Tuesday, August 01, 2006
They're taking it all. posted by Richard Seymour
Israel expands the war into Baalbeck:Israeli forces thrust into Lebanon on Tuesday in an escalation of the war and landed troops by helicopter in Hizbollah heartland near Baalbek.
The Israeli army said three Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in the south. Hizbollah said it launched multiple rockets at Matzuva in northern Israel, and the Israeli army said five of its soldiers were wounded in cross-border fire. (Thanks to warszawa in the comments boxes for pointing this story out).
They are even 'warning' people to the north-east of the Litani to leave their homes - how familiar, and how ominous, is this? Now take a look at this, boys and girls:

That's a map of attacks on the Lebanese infrastructure (from Lebanon Updates). See Baalbeck? Way up north. Israel's earlier scheme of slicing off the south of Lebanon seems to have been expanded somewhat. Or, they never intended to limit themselves to the south in the first place. It possibly isn't coincidental that the area they are now undertaking to occupy is in fact directly adjacent to Syria. They will have tens of thousands of troops massed on the Syrian border, in other words. Somehow, one suspects that they will not resist temptation. As Uri Avnery writes:
Now the generals are convinced that there is no alternative to occupying the whole area up to the Litani River, about 24 km from the border, in order to prevent the rockets from being launched from there. Then they will find out that they have to reach the Awali River, 40 km inside - the famous 40 km which Menachem Begin talked about in 1982.
And then? The Israeli army will be extended over a large area, and everywhere it will be exposed to guerilla attacks, of the sort Hizbullah excels in. And the missiles will continue to fly.
What next? One cannot stop. Public opinion will demand more decisive moves. Political demagogues will shout. Commentators will grumble. The people in the shelters will cry out. The generals will feel the heat. One cannot keep tens of thousands of reserve soldiers mobilized indefinitely. It is impossible to prolong a situation which paralyzes a third of the country.
Everybody will clamor to storm forwards. Where to? Towards Beirut in the North? Or towards Damascus, in the East?
To state the obvious: anyone who takes anything Israel says about its intentions at its word is a pure sap.