Word: hizballah
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...come into his view, moving across an olive grove. It seems like an innocent pastoral scene until the Israeli notices that one of the shepherds is speaking into a walkie-talkie, while another is staring back at the Israeli through his own state-of-the art binoculars. They are Hizballah, and they're stalking back, along the Lebanese-Israeli border...
...constant refrain by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during last summer's war in Lebanon was that Israel could not be expected to return to "the status quo ante," in which it lived under threat from a heavily armed Hizballah across its northern border. And yet, the signs are unmistakable that the status quo was not significantly altered by Israel's military operation and the truce that followed. Neither the U.N. force nor the Lebanese Army appears likely to even try and disarm Hizballah, which has agreed simply to refrain from openly bearing arms in the border zone...
...persistence of that threat on its northern border remains intolerable to the Israeli security establishment - particularly in light of mounting tension between Israel and Iran, Hizballah's sponsor, over that country's nuclear program. And that's why Israeli military officers and Hizballah sources in Beirut say both sides are preparing for a new shooting war, which could come sooner rather than later...
...Hizballah is currently seeking to topple the U.S.-backed government of Fouad Siniora in Beirut, which signed off on the U.N. resolution requiring that the movement disarm. The Iran-backed militia plainly has no intention of giving up its weapons, and Israeli intelligence sources fear that it could be emboldened to begin openly resuming military activities in the south, which raises the prospect of a new Israeli offensive. Some fear Hizballah might even deliberately provoke another bruising round by kidnapping a few more Israeli soldiers - though Hizballah chief Haassan Nasrallah admitted he was stunned by the Israeli onslaught last summer...
...Israelis are also aware that if Israel or the U.S. launched a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring the means to build nuclear weapons, Hizballah would almost certainly be enlisted to retaliate against Israel. Ties between Tehran and Hizballah are tight - Iran hand-picked Nasrallah, then a young cleric, to lead Hizballah - and Iran would want a return on the hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of rockets and funds for social and military spending it has invested in Hizballah over a quarter century. While the U.S. remains committed...