It pains me more than I can say to have to agree with an anonymous "Guest"--but you all should check a recent New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh--(Jewish, I believe, no?) on this topic.

Called "Watching Lebanon":   Quote: "Shabtai Shavit, a national-security advisor to the Knesset who headed the Mossad, Israel's foreign-intelligence service from 1989 to 1996, told me, "...It was just a matter of time. We had to address it" (attacking Hezbollah on a large scale).

And another: Said Yossi Melman, journalist for Ha'aretz: " The neocons in Washington may be happy but Israel did not need to be pushed, because Israel has been wanting to get rid of Hezbollah. By provoking Israel, Hezbollah provided that opportunity."

Yet another: "Earlier this summer, before the Hezbollah kidnappings, the US goverment consultant said, several Israeli officials visited Washington separately, "to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear. Israel began with Cheney...After that, persuading Bush was never a problem."

If you don't believe this, please say exactly why.

As I said earlier, Hezbollah miscalculated. But then so did Israel--and the latter was far more serious.