Can someone explain to me what Israel is trying to do here? Not "why they have every right to be fed up with Hezbollah and with Lebanon for hosting them" -- what are they trying to do? What sort of sustainable future benefit are their current actions aiming for, and how is the current situation supposed to get them there?
posted by fleurdelis28 | 8:10 AM
5 Comments:
My father's answer? They're showing Hisbollah the consequences of their actions. (Which strikes me as a perfectly reasonable opinion, even if it is also an opinion that can be argued with. I have no opinions of my own, with regard to the sensibleness of Israel's actions, because quite frankly, I don't think anyone knows what will happen or how people will react or what will help. Much less me.)
I've been asking this for several days now. I haven't got an answer. I suppose it looks macho and decisive in the short term. The long term just looks like bloody hell.
I don't think there's any claim of a long-term strategy. It's become clear that Hizbullah has built up the capability to launch serious and sometimes sophisticated attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon, possibly with Iran's help, and Israel is trying to destroy that capability. I can't imagine that any country would react differently to rockets landing in major cities.
Get the captured solidiers back? Convice Hezbollah that Israel *will* pound them to a bloody pulp if they don't give them back immediately, and discourage them from trying it again? (Though why they did it at all considering what Israel was already doing to Hamas may discount the last part of that option...)
Tovah: I hate to say it, but Hizbullah is about as likely to disband in response to these attacks as Israel is to jump into the sea after one café bombing too many. The difficulty in dealing with anti-You fundamentalist terrorists is that they're awfully hard to dissuade. Better just to keep them from doing what they want to do.
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