I find this to be very very scary. This is from the blog Jewlicious, which I enjoy reading daily.
A New Lebanon War?
October 5th, 2008 by dahlia
Well, my friends, it may be that a new war between Israel and Hizbollah is looming in the near future. Since the so-called “Second Lebanon War” in 2006, Hizbollah has spent its time well, rebuilding its bunkers, recruiting new fighters, and rearming with new and improved rockets, with the help of Syria and Iran.
Major-General Gadi Eizenkot of the Israeli Defense Force Northern Command has warned Hizbollah that any future actions or attacks on Israel carried out would be met with “disproportionate” response. In the past, when Hizbollah fired rockets on Israel, it did so from so-called civilian villages. Eizenkot, in his interview, has made it clear that as far as the IDF is concerned, any village which is used to attack Israel will be viewed as a hostile base. He warns that enemy villages will meet the same fate as the Dahiya quarter of Beirut, Hizbollah’s base of operations in Beirut, which was completely flattened and destroyed during the war. Further, he suggests that Nasrallah think very carefully before messing with Israel again.
Hizbollah, in turn, has responded by calling Israel a “paper tiger”. Thus, this official states that Israel’s “threats” are nothing to fear. Hizbollah claims that it will continue its holy war against Israel until Israel withdraws from the Sheba Farms (which is sort of a lie, as Nasrallah has, also, promised that Hizbollah would continue its resistance until there is a Palestine from the “Sea to the Jordan”). Hizbollah believes it was victorious in both of the “Lebanon Wars” forcing Israel to withdraw in 2000, and not being defeated in 2006. After all, Hizbollah believes that its strategies have, thus far, been quite effective. A Hizbollah official has argued that while Hizbollah would be victorious in any battle, Israel has too many internal problems to really launch a war against Lebanon.
So now the question is: what does this mean? Is Hizbollah right? Is this “threat” by the Israeli military just a ploy, and a way for the Israeli government to distract its people from more pressing issues that if left to fester would lead to the destruction of the State’s very fabric? This theory sounds like a wonderful conspiracy, because that’s what it is. And like every conspiracy, facts can be provicded to support it and it cannot ever be really disproven. This being said, Israel has had internal conflicts since prior to its establishment; a fact which is unlikely to ever change. So, if we dismiss the governmental cover-up theory, we are left with the only reasonable conclusion. Someone believes that Hizbollah is planning something. Afterall, they have rebuilt their bunkers right under the noses of the incompetent U.N. Peace Keeping Troops, as they did last time, and have obtained weapons which ought to be able to hit farther into Israel (maybe even, as Nasrallah put it, “b3d b3d Haifa” – i.e. Tel Aviv). This being said, Hizbollah needs public support to function, as do any effective terrorist organizations. If villages don’t allow their villages to be used as strong holds, Hizbollah’s options will be limited, and if these villages know that they will be destroyed, not attacked, but actually flattened, maybe they will think twice. While Nasrallah may not care about the lives of ordinary Lebanese living in the South of their country, maybe others, such as the ordinary Lebanese do. So maybe this is just an idle threat trying to prevent an act of violence. But in any case, words are cheap, and the threat doesn’t hurt. Maybe it will convince Hizbollah to think twice about attacking Israel. And if it doesn’t, well, it seems that there will be an awful lot of rubble in the South of Lebanon. There is a great consensus in Israel that Israel was too soft in the last war; they won’t make that mistake twice. 
As you all know, I spent ten days this past summer in beautiful Israel. For a “cultural experience,” and lets be honest, added security, eight Israeli soldiers joined our trip two days in. I know that many of my fellow birth-righters would agree that their presence on our journey was one of the highlights of the experience. We learned that these people, although enlisted in compulsory army service, were just like you or I. They listen to same sort of music, drink to the same excess, watch the same stupid, mind-melting television, and, most importantly in my opinion, dream what they’ll do when they grow up and leave the service.
Two of the men had been fighters on the front line of the second war with Lebanon in 2006. They were 19 years old at the time. When we were in the Negev dessert, they gave a short demonstration of what their daily combat training is like and I nearly started to cry. Never has war been so real to me. I come from a military family, and while my father does not speak a word about Vietnam, he tells stories about his hi-jinks when he was a cadet and an officer. Somehow it became so tangible, watching these two guys with whom not 24 hours prior I had been drinking bad beer and chillin’ on the porch while they tried to show poor American 18 year old boys how to properly use a hookah. Excuse me, a Nargila.
Later in the trip we toured the military cemetery. The majority of the deceased were between 18-21. I’m sure that many of them, like some of our soldiers, loved being in the Army and fighting for the land that they believe in. I’m also very sure that many of them, like others on our trip, wanted nothing more than to go to college and become a teacher, an actor, or an engineer.
Part of me wishes I had never seen that demonstration. I wish I could go back to war being an abstract thing that you read about that seems like fiction and doesn’t really affect your everyday life…. that doesn’t threaten the lives of your friends far away.
