Regional tensions fuel Lebanon-Israel clashes

Hezbollah has said its goal is to gain the release of soldiers, but is there any chance Israel will actually negotiate with Hezbollah?
We’ll have to wait and see what they say, but I doubt it. Israel wouldn’t negotiate with Hamas, and they are even less likely to negotiate with Hezbollah.

On the other hand, Israel is now in a bind. They now have three soldiers kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalist militias who have shown that they are very good in their military operations. The Hezbollah attack on the Israeli patrol today was clearly extremely sophisticated and successful.

Two Humvees were patrolling the northern Israeli border in a routine morning patrol. They were ambushed, at least three were killed, two kidnapped, four or five wounded. So that was a very successful attack by Hezbollah on the Israelis.

Israel began calling up reserve troops on Wednesday, signaling that this might turn into a large-scale campaign to go into Lebanon and retrieve these two soldiers. Would there be there be a lot of popular support in Israeli for a large-scale invasion into Lebanon if that’s what ended up happening?  
Well, first of all we don’t know if it’s going to be a large-scale invasion. But there is certainly support for doing whatever it takes to get the Israeli troops back. That may well include ground forces going into south Lebanon.

That said, I’m sure that no one believes that they will actually get them back in that way. It will be more a matter of pressuring the Lebanese government than actually believing their ground troops will catch these people.

And Israel has already bombed several bridges in south Lebanon. An Israeli army statement said the air force has already attacked more than 30 targets in south Lebanon.

Israel is always trying to pressure the Lebanese government to reign in and disarm Hezbollah, but they’ve always failed. The thing to keep in mind is that Hezbollah is very well armed and reportedly has 10,000 rockets in south Lebanon, all of which can be fired towards Israel. And, they are not these crappy old Kasam rockets that Hamas is firing — they are sophisticated weapons that they have received from Syria. We’ll just have to see what happens next, but it could get very bloody.

How likely does it seem that this could spill into a bigger regional conflict? Especially with, as you said, Syria and Iran backing Hezbollah?
In the past, everyone has always pulled back from that. I think it is very unlikely that Israel and Iran will have any direct confrontation. It is possible that it could spill into Syria, although, unlikely.

The main thing will be pressure on Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Israeli cabinet is meeting tonight in a special session and during that meeting they will presumably give the green light to whatever the Israeli army plans to do. But, a big ground force invasion would not happen before the cabinet plans to meet because the cabinet always has to approve these things.

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