itching to get back into Lebanon. Nothing could be further removed from present realities. When Syria occupied and controlled Lebanon (1976-March 2006), it kept Hezbollah on a short leash. Iranian rocket and missile supplies transited through Damascus airport to Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, but Syria's all-pervasive intelligence apparatus made sure nothing happened that might provoke Israeli retaliation against Syria.
Today, Iran, not Syria, controls Hezbollah through the Revolutionary Guards' al Quds operatives whose assignment is to train foreign forces to use more sophisticated Iran-supplied missiles (e.g., the C-802 cruise missile that disabled an Israeli warship last week).
Even Syria's detractors in Lebanon conceded Syrian forces had been a "stabilizing" force in the country's volatile politics. Lebanon's 15-year civil war produced neither victors nor vanquished -- and this despite the loss of the equivalent of 11 million Americans killed (given the population ratio).
Lebanon spent billions rebuilding Beirut, which once again became the Paris of the Middle East. Its principal source of revenue is tourism. Wealthy Gulf oil sheiks and Saudi royals maintain summer homes in and around Beirut. Millions of foreigners came to Lebanon for their summer vacations. But the east-west divide between pro-Western Christians (40 percent) and Muslims was never really bridged, only papered over. In 2005 elections, the Shia Hezbollah (Party of God) went from eight to 23 seats in Lebanon's 128-member parliament, and now has two ministers plus one approved by Hezbollah in the country's coalition government. It is renowned for its social services, unmatched by other political parties.
Hezbollah was created in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion when Israeli troops reached Beirut. The 1987 Palestinian intifada against the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank gave birth to Hamas, the political party that won free elections last January, and whose capture of one Israeli soldier set off massive retaliatory action.
Prisoner exchanges have taken place several times in previous years. And both Hamas and Hezbollah claim this is what they had planned to bring about with their three Israeli prisoners. But Israel seized a strategic opportunity to create new geopolitical facts.
Dead as the dodo is the idea of an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel has no further reason to have a "balanced" and "measured" response to the capture of three of its soldiers. The time for patience has run out. Gone, too, is any pretense of U.S. even-handedness between Palestinians and Israelis. Israeli air-land-sea restraint will only come after Hezbollah has been totally flushed out of southern Lebanon and replaced there by the Lebanese army. This may be a bridge too far.
The poorly trained and led Lebanese army is no match for Hezbollah's militia. The more damage and chaos Israel brings to Lebanon, the more Islamist extremists will join the anti-U.S. crusade. Hezbollah's Mr. Nasrallah, speaking the language of jihad, calls the new facts Israel has created "a historic opportunity to score a defeat against the Zionist enemy." Go figure.
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.

House Overwhelmingly Backs Israel In Vote
Friday, July 21, 2006
AP-By Anne Plummer Flaherty, Associated Press Writer
The House, displaying a foreign affairs solidarity lacking on issues like Iraq, voted overwhelmingly Thursday to support Israel in its confrontation with Hezbollah guerrillas. The resolution, which was passed on a 410-8 vote, also condemns enemies of the Jewish state.
House Republican leader John Boehner cited Israel's "unique relationship" with the United States as a reason for his colleagues to swiftly go on record supporting Israel in the latest flare-up of violence in the Mideast.
Little of the political divisiveness in Congress on other national security issues was evident as lawmakers embraced the Bush administration's position.
So strong was the momentum for the resolution that it was steamrolling efforts by a small group of House members who argued that Congress's pro-Israel stance goes too far. The nonbinding resolution is similar to one the Senate passed Tuesday. It harshly condemns Israel's enemies and says Syria and Iran should be held accountable for providing Hezbollah with money and missile technology used to attack Israel.
Yet as Republican and Democratic leaders rally behind the measure in rare bipartisan fashion, a handful of lawmakers have quietly expressed reservations that the resolution was too much the result of a powerful lobbying force and attempts to court Jewish voters.
"I'm just sick in the stomach, to put it mildly," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va., who is of Lebanese descent.
Rahall joined other Arab-American lawmakers in drafting an alternative resolution that would have omitted language holding Lebanon responsible for Hezbollah's actions and called for restraint from all sides. Rahall said that proposal was "politely swept under the rug," a political reality he and others say reflects the influence Israel has in Congress.
"There's a lot (of lawmakers) that don't feel it's right ... but vote yes, and get it the heck out of here," Rahall said.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who co-sponsored the alternative resolution and also is of Lebanese descent, agreed. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby "throws in language that AIPAC wants. That isn't always the best thing for this body to endorse," Issa said.
Nevertheless, Rahall and Issa said they were considering voting in favor of the resolution. "I want to show support for Israel's right to defend itself," Issa said.
Another lawmaker with Lebanese roots, Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., said he too planned to vote in favor of the resolution despite holding deep reservations on its language regarding Lebanon. "I think it's a good resolution. But I think it's incomplete," he said.
The lack of momentum for alternative proposals frustrated pro-Arab groups.
"This is the usual problem with any resolution that talks about Israel - there are a lot of closet naysayers up there (in Congress), but they don't want to be a target of the lobby" of Israel, said Eugene H. Bird, president of the Council for the National Interest, a group that harshly condemns Israel's military campaign.
"These guys aren't legislating. They're politicking," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
An AIPAC spokeswoman said Congress's overwhelming support for Israel reflects the support of U.S. voters and not any pressure applied by lobbyists. "The American people overwhelming support Israel's war on terrorism and understand that we must stand by our closest ally in this time of crisis," said Jennifer Cannata.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned to discuss diplomatic efforts to end the violence, and the possibility of international troops to police a peace, over dinner Thursday in New York with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
On Friday, Rice will receive a report from fact-finders Annan sent to the region.
Rice, herself, is expected to go there. "She intends to travel to the region as early as next week," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Approximately 2,600 U.S. citizens have been evacuated from Lebanon by the United States since Sunday.
38% Approve Of Bush's Handling Of Middle East Crisis. William Schneider said on CNN's The Situation Room (7/20), "What do Americans want the United States to do in the Middle East? Well, our new poll has some answers. Play an active role in trying to resolve the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah? The answer is clear, no. The public wants us to stay out of it. What about sending US troops as part of an international peacekeeping force? That sounds better, but the public is still divided and worried. ... Only 38 percent of the public approves of the way President Bush is handling the Israeli-Hezbollah crisis."