A civilian structure in southern Beirut destroyed by Israeli war planes. (Raoul Kramer, Maan Images)

Any comparison between Olmert's and Nasrallah's political rhetoric must conclude that the latter is the more rational. His speeches are consistent with the facts and rely less than Olmert's on religious expressions and allusions. Nasrallah would never dare seal a parliamentary speech with a lengthy prayer, as Olmert did in his latest speech before the Knesset.

Israeli politicians have no cultural or moral edge over resistance leaders. The latter are far less attached to Iran than the former are to the US, and Hizbullah's constituency is less attached to Iran than the organized Jewish community abroad is to Israel.

The people who unleashed the brutal war against Lebanon are neither intelligent nor courageous. Quite the opposite; they are mediocrities, cowards and opportunists, but they happen to have military superiority. And they possess the keys to the machinery of a state, a real state, one that is secure in its identity, that has clear national security goals and channels of national mobilization, as opposed to a long deferred project for statehood and a state built on the fragmentation of national identity. On the other side is a resistance movement operating in the context of a denominationally organized society, a Lebanese government neutralized to everything but sectarianism, and an Arab order parts of which are rooting for Israel to do what it is incapable, or too embarrassed, to do itself, which is to deal with the resistance as a militia because it foregrounds their own lack of national and popular legitimacy.

Israel has nothing to show for ten days of barbaric vandalism and the deliberate targeting of civilians. It cannot claim a single military victory against the Lebanese resistance. It can, though, point proudly to whole residential quarters that have been reduced to rubble, to the burned out hulks and ruins of countless wharfs, factories, bridges, roads, tunnels, electricity generators and civil defense buildings. In terms of explosive and destructive power Israel has thrown an atom bomb on Lebanon, it is the Israeli Hiroshima.

True, Israel suffers a paucity of intelligence on the whereabouts of Hizbollah members, which is why it has been targeting the homes of heir families. But this does not justify the systematic bombardment of Lebanese society, and the attempts to destroy its economy. This is he epitome of terrorism: the incitement of terror in a civilian populace by unleashing massive violence and destruction against it in an attempt to compel the people's political leaders to act against the Lebanese resistance or to change their positions.

The current Israeli assault against Lebanon has nothing to do with freeing two captured soldiers. That is a purely tangential concern, and Israel will probably agree to a prisoner exchange when the time comes. Of prime concern, on the other hand, is an agenda that has bearings on Lebanese domestic, as well as American agenda for regional, politics.

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The issue is not why the resistance chose this particular time for its operation. Timing, here, becomes another pretext for vilifying the resistance and justifying the aggression. The fact is that, over the past few months, the resistance made several attempts to capture Israeli soldiers. The difference is that its last attempt succeeded. Also, the Israeli soldiers that died in this operation were not killed in combat, but rather because their tank rolled over a landmine while pursuing the kidnappers. A more important question is why Israel choose this time to launch a full scale attack?

The timing is an Israeli-American one. And the answer resides with the Arabs and the US, and their inability to implement UN Security council Resolution 1559 and dismantle the Lebanese resistance with Arab tools. So Israel stepped forward. The only difference between today and the earlier bombardments -- the "Day of Reckoning" and "Grapes of Wrath" between 1993 and 1996 -- is that Syrian forces are o longer present in Lebanon. Instead there is an American-sponsored project for the country, involving the rest of the Arab world, which as to change the structure of government in Lebanon and transform it into an ally of the US, a good neighbor to Israel and a participant n US- oriented alliances in the region.

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