I have to agree with most of the posters above, and reaffirm that there is a wider politcal and historical context to the current war in Israel and Lebanon.

Let's first of all agree to the obvious: too many people who have nothing to do with the politics of either side -- nor much to gain financially or otherwise by the current violence. (I have family in Israel, and despite the overwhelming media coverage primarily of Lebanese suffering, I can assure you WE are suffering, too.)

Having said that, I think to understand what's going on, people need to remember a few key facts -- the most fundamental of which is that most of the Islamic nations around Israel (with a few key exceptions) have NEVER accepted the right of Israel to exist at all. It frustrates me when I hear people say, "I just cannot understand this cycle of unending violence..." People need to understand that every time Israel fights it is fighting for it's EXISTENCE, and nothing else. This current war can illustrative of this situation. Look at how much firepower Israel can expend, and look at the relative disparity in military casualties. Also, note that Israel drops leaflets asking civilians to vacate areas it intends to strike beforehand. All of these demonstrate that Israel, while able to demolish half the Middle east if it chose to, CHOOSES NOT TO, because it has no interest in taking over other nations. As a people, all the Jews of Israel want is to live in the only place on Earth it has historical and cultural ties with.

By way of contrast, the Muslim militias seek only the destruction of a tiny space of land that they have only the most recent of ties with. As an earlier poster also stated, there are many many more incidents occuring than the media has been reporting. For every Israeli strike at Islamic extremists you hear about, there are several preceding or related attacks by those militants into Israel, especially in border areas. The simple reality is that with such a large representation in the UN, so much economic weight because of fossil-fuel resources, and such savvy PR-relations with European an dother media outlets, most of the terorist acts committed by these groups go unreported. And let's not forget that Peace talks have broken down again and again with the Palestinians based mainly on balking on the Palestinian side. Israel is the nation speaking of sustained peace, Israel is the one that has ceded the Sinai desert, moved it's settlers out of Gaza, agreed to a UN plan and voluntarily left southern Lebanon (should be pretty clear to all by now that no-one can force the Israeli military to do anything it doesn't want to), and most importantly calling for such concessions from a position of power.

It is more complex even than that, however. The fanatics in the Middle East have disseminated their message of hatred so pervasively in the Muslim nations of the Middle East that word 'Israel' itself has come to represent everything that's wrong with the world from economic recessions to ill or uneducated children to a flat tire on the way to work -- all of it is summed up as "the Zionist Entity at work." In such a climate, even the notion of living peacefully with other nations is unheard of to most people in these nations. Not to mention that this has allowed "Israel" to become a buzzword that corrupt and disinterested politicians use to push away their responsibilities for ensuring the public interest because, "you know, we cannot really get anything done with the 'Zionist Entity' dogging our every move."
Take the Gaza Strip and the notion that the PA would be able to govern itself, for example. The PA has continuously, even since it gained some autonomy -- and tons of money -- from the Clinton administration and UN agencies. An examination of funds spent might be a pretty clear way to measure priorities. Were schools, hospitals, roads, improved infrastructure, a social welfare system for the aged and ill the top priorities?? Not if you look at money spent. From that perspective the top priority REMAINED destruction of Israel. Most of their funds did not go into any of the things above -- nor wee any steps taken to assist those in 'refugee camps' -- partly because keeping those people in squalor was a major tool for soliciting charitable funds and manipulating the world with a disingenuous plea for help. Guns, rockets, and ammo is where most of the money was spent. What about ater Israel pulled out? Well, ten times the amount of weaponry entered the region than had ever been present in the region IN AGGREGATE.
Every time Israel receds or conceds coluntarily out of the need to make peace with it's neighbors, those veryneighbors think, "Wec have just succeeded a step further in our never-ending battle to kill all the Jews -- and remove their nation from our presence." In the words of the Iranian present, to 'wipe them off the map."

That's why this talk of "a disprportionate response" by the EU and others communicates only how pathetically out of touch current politicians over there are with the reality that Israel has had to live with for so many years.

The sad part of this current fighting is that so mnay innocent people's lives are being torn apart, and that while it certainly justified on the Israeli's part, it instead of spurin gthe moderates and realistis who are willing to take on the challenge of REALLT addressing the developmental wores of their countries -- it will only be used (and already has begun to be used) as a manipulative tactic to influence Muslims to fan and spread their hatred of Israel and the Jews.

Ad, you are swollowing the anti-Semitic propaganda being dished out by the left. I cannot quite figure it out, but the EU and the left decided that Israel and it's "dirty little Jews" had to go in the name of solidarity with the Palestinian's. Now, the EU, as has been pointed out here, sent millions of dollars to the Hamas controlled Palestinian government. That group, using European money mid you, attacked Israel civilians and murdered them - slitting the throat of one 18 year old boy. Israel did nothing. They, then, kidnapped a 19 year old Israeli soldier and threatened him with execution unless Israel released a list of about 20 convicted killers. Israel finally reacted and invaded Gaza. Hizbolla, an Iranian controlled Shiite gang, in turn got into the act by mudering 6 soliers and taking two more hostage. As expected, Israel invaded Lebanon.

Now, please understand, Hizbolla, just like Hamas, *is* the government. Hizbolla has 20 or so MP's in Lebanon and Hizbolla members are part of the Lebanon's cabinet.

So, of course Israel is going to attack Lebanon, just like they are going to attack Gaza. It is no different whatsoever than Nazi Germany's invading Poland or France. Not every German was a Nazi, but the Nazi's controlled the government and that is all that counts. In the case of Hamas and Hizbolla, they control the government, so everyone is going to suffer. If the Lebanese peope don't like what is happening they can disarm Hizbolla, and kill or imprison members of that criminal gang. If the Palestinian people don't like what is happening to them, they can do likewise with Hamas. Ultimately, though, the people of Lebanon and Palestine (and, eventually, and a lot sooner than you might think, Iran and Syria) are going to pay the same price....they voted these swine into power, they are now paying and will pay the price for that.

Israel has overwhelming force and has choice in how it exercises this force. It can (and is) able to annihilate Lebanon since the Lebanese are powerless -- as is most of the rest of the World -- to stop Israel. The US is the only power that has influence over Israel, but is not using it. Instead, it is giving Israel free rein to "de-fang" Hizbollah. Regretfully, innocent civilians -- men, women, children -- are caught in the middle of this cleansing process.

Cleansing can have side affects. And, as we do know, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. During the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, the Israel Defence Force was found to have permitted conditions where Maronite Chiristian militias were allowed to massacre innocent civilians, when ostensibly they were there to weed out (or de-fang) PLO fighters. The IDF stood aside as the massacre took place. It wasn't that the Israelis did not have a mortal enemy in the PLO. But it ended up with innocent blood on its hand as it used the Maronites to conduct is proxy war.

As innocent Lebanese die, and the US stands aside to allow Israel to de-fang Hezbollah, I can't but painfully see a parallel. Israel is not conducting massacres of innocents, but innocents are being massacred. In the case of Israel, average decent Israelis demanded an inquiry. Will average, decent Americans do the same if disproportionate violence is displayed? I hope.

400 Women and children in Israeli jails? Do yu really believe that nonsense? (I mean, there is not one shred of truth to that claim, not even mainstream Arabic media dare's to print that sort of rubbish. But some whated out, Arab lunatic can scuttle out from under the table like a cockroach and proclaim it for all the world to see. I think we need to carpet bomb all of the non-Israeli areas of Palesrtine. The parasitical Arab welfare bumbs there have overstayed.

my golly how many writers are pro-israeli ! Are there no journalists willing to cover the Middle East who are not favourable to the jewish, or zionist arguments, or are born into that persuaion?

the world sits in front of the tv set watching this 2006
butchery. no family can feel safe on either side. what a
way to spend the summer of 2006 !

finally what happened to those 400 wonen and child in Israeli prison ? They were the reason for this "WOMAN & CHILDREN WAR".

Naylor:

"This particular group of Maronites worries about the post-war agreement, which they believe will inevitably be dictated by Israel and their surrounding Sunni Arab neighbors. For various reasons, some vary conspiratorial in nature, they fear that a post-war agreement will accord Lebanese citizenship to the country's roughly 400,000 Palestinian refugees, in an effort by the region's larger powers to create a Sunni buffer against Lebanon's Shiite. And such a situation, they believe, would erode Maronite influence in Lebanese politics even further."

Wow! Sounds like Lebanese politics is more Byzantine than Byzantium's ever was.
But I find it duffucult to believe that any
Mid-East state, Sunni or Shiite, would collaborate with Israel in imposing a "post-war" regime on Lebanon. Israel, backed by Bush, wants to set up an Israeli occupied zone in So. Lebanon, like the one they were forced to vacate in 2001. That, if they try it, would mean war there for years to come.

Looks to me like the Israelis have taken leave of their senses. They can kill - and are killing - lots of people but that's not going to make them safer. Not them or us Americans, Brits, et al. Any responsible Western gov't would restrain Israel, not
encourage its madness.

"...residents of southern Beirut who are in constant fear of direct missile attacks from Jerusalem..." Some readers commented about what a "balanced" piece this was and I figures taking just one comment from this smear piece says it all. How on earth can a piece pretend to be fair when Israel hadn't sent one bullet towards Lebanon until they were prevoked by the kidnapping of two soldiers and the cold blooded murder of several more AND, not reported in the Post please note, the murder of several settlers (including children) inside of Israeli borders by Hamas and Hizbolla. Iran, Syria, the armorers and primary sources of funds, for Hamas and Hezbolla call not just for the destruction of Israel, but for the cold blooded murder of all Jews living there. So, I find it rather amazing that you make any sort of pretense to being even handed. And, please don't trot out the tired EU refrain of Israels response being disproporationate. Under that reasoning, the U.S. ought not have gone to war against Japan. They only killed a few sailers on December 7. Or, Al Qaidi. They killed, what?, 3,000 or so people? And we invaded Afghanistan? Let's try all American's as war criminals since 90% of Amercian's still think taking out the Taliban and Al Qaida was and is a good idea (most of us would like to get out of Iraq and get back to focusing on that, but this is a different subject).

Also, please spare us the utter rubbish about "peaceful" Islam. It is a fiction. Right this minute, Turkey has regular uniformed troops in Northern Iraq, machine gunning to death Kurdish civilian's, blowing up their homes, raping women. Why? To prevent the Kurdish people there from declaring an independent country - Kurdistan - in Northern Iraq and preventing a Turkish grab for the oil fields around Mosul. So what is our government doing about this? Nothing.

Virtually all of the Middle East - Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, all of Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, were historically European. They were conquered by Arabic armies between 850 and 1550. The Roman, Greek, Germanic, and other western native inhabitants were slaughtered, their homes, schools, businesses, churches and institutions taken over by Arab settlers. This was in no way different than what the Nazi's proposed to do with Russia during World War II. The difference is the Arabs actually did it! To this day, the 50 oldest mosques in Palestine, and many of the most "historic" mosques in the Muslem world are nothing more than Christian churches - Basilica St Sophia in Constantinople, St. John The Baptist Church in Damascus (converted to the Ummayyade mosque), the Coptic Cairo church (converted to the ibn Tulun mosque). The list goes on and on and doesn't even being to include the Jewish synagogs taken over.. Yet, never, not once, have Jews or Christian's taken a mosque and converted it to a church.

Islam is all about conquest and bloodshed and terror and hyocracy. It is well past any time for diplomacy. The ball is in the court of the Arab world. They can choose to recognize Israel's right to exist, Christian's right to practice their faith, the Kurdish people's right to live in peace, or they can choose utter destruction. For all of the blusteriung and threats coming from Iran and the fanatics in Hamas and Hezbolla, in the end, it will not be China nor Amercia nor Frnce nor Britian nor Germany that is annihilated, it will be them....and tens of thousands of innocents who want no part of their fanatical hatred and wars of conquest.

Mr. Naylor brings in an interesting perspective that is hard to find on the mainstream media. He is able to give the readers insight that other media outlets cannot get since he is living among the civilians in this chaotic time. Please keep posting Mr. Naylor's articles as I, and I'm sure many other readers out there, are very interested in the perspective of the people living in Lebanon.

Fine article. The targets are not random. Each rocket from Israel is psychology, much like 9/11.

This was a tremendous article. I hope you will continue to publish more articles written by Mr. Naylor.

I feel this is a tremendous article. The writer has great detail as well as puts you in the moment. I felt as though I was in Beirut reading the article. It was great! I would like to read more by Hugh Naylor.

You can say the war Israel is waging against Hisbola is a battle in the name of the whole world. What has 9/11, the bombings in Madrid, London, Tel Aviv, the train in Mumbay, the attack in Beslan and many more, in common?
They are all the work of fanatics islamists. And there is no better example of that kind of organization than Hisbola. Thank Israel for the work.