Reply #20: Most of the folks there voted for the Lebanese government

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not Hizbollah, so it's a falsehood to associate the majority of the Lebanese citizens with Hizbollah. There are two members of Hizbollah in the Parliament. Labor and Energy posts. Hardly the influence that some would like to portray in their defense of Israel's assault on Lebanon, its unarmed citizens, and its infrastructure.

The notion that the Lebanese people spend their time scheming and plotting to attack Israel is nonsense. The Lebanese government already gets over a billion dollars in US aid for their military. Yesterday the State Dept. signaled their intention to provide even more aid and training to the Lebanese forces to provide for the expected disarming and neutralizing of the Hizbollah combatants. That's why the attacks which have killed so many Lebanese innocents is antithetical to Israel's stated goal of peaceful neighbors. It's not the Lebanese people who need intimidating, its Hizbollah. There will be a need to enlist the Lebanese in any effort that hopes to succeed in the defanging and disbanding of the combatants. Even Israel has acknowledged that there will need to be a negotiated settlement in the end.

It seems that the Lebanese are to be cowed, humiliated, and their lives devastated in vengeance for Hizbollah's attacks from their soil. But, there doesn't seem to have been any groundswell of support for any strike on Israel from the citizens. Rather, these acts are being carried out without mandate or direction from the Lebanese proper. 'Misdirected' seems such a slight word for the way Israel has carried out their bloody reprisals; and they are continuing, without any noticeable effect on Hizbollah's ability to launch rockets into Israel.

The demise that you are cheering for the Lebanese may just happen to be the undoing of any real hope for the cooperation Israel seeks with Lebanon for their safety and security. A weakened Lebanon will abandon the country to the very outside forces that have destabilized southern Lebanon and threaten Israel. A devastated Lebanese citizenry will not hasten to Israel's defense so long as the preservation of their own lives and livelihoods are ignored and made subservient to any others in the equation.