The War in Lebanon
There's something curious about this particular war: the politicians all seem to get what's really going on -- even the ones who are usually a bit dense -- but the media seems to have completely, utterly, missed the ball. So this is probably a good time to give a bit of backstory.
(The backstory to the backstory, if you haven't heard the news at all -- a few months ago, Hamas started firing missiles at Israel fairly regularly from Gaza. A few weeks ago, they raided and kidnapped a soldier, plus killing a few more. Israel demanded his return and parked armored divisions at the border; Hamas refused, and Israel rolled in the tanks, going for both the hostage's release and an end to the attacks. Then a bit after that, Hezbollah raided from Lebanon and kidnapped people as well; in response, Israel has essentially gone to war, and Lebanon has been getting bombed ever since. Various countries have said "bad Israel, you're overreacting" but the response has been very noticeably muted; in fact, the US, Europe, and even the Arab League aren't actually opposing Israel's actions very strongly at all, and Bush signalled today pretty clearly that he's going to wait at least another week before really trying to encourage a cease-fire at all. Why?...)
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