The comparison to 1991 seems intentionally daft on Krauthammer's part -- in Kuwait there was not a very popular pro-Iraq party, after all. But in Lebanon, "expelling Hezbollah" would have to mean expelling a very significant percentage of the local population.

"But in Lebanon, "expelling Hezbollah" would have to mean expelling a very significant percentage of the local population."

I would agree with you as far as the number of people to be expelled. Even the President of Lebanon, Emile Lahoud, has been quoted as saying: "For us Lebanese, and I can tell you the majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national resistance movement. If it wasn't for them, we couldn't have liberated our land. And because of that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement." This is from a 60 Minutes story from a few years ago.

The question arises, though, whether there "should be" a place on earth where terrorists are "allowed" to live in peace, when their principal purpose (according to their own definition) is to wipe Israel off the map entirely.

According to Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, peace deals between Arabs and Israel would not bring stability to the Middle East or legitimacy to the Jewish state. He is on record as saying:

"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel. Peace settlements will not change reality, which is that Israel is the enemy and that it will never be a neighbor or a nation. Peace will not wipe out the memory of the massacres it has committed ... And on this last day of the century, I promise Israel that it will see more suicide attacks, for we will write our history with blood."

Where would be the appropriate place for such people?

That link didn't work for some reason on the 60 Minutes story. Here it is:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/18/60minutes/main550000.shtml

Israel would also need to foot the bill for rebuilding Lebanon. Whether or not they are morally obligated to do so is irrelevant. An embittered Lebanese population will only lead to problems down the road.

Israel would also need to foot the bill for rebuilding Lebanon. Whether or not they are morally obligated to do so is irrelevant. An embittered Lebanese population will only lead to problems down the road.

For more information See Germany, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

I'm not sure from reading the commentary what folks think. The core just cause in this case, it seems to me, is Israel's. They've complied will all relevant U.N. resolutions. Hezbollah and their allies Syria, Iran, and Hamas have violated res. 1559 and res. 1680 and other norms of civilized behavior. The root cause of the problem is Hezbollah and its puppet masters.

Are you saying that since doing what is right (the international community fully implementing and enforcing U.N. resolutions) is difficult or that the international community doesn't have the stomach to stand up to terror, that Israel is just going to have to grin and bear it and we'll be praying for them?

LC1 demonstrates her usual amazing disregard for facts and logic. Should Israel reoccupy Lebanon? I'm sure it'll be much more successful than the last occupation. At the same time, Israel should probably also reoccupy the Gaza Strip. And while the IDF is at it, why not the West Bank, too?

Dismissing Hezbollah and Hamas is like dismissing the VC. You may not respect irregular forces, but they are at their most effective when fighting occupying troops with the sympathies of the native population.

Would rebuilding Lebanon be as costly as allowing Hezbollah to continue to exist?

Judging by the House votes in support of Israel's military actions in Lebanon, (410-8) it appears that the most feared and admired man in Washington is neither George Bush, Dick Cheney, Harry Reid, or even Karl Rove--- it's Howard Tzvi Friedman, the President of AIPAC. So it's no surprise that Charles Krauthammer, one of the voices "of a spectacularly misnamed radicalism, 'neoconservativism' " to quote George Will, supports Israel's decision to attempt to bring about a new reality in Southern Lebanon with a military, rather than a diplomatic, offensive.

Of course, now Israel MUST utterly destroy Hizbullah, because if it survives, says William S. Lind, "a powerful state will have suffered a new kind of defeat, again, a defeat across at least one international boundary and maybe two, depending on how one defines Gaza's border. The balance between states and Fourth Generation Warfare forces will be altered worldwide, and not to a trivial degree."

So now Israel MUST succeed. What happens next? We'd have to face the prospect of international talks with Iran and Syria if we really want to achieve positive results in Lebanon. Those talks would, of course, require our participation. (I wonder if Mr Krauthammer, Dick Cheney, and John Bolton are on board with that?) It would also probably help to kickstart some kind of Arab states-Israel normalization process, which might be difficult to begin with, but even more so if Lebanon is reduced to rubble, AND if Israel continues to avoid the root cause of all Middle Eastern discontent---Palestine. Nothing in the region will change until there is a return to dealing with the core issues on the Israeli/Palestinian front, and and the only way to resolve THAT is through negotiation.

"LC1 demonstrates her usual amazing disregard for facts and logic."

How is taking into account the declared intent of Hizbollah to destroy Israel a "disregard of facts and logic" under these circumstances? How do you explain the statement (and it is hardly an isolated example) coupled with Hizbollah's actions over the past 24 years?

All terrorist groups in the region (and most Palestinian Arabs in general) want the state of Israel to be destroyed. Peace will be impossible as long as anti-Israeli terror groups exist and as long as Palestinians reject the existence of Israel and peaceful coexistence between themselves and Israelis. All Israel can do is counter the persistent military threat; it cannot change the minds of the Palestinians.

It's easy to take sides when one frames the Israel/Palestine issue as Israel vs "the terrorists."

It becomes something else altogether when the issue is framed as two groups of people--- two communities, one militarily srong and one weak, fighting over a piece of land.

That we Americans, and especially Democrats, describe it Alan's way is very understandable. That's how it's presented more or less in the media and by politicians (especially Democrats, historically). Here's an interesting piece up by Tom Hayden, mostly about his direct experience with the local Democratic Party/Middle East politics during his initial run, that maybe helps explain why that is. (I know, it's Tom Hayden, but he's not anti-Israel and he's pretty apolitical in the article and just recounts experiences and pressures brought to bear on him.)

It's my opinion that the world and especially the Middle East would be better off if we Americans stopped viewing that region through overly simplistic cowboys vs Indians, good vs evil eyeshades. Hardly anything is ever all right, or all wrong---and neither are the Israelis or the Palestinians. But we Americans DO view it that way, and that it makes it all the easier for us to rush that shipment of precision bombs to Israel amid it's ongoing assault on the Lebanese people.

Taking a somewhat different line from JohnS, you can even think that Israel is totally in the right, and still think that it is very, very stupid for the U.S. to so overwhelmingly be on their side, and for them to engage in this level of unilateral action in southern Lebanon. The first keeps us from having any real influence with the Arab population, and from being able to come in as an honest broker down the line; the second just intensifies the existing level of hatred for Israel and sympathy for Hezbollah in Lebanon, just at a time when things were trending the other way.

We are shipping missiles to Israel for launching into Lebanon. I just saw two very disturbing AP photos by Sebastian Scheiner on the website CorrenteWire of young Israeli girls writing messages on missiles at a heavy artillery position firing into Lebanon. They're under the post, "Snowflakes From Faraway Lands."

Warning: The post also contains graphic images of death and destruction that these missiles are causing.

"It becomes something else altogether when the issue is framed as two groups of people--- two communities, one militarily srong and one weak, fighting over a piece of land."

So it doesn't matter which group has the legal or moral right to the land; it only matters which is the underdog?

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which stated: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

This was followed by the Palestine Mandate of 1922, which specifically provided for the establishment of a national home in all of Palestine for Jewish people.

The trouble was that after making these promises, Abdullah, son of Husayn of the Hijaz, formed Transjordan (now Jordan) and became it's king. By March 1921, he forceably occupied the entire country formerly earmarked for the Jewish national home.

After that, the remaining land in Palestine was divided by the League of Nations between Arabs and Jews, with the Jews receiving the smaller allotment, so that the Jewish nation that was to have originally occupied all of Palestine ended up receiving less than 11 percent of that land, as yet another example of broken promises to the Jewish people.

The history of World War II and the impact on the Jews is fairly well-known, so I won't go into it here. However, on May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent State of Israel, and the British withdrew from Palestine. Despite this declaration and (apparent) recognition of the new Jewish state, surrounding Arab nations invaded Palestine and Israel.

The region has continued in this back and forth battle - throughout which the Arab nations around the area have consistently maintained their position that there is no place for a Jewish state.

The constant threat of annihilation, coupled with the repeated declarations of Arab nations to persist until the Jewish people are wiped off the face of the earth is the reason Israel cannot just "make peace" with Hezbollah and Lebanon and Syria and Iran and Hamas.

For further review, please see Mideastweb.org’s website.

UN General Assembly Resolution 181 provides:

Palestinian citizens residing in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem, as well as Arabs and Jews who, not holding Palestinian citizenship, reside in Palestine outside the City of Jerusalem shall, upon the recognition of independence, become citizens of the State in which they are resident and enjoy full civil and political rights. Persons over the age of eighteen years may opt, within one year from the date of recognition of independence of the State in which they reside, for citizenship of the other State, providing that no Arab residing in the area of the proposed Arab State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Jewish State and no Jew residing in the proposed Jewish State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Arab State. The exercise of this right of option will be taken to include the wives and children under eighteen years of age of persons so opting.

Arabs residing in the area of the proposed Jewish State and Jews residing in the area of the proposed Arab State who have signed a notice of intention to opt for citizenship of the other State shall be eligible to vote in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of that State, but not in the elections to the Constituent Assembly of the State in which they reside.

Drat that HTML programming.....

The Mideastweb.org link is: http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

And for those who think diplomacy is going to resolve anything, remember the wise words of Will Rogers: diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" while you're looking for a rock.

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds."  Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in "A Land of Two Peoples"

Sorry, but no, lawyerchik1, I don't think anyone holds the "moral high ground" in the Israel/Palestine conflict, and your disdain of diplomacy would put those two unfortunate peoples at each other's throats for eternity.

Here is Professor Martin van Creveld's (Israel's most prominent military historian) suggestion for a solution: "There is one thing that can be done --- and that is to put and end to the situation whereby we are the strong fighting the weak, because that is the most stupid situation in which anybody can be...You do that by A, waiting for a suitable opportunity... B, doing whatever it takes to restore the balance of power between us and the Palestinians... C, removing 90% of the causes of the conflict, by pulling out... and D, building a wall between us and the other side, so tall that even the birds cannot fly over it.... so as to avoid any kind of friction for a long long time in the future..."

I know ITA is all about debate, but this I found this longish analysis by STRATFOR too interesting to resist. (note: Fortune Magazine, on Stratfor : “...increasingly relied upon by multinational corporations, private investors, hedge funds, and even the government’s own spy agencies for analysis of geopolitical risks.”

http://www.stratfor.com/

SPECIAL REPORT: WHY HEZBOLLAH FIGHTS

To understand Hezbollah, it is important to begin with this point: Almost all Muslim Arabs opposed the creation of the state of Israel. Not all of them supported, or support today, the creation of an independent Palestinian state or recognize the Palestinian people as a distinct nation. This is a vital and usually overlooked distinction that is the starting point in our thinking.
When Israel was founded, three distinct views emerged among Arabs. The first was that Israel was a part of the British mandate created after World War I and therefore should have been understood as part of an entity stretching from the Mediterranean to the other side of Jordan, from the border of the Sinai, north to Mount Hermon. Therefore, after 1948, the West Bank became part of the other part of the mandate, Jordan.
There was a second view that argued that there was a single province of the Ottoman Empire called Syria and that all of this province -- what today is Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and the country of Syria -- is legitimately part of it. This obviously was the view of Syria, whose policy was and in some ways continues to be that Syria province, divided by Britain and France after World War I, should be reunited under the rule of Damascus.
A third view emerged after the establishment of Israel, pioneered by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. This view was that there is a single Arab nation that should be gathered together in a United Arab Republic. This republic would be socialist, more secular than religious and, above all, modernizing, joining the rest of the world in industrialization and development.
All of these three views rejected the existence of Israel, but each had very different ideas of what ought to succeed it. The many different Palestinian groups that existed after the founding of Israel and until 1980 were not simply random entities. They were, in various ways, groups that straddled these three opinions, with a fourth added after 1967 and pioneered by Yasser Arafat. This view was that there should be an independent Palestinian state, that it should be in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, extend to the original state of Israel and ultimately occupy Jordan as well. That is why, in September 1970, Arafat tried to overthrow King Hussein in Jordan. For Arafat, Amman, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were all part of the Palestinian homeland.
After the Iranian revolution, a fifth strain emerged. This strain made a general argument that the real issue in the Islamic world was to restore religious-based government. This view opposed the pan-Arab vision of Nasser with the pan-Islamic vision of Khomeini. It regarded the particular nation-states as less important than the type of regime they had. This primarily Shiite view was later complemented by what was its Sunni counterpart. Rooted partly in Wahhabi Sunni religiosity and partly in the revolutionary spirit of Iran, its view was that the Islamic nation-states were the problem and that the only way to solve it was a transnational Islamic regime -- the caliphate -- that would restore the power of the Islamic world.
That pedantic lesson complete, we can now locate Hezbollah's ideology and intentions more carefully. Hezbollah is a Shiite radical group that grew out of the Iranian revolution. However, there is a tension in its views, because it also is close to Syria. As such, it is close to a much more secular partner, more in the Nasserite tradition domestically. But it also is close to a country that views Lebanon, Jordan and Israel as part of greater Syria, the Syria torn apart by the British and French.
There are deep contradictions ideologically between Iran and Syria, though they share a common interest. First, they both oppose the Sunnis. Remember that when Lebanon first underwent invasion in 1975, it was by Syria intervening on behalf of Christian friends and against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Syria hated Arafat because Arafat insisted on an independent Palestinian state and Syria opposed it. This was apart from the fact that Syria had business interests in Lebanon that the PLO was interfering with. Iran also opposed the PLO because of its religious/ethnic orientation; moreso because it was secular and socialist.
Hezbollah emerged as a group representing Syrian and Iranian interests. These were:
Opposition to the state of Israel
An ambiguous position on an independent Palestine
Hostility to the United States for supporting Israel and later championing Yasser Arafat
Hezbollah had to straddle the deep division between Syrian secularity and Iranian religiosity. However the other three interests allowed them to postpone the issue.
This brings us to the current action. Three things happened to energize Hezbollah:
First, the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon under pressure from the United States undermined an understanding between Israel and Syria. Israel would cede Lebanon to Syria. Syria would control Hezbollah. When Syria lost out in Lebanon, its motive for controlling Hezbollah disappeared. Syria, in fact, wanted the world to see what would happen if Syria left Lebanon. Chaos was exactly what Syria wanted.
Second, the election of a Hamas-controlled government in the Palestinian territories created massive fluidity in Palestinian politics. The Nasserite Fatah was in decline and a religious Sunni movement was on the rise. Both accepted the principle of Palestinian independence. None made room for either Syrian or Iranian interests. It was essential that Hezbollah, representing itself and the two nations, have a seat at the table that would define Palestinian politics for a generation. But Hezbollah was more a group of businessmen making money in Beirut than a revolutionary organization. It had to demonstrate its commitment to the destruction of Israel even if it was ambiguous on the nature of the follow-on regime. It had to do something.
Third, the Sunni-Shiite fault line had become venomous. Tensions not only in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan and Pakistan were creating a transnational civil war between these two movements. Iran was positioning itself to replace al Qaeda as the revolutionary force in the Islamic world and was again challenging Saudi Arabia as the center of gravity of Islamic religiosity. Israel was a burning issue. It had to be there. Moreover, in its dealings with the United States over Iraq, Iran needed as many levers as possible, and a front in Lebanon confronting Israel, particularly if it bogged down the Israelis, would do just that.
Hezbollah is enabled by both Syria and Iran. But precisely because of both national and ideological differences between those two countries, Hezbollah is not simply a tool for them. They each have influence over Hezbollah but this influence is sometimes contradictory. Syria's interests and Iran's are never quite the same. Nor are Hezbollah's interests quite the same as those of its patrons. Hezbollah has business interests in legal and illegal businesses around the world. It has interests within Lebanese politics and it has interests in Palestinian politics. As a Syrian client, it looks at the region as one entity. As an Iranian client, it looks to create a theocratic state in the region. As an entity in its own right, it must keep itself going.
Given all these forces, Hezbollah was in a position in which it had to take some significant action in Lebanon, Israel and the Islamic world or be bypassed by other, more effective, groups. Hezbollah chose to act. The decision it made was to go to war with Israel. It did not think it could win the war but it did think it could survive it. And if it fought and survived, it would have a seat at the Palestinian and Lebanese tables, and maintain and reconcile the patronage of Syria and Iran. The reasons were complex, the action was clear.
Hezbollah had prepared for war with Israel for years. It had received weapons and training from Iran and Syria. It had prepared systematic fortifications using these weapons in southern Lebanon after Israel's withdrawal, but also in the Bekaa Valley, where its main base of operations was and in the area south of Beirut, where its political center was. It had prepared for this war carefully, particularly studying the U.S. experience in Iraq.
In our view, Hezbollah has three military goals in this battle:
1. Fight the most effective defensive battle ever fought against Israel by an Arab army, surpassing the performance of Egypt and Syria in 1973.
2. Inflict direct and substantial damage on Israel proper using conventional weapons in order to demonstrate the limits of Israeli power.
3. Draw Israel into an invasion of Lebanon and, following resistance, move to an insurgency that does to the Israelis what the Sunnis in Iraq have done to the Americans.
In doing this, the U.S.-Israeli bloc would be fighting simultaneously on two fronts. This would place Jordan in a difficult position. It would radicalize Syria (Syria is too secular to be considered radical in this context). It would establish Hezbollah as the claimant to Arab and Islamic primacy along the Levant. It also would establish Shiite radicalism as equal to Sunni radicalism.
The capture of two Israeli soldiers was the first provocation, triggering Israeli attacks. But neither the capture nor the retaliation represented a break point. That happened when Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, several times, presenting Israel with a problem that forced it to take military steps -- steps for which Hezbollah thought it was ready and which it thought it could survive, and exploit. Hezbollah had to have known that attacking the third largest city in Israel would force a response. That is exactly what it wanted.
Hezbollah's strategy will be to tie down the Israelis as long as possible

John S.

Why settle for just a 90% solution? Why not just get rid of the Jews altogether and let the oppressed take it all? Call it the 100% solution. No Jews - no problem. It would be a perfect update to the final solution.

That's where your line of argument is taking all of this.

Final solution Phil? There's one of you on every Israel/Palestine thread. Per the nasty subtext of your post: criticism of Israel does not automatically equal anti-Semitism. Israelis do it all the time. You obviously didn't read (or just ignored) the quotes from Israel's most noted military historian that I posted above. Even PM Olmert's daughter Dana was among 200 protestors who demonstrated outside the IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz house on Saturday night to protest the killing of civilians in Gaza and Staff Sergeant Itzik Shabbat has refused to comply with an emergency order to report for reserve duty in the territories in order to free forces in the standing army for the war in Lebanon.

Not all Israelis and not all Arabs want to remain in a state of permanent war. All you're suggesting is more of the same, and that's really easy from the comfort of your safe American basement.

The "oooh you a Nazi!" line is a simple, stupid crutch for people who just hate the idea of actually having to _think_ about these issues.