Has war between Israel and Hezbollah started? Will it involve Iran? In the early hours of Sunday, , after intelligence showed that the militia was preparing a major missile and drone assault on the Jewish state to be launched at 5am. According to Israeli spy chiefs, was due to strike the Glilot base near Herzliya, an affluent town near Tel Aviv, where the headquarters of the Mossad and several military intelligence units are located. Taken by surprise by the assault from the air, the Lebanese terror group, which has rained thousands of rockets on Israel since October 8, desperately fired hundreds more projectiles over the border, causing scattered damage and injuries.
Hezbollah framed its plot as revenge for the killing of its commander Fuad Shukr – its most senior military leader, who was wanted by the Americans for decades for his part in the killing of 241 marines and 58 French soldiers in 1983 – in Beirut last month. But in the cycle of call and response that dominates the region, it is impossible to trace one act of retribution to a particular source. It’s turtles all the way down.
When it comes to the conflict between Israel and much of the Muslim world, the only way to judge the hostilities is by first principles. Hezbollah was set up by Iran with the single objective of destroying the Jewish state. In this it joins Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and various other bands of savages.
From Jerusalem’s point of view, meanwhile, as Golda Meir famously remarked: �.