You’re right it’s not very clear. Sorry about At the time the news broke there was some doubt as to which side of “the line” the Israeli soldiers were captured on. Most sources though are agreed that they were captured just barely inside the Israeli side. So the Hizbollah fighters would have had to cross the border to capture them.

If I gave the impression that that was where the falsehood lay my apologies. It’s actually not all that important where they were captured. What’s important is the status of relations between Israel, Lebanon, and armed forces within Lebanon. There isn’t actually a state of peace between the two states. They’re at war legally and were at war when the Israeli soldiers were captured. For the hizbollah fighters to crosss the border and capture them was a breach of the armistice that exists betweeen the two countries not an act of war. Peace didn’t come between the two countries when the Israelis withdrew their invading/occupying troops. The two sides entered into an armistice. And the Israelis have engaged in low-level, or low intensity if you prefer that phrase, military operations against Lebanon ever since. Including crosssing over the border and abducting, killing, bmbing, etc.

The Lebanese regular army is in no condition to take over border security the only ones able to do that in Lebanon at present are Hizbollah. They’re also legally empowered to do under the Taif accords. The Hizb aren’t some sort of catspaw for either the Syrians or the Iranians. They’re an entirely Lebanese outfit. They get support from both those countries yes, but they don’t take orders from them. Actually they don’t take orders from anyone they’re a fiercely independent bunch. (If you need more on this let me know and I’ll gladly oblige.)

The lie is to say that this operation is in response to the capture of the two Israeli soldiers. The scale, level of coordination, and level of integration of the operation is such that it’s been planned for a very long time, and by that I mean a number of years. Moreover the Israelis are hitting targets pretty well indiscminately including the very Lebanese arm they say they want patrolling the border in place of the Hizb.

It just won’t wash. It’s a blatant lie and that’s what I was getting at. The operation is designed to set Lebanon, which was finally beginning to heave itself out of the after effects of the civil war (including polically), back to where it was at the end of the civil war. It’s also very likely as commenter chlamor has given above an attempt to grab the Litani. Israel like all the middle east states is very short of water.

That incidentally is when you’ll know the balloon has finally and conclusively gone up in the middle east. If there’s ever a war over water such as eg: the Turkish dams on the Tigris then that’ll be a very hard fought war indeed. Oil we can live without water we can’t and everyone in the middle east know it.

Hope that helps

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5093.shtml

What you may take as a course of inquiry is the detailed documentation on the present situation in Israel as regards water. They are, quite simply, experiencing dramatic problems with there acquifers and so this long-planned offensive has been rushed forward.

The world is on fire. Education and information are the first and long since passed steps. Action from the grass roots, on the streets is the only answer.

The Litani River

3. Reasons to want the Litani

a. Israel
Israel could increase its annual water supply by 800 MCM (approximately 40% of its annual water consumption in 1993) if it had continued access to the Litani through continued/permanent occupation of southern Lebanon.(38) Another reason for Israel to want the Litani is that, especially along the Israeli coast, many aquifiers are stressed and their water is increasingly brackish.(39)

 Chaim Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Organization, wrote (around 1919-1920) to Prime Minister David Lloyd George that Lebanon was “well-watered” and that the Litani was “valueless to the territory north of the proposed frontiers. They can be used beneficially in the country much further south.” He concluded the Litani was “essential to the future of the Jewish national home.’” Yet the British and French mandate powers kept the Litani entirely in Lebanon.(40)

 Returning water-rich western slopes to the West Bank (acquired in the 1967 war), may be seen as relinquishing Israel’s water sovereignty and threatening its national existence.(41)

 A major reason that Israel gives for its use of the Litani is that Lebanon is not doing so. As evidence, Israel cites Lebanon’s “Litani Project,” of which only a third has markedly been realized. Yet, Lebanon argues that if it does not have control over its water and land, it will not be able to realize the potential of its water or land, or use it to the utmost.

http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/litani.htm

“Prodi told Siniora that Olmert set two conditions for a ceasefire: handover of the two captured soldiers and Hezbollah’s withdrawal beyond the Litani (river),” said Aridi.

  1. History/background
There has always been conflict over scarce natural resources, for instance, water. Adequate access to necessary water may be termed resource security and possible to war over. Both Lebanon and Israel see adequate supplies of water as essential to their security–and increasingly see it so. In fact, they find that there is not enough water to satisfy their wants and needs. Therefore, there exists the possibility of aggression in order to obtain water from the Litani River. In fact, “history reveals that water has frequently provided a justification for going to war: It has been an object of military conquest, a source of economic or political strength and both a tool and a target of conflict.”(8)

 If the demand or need for water in the riparian region is much greater than the supply, conflict over the relatively scarce water to meet those needs is more likely. This conflict may be military.
 
 
In the Israeli-Palestinian context, water is a central ingredient, perhaps only second to land, of the wider conflict between the two sides…the water conflict is not just about water; it reaches to the recesses of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to questions of land and annexation. Those are abnormal in a water conflict, and render the Israeli-Palestinian water conflict more complex and acute than others in the region.(9)
Israel seemingly is tempted to reach beyond its border to get access to the needed water. “Almost half of the water currently used in Israel is captured, diverted or preempted from its neighbors.”(10) This is understandable, given water can be described as “Israel’s vulnerable and fragile source of life.”(11)

 Israel is a riparian state, in part meaning that it must share a large portion of its surface water resources with neighboring countries. Control of water may be seen as integral to Israel’s sovereignty, the need for which Israel might war over.(12) Historically, Israel has been interested in the Litani, and conflict with Lebanon over the Litani is more likely given this. Essentially, control of the Litani has long been a dream of Israel in hopes of establishing a greater Zion from Sinai to ancient Babylon.(13)

Israel hoped that it would have use of the Litani by the mid 1980s, when it projected that it would have fully used up the waters captured in the 1967 war. Israel hoped to meet this goal by securing the Litani in 1978. Israel had even included the Litani in calculations of their water resources.(22)

Israel’s significant sources of water are currently exploited, and the only other source is the Litani, which, in order for Israel to use it, would have to be in Israel’s possession, which could possibly happen through seizure. The only other source of additional water would be recycled water.(25)

http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/litani.htm

“Terrorists crossed into Israel from Lebanon and kidnapped two of our soldiers. They did this in coordination with and at the behest of either the Syrians or the Iranians or both. We are going to punish Lebanon for not controlling the Hizbollah.”

The facts are very different.”

did Hizbollah cross into Israel or not? I couldn’t tell from your writing what side of the ‘line’ the patol was on when the soldiers were taken. If it was a ’set up’ on Israel’s part why do you think the Hizbollah took the bate?

Here’s a link to a powerful and telling comparison with history-
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0717-23.htm
There are other good articles on Lebanon at Commondreams as well.

Much appreciated.