Quiet Holds 5 Years after Israel-Hizbullah War
The fifth anniversary of Israel's war in Lebanon passed largely unmarked in the Jewish state on Tuesday, with no official events planned and the border between the neighbors mostly quiet.
The conflict that began on July 12, 2006, ending 34 days later with the deaths of 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, has faded into the background in Israeli public life.
Newspapers devoted little coverage to the anniversary, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak was not scheduled to attend any events marking the war.
The conflict began when Israel retaliated for a cross-border raid in which Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three, and quickly spiraled into a full-fledged confrontation.
Hizbullah fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel and the Jewish state carried out devastating strikes across Lebanon.
Israeli public radio played excerpts of its broadcasts from the war, but most of the media coverage of the anniversary simply noted how quiet the border between the two neighbors remains, five years on.
There have been clashes, including an incident last August that flared after Israeli troops began cutting down trees in an area claimed by Lebanon.
The resulting fighting killed two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist as well as a senior Israeli officer, but tensions subsided and the calm returned.
More recently, Israeli troops opened fire as protesters attempted to storm the border on May 15, as they marked the anniversary of Israel's creation, which the Palestinians mourn as a "Nakba," or "catastrophe."
At least six protesters on the Lebanese side were killed, prompting Beirut to submit a complaint to the United Nations over Israel's response.
But the incident did not significantly raise tensions, and when protesters sought to participate in a similar protest weeks later, the Lebanese army banned all demonstrations in the border area.
While Israel has welcomed the quiet that followed the war, Israeli commentators still disagree over whether the conflict ultimately strengthened Hizbullah.
"For the IDF, there are two ways to evaluate the five years that have passed since the Second Lebanon War," wrote Yaakov Katz in The Jerusalem Post.
"On the one hand, they have been very quiet, 10 rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel, but not a single one by Hizbullah," Katz wrote.
"On the other hand, it is impossible to ignore Hizbullah's massive and unprecedented military build-up, amounting to around 50,000 missiles and rockets.”
"As the upheaval in the Middle East continues and the years pass quietly for Israel, the 2006 war's impact on the strategic balance in the region fades and becomes just another point in history," he wrote.
"For Israel, it was a wakeup call and helped it to realize that the war of the future is usually nothing like the war of the past. That lesson needs to be remembered."
12 July 2011, 16:39
63
It was Isarel war against LEBANON, not Hizbullah. I m not a member of Hizbullah, however i felt the war waged against me personally as against everyone in my vicinity. I survived like most of us, but many innocent LEBANESE people not associated with hizbullah got killed. Bridges not used by hizbullah and other infrastructure was destroyed.. it was a war against the whole of LEBANON. We were all fair game in lebanon (maybe saniora was the only one off limits to the isarelis)
12 July 2011, 16:57
31
Which lebanese, would call it the "northern israel border" ?? Sorry strider, you stuffed up that one. For future reference strider... for lebanese, it's the southern border.
12 July 2011, 18:00
12
Mazen: You can't kill you parents and cry I'm an orphan..
Remember in 2006 who started ? who ambushed Israeli patrol in Israeli side and who kidnapped bodies of dead soldiers?
You can't keep an armed terror gang acting against Israel from Lebanese side and claim not guilty.
You are a sovereign country with an elected government with an army to protect Lebanon and to keep borders quiet.
We'll not allow those terrorists to target our towns.
If Israeli side won't be quiet Lebanon will suffer ten time more.
12 July 2011, 20:02
01
At the rate things have been going, a round 2 appears to be inevitable!
12 July 2011, 20:51
13
i don't consider hizballah a resistance. What are they resisting? Where is the israeli occupation? Shebaa? That 1 km2 can be resolved diplomatically. Is israel stupid enough to try invading lebanon again? No way. No one can invade lebanon because its people are crazy and pretty much every house has a gun. We don't need Hizballah to defend lebanon, a true resistance by all the people can be created by the people instantly if needed. And before someone tells me we needed them in 2006, it was BECAUSE of them that Israel invaded again.
What we don't want in Lebanon is any single sect with organized firepower, particularly when it has more allegiance to Iran than the Lebanese people.
12 July 2011, 22:22
00
ado everyone is Israeli except you, yet you forgot to answer le Phenien's rants about Israeli rights even though you posted on the same pages some other crap, but he was criticized by many pro M14 making you the obvious Israeli ado my boy, and mowaten was AWOL too a set of Israeli/hezbollah spies if you ask me, ask hassan he's admitted the hezb is infested with them.
And one more point Moshe when the resistance fires rockets it fires them into northern Israel not south Lebanon numbnut.
13 July 2011, 10:12
01
i feel like some people are like little kids going "Thank you Israel for not firing at us for 5 years!" to hell with that!!!! an aggressor is an aggressor. whether it was our boys going over the border and inciting the israelis or the israelis pounding lebanon from the edge of space.
what happened in 2006? we waited until israel was coiled like a snake ready to go for it after the palestinians did some burrowing and kidnapping. and then we go and hit the hornets nest with a stick. what were we expecting to happen?
the israeli army is an army that is only good at fighting another army. the ingenuity of hizbullah with its guerilla style tactics meant that any army couldn't defeat them. nothing to do with how strong they are. it's like taking the wrong medicine. before we start thanking our imaginary friends in the sky for divine victories (who incidentally are the same ethereal beings who promised the jews their promised land. go figure!), let's reflect on what's good for our country.
13 July 2011, 10:18
01
Ce conflit n'a pas de solutions. On peut toujours spéculer, mais pour y trouver une solution finale, je doute fort. Les juifs auraient pu choisir n'importe quelle terre inhabitée.
13 July 2011, 13:46
00
Let us stop the horseshit. Hassouna has turned the war into a victory exactly like Nasser and others used to turn defeat into victory.
Dahieh has not been rebuilt. Many villages were built thanks to Saudi and other sunni money.
God helps us guys because Hassouna has threatened in one of his nonsensical speeches that he want to liberate AL Jalil. I think this time the war will not stop before they get him wherever he is hiding. And if the israelis do not get him the shias will slaughter him.
One more point Hassouna was moking "Lebanon's strength is his weakness". I think that Pierre Gemayel (senior) was the first person who said this. And he is right. Hassouna is doing exactly this since 5 years. When we practiced this pholosophy nobody attacked Lebanon. But we used to have Foreign affairs ministers and presidents with great balls: think of Charles Malek and compare to toay's minister......
