I write to attempt an answer to dianavan's questions.
Israel's response to the capture of one of its soldiers is to destroy another country-ensuring that another generation will regard Israel as its enemy.In Palestine ,likewise, it has again unleashed terror on a monstrous scale.
The attack on civilians in both Gaza and the Lebanon has been vicious and indiscriminate. Both are in ruins with hundreds dead or wounded.
There is a real possibility of both Iran and Iraq being dragged into the conflict and only last week Israeli warplanes buzzed a palace belonging to the Syrian president Assad.
There are some in the White House who want to use the claim that Iran has supplied missiles to Hezbollah as the red light for an attack on Iran.
There is a real possibilty that the slaughter will spread.This is the most dangerous and bloody development in the region since Bush ordered "Shock and Awe"...the assault on Iraq using hundreds of cruise missiles and thousands of bombs in the first few weeks of the invasion.
dianavan is correct to point out that Israel is attacking the christian areas of The Lebanon in its orgy of desruction. It does not only seek to destroy Hezbollah it seeks to totally dominate the Lebanon itself.The thing the extremist Zionist leadership of Israel believes it can accomplish is the pulverising and humiliation of its neighbours whether in Gaza,on the West Bank or in the Lebanon.

But dont think this is something new.Israel smashed up the Lebanon 18 years ago raining death down on Beirut and the other cities in the country.It has violated Lebanese territory ever since the 1960s with its invasion,mass air raids,car bombs, assassinations ,occupation of Beirut,massacres in the refugee camps,its savage allies in the buffer zone ,laying down of 170000 mines in the country [which are still there ] and its occupation of the south.
In Palestine the story has been a similar one.Palestinian camps have been destroyed, Palestinian leaders arrested or murdered, some 160,000 acts of imprisonment have been inflicted on the Palestinians,9000 are still in jail including women and children and the civilian population of this non Israeli land have been brutalised in a thousand different ways.
But Israel will not get its way and still the Palestinians rise!!
ifor