Word: lebanonization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...strategic quandary it faces in Gaza. By striking Gaza now, Israel has pushed the conflict with the Palestinians back to the top of the priorities facing the Obama Administration. Israel's offensive in Gaza will provoke an upsurge in hostility on the streets toward the U.S. and Israel from Lebanon to Pakistan, making life difficult for those inclined to cooperate with Washington (foremost among them, the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas) while offering an opportunity to U.S. foes to improve their own standing in Arab and Muslim public opinion. President Obama will take office with the Israeli-Palestinian issue...
Still, the prospect of rogue attacks along the border has spurred the Lebanese army to cancel all leave and step up patrols in south Lebanon alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers. The heightened security measures occurred after eight Katyusha rockets were discovered by a farmer on Thursday in a valley two miles north of the border with Israel. The rockets, a mix of 120mm and 107mm calibers, were fitted with timers and set for launching late on Thursday night. Lebanese security sources suspect the presence of the rockets was intended as a "message" to Israel rather than an actual attack. They note that...
...Lebanon long has been a graveyard for Israeli military ambitions. The 2006 war helped ruin the political career of Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli Prime Minister. But with less than two months before leaving office, Olmert and his cabinet appear to have absorbed some of the lessons of the bungled attempt to destroy Hizballah in 2006. In that conflict two and a half years ago, Hizballah defied Israel's aerial onslaught to maintain relentless barrages of rockets into northern Israel. Olmert found himself bogged down in an unwinnable conflict...
...Peres was floundering in a stiff electoral battle with the very same Netanyahu. Peres, who initially was considered a certainty to win the election, found his dovish reputation was working against him amid a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and deadly Hizballah attacks against Israeli troops then occupying south Lebanon. In an attempt to create a tough-guy image, he ordered an air and artillery blitz against Hizballah in Lebanon, an operation dubbed Grapes of Wrath. However, Grapes of Wrath turned into a political disaster for Peres when a week into the assault Israeli artillery gunners shelled a UNIFIL base...
Hamas knows that Israel's military intervention is unlikely to be a ground war to the finish. It will hope that, like Hizballah in Lebanon in 2006, simply surviving an Israeli onslaught will help it emerge politically victorious. Israel will hope to sufficiently bloody the movement to put it on the defensive and make its leaders prioritize their own physical survival over pressing Israel to ease the siege. And hundreds more people could die in the weeks ahead as the two sides look to win the battle of wills. The renewed confrontation is likely to strengthen the far-right forces...