Vous vaincrez

So what's really going on? After just days on the ground inside Lebanon, the IDF is finding the going very rough. It's already admitted to taking significant losses with dozens of its soldiers killed and hundreds more injured in intense fighting with a determined and resilient Hezbollah force as committed now to expelling an invading Israeli force as it was in the 1980s and 1990s when it succeeded in doing it. Clearly the IDF is struggling and taking more losses than it's willing to continue sustaining. So it wants instead to have a proxy army it can control come into South Lebanon, again act as its enforcers, engage Hezbollah in confrontation if necessary and have it do its killing and dying for it. Will Hezbollah and the people of South Lebanon now allow it in when they were unwilling to accept their SLA (Christian South Lebanon Army) and UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) occupiers in the past? Not a chance, Israel and the US know it, and yet both countries are going through the charade of trying to convince the world, the Lebanese people throughout the country, and its government that they will. Once the fighting ends, the IDF likely will withdraw and an occupying force acceptable to Israel will move in to serve in its place. It will be as unwelcome as the others that preceded it and eventually it will be driven out. But before it is, many more will die and suffer, and the long struggle of the Lebanese people and Palestinians as well in the Occupied Territories will go on unresolved.

US - Israeli UN Resolution Hypocrisy, Stephen Lendman, 31 juillet 2006

[Hezbollah] was born out of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the oppressive occupation that followed. Hezbollah was formed to resist the occupation, expel the Israelis, and it remained an effective opposition force to Israel ever since. It's major base of support is in the Southern Lebanon Shiite region and Northern Beka'a valley it controls that's up to one-third of the population. It's also likely supported by the estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees in the country who live in overcrowded camps, struggle to achieve their basic needs, have no legal rights, and get no government aid or protection. Hezbollah is also a major political force and is represented by 11 lawmakers in the Lebanese Parliament and has two government ministers in the country's cabinet. But it also maintains a military wing as a needed deterrent to Israeli oppression that up to now has been the only effective force against it in the region. [...]

Throughout Israel's occupation of Southern Lebanon in 1980s and 90s that price was severe indeed, but Hezbollah's committed resistance nonetheless finally succeeded in getting the IDF to withdraw from the country in May, 2000. After 22 years of failing to subdue a resilient South Lebanon, it's hard to believe Israel is once again willing to try and in so doing inflict mass death, suffering and destruction on the innocent people throughout this country that are no match for the IDF militarily in a head-on confrontation. But it goes unreported and undiscussed in the mainstream that if Israel really wanted to end retaliatory attacks against its territory and people, the easy sure way to do it is to stop provoking the Palestinians and Hezbollah by attacking them first.

The Crime of Lebanon and Palestine:Are Iran and Syria Next?, Stephen Lendman, 26 juillet 2006