More Fighting in Israel and Lebanon

Our do-nothing president continues to sit on his hands while war wages in the Middle East. Laura Rozen of War and Piece links to this story by Ze'ev Schiff of Haaretz:

The fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has still not reached its zenith. The Israel Defense Forces' operational plans against the Shi'ite organizations have not yet been carried out. The next two days are the most critical and a lot depends on whether Tehran decides to take a chance and authorize Hezbollah to launch long-range missiles with more powerful warheads. This is a capability Hezbollah still retains, despite the heavy blows it has suffered in the IDF air strikes.

On Sunday, Israel bore witness to the use of more powerful rockets against Haifa, which killed eight people and injured dozens more. The Syrian-made 220 mm rocket has a warhead weighing more than 50 kilograms. Hezbollah was supplied with these rockets as the Syrian armed forces were receiving them off the production lines. The decision to give Hezbollah the rockets was made when it was concluded that the group would be considered part of the Syrian army's overall emergency preparedness.

(snip)

From a military standpoint, the mobile Fajr rockets pose a special problem because they are more difficult to locate and destroy. On Sunday, the air force concentrated on attacks against regular Katyusha rockets whose range is shorter and many of which have already been launched against towns in the Galilee. But the presence of some 600 Hezbollah storage bunkers, a third of which were prepared for the longer range rockets, makes the task difficult.

I suppose the question I have about all this is why now? What is Israel doing? And does it understand the possible harm it may be doing to our own foreign policy? Of course Israel has the right to defend itself, and clearly Bush has been neglecting the Israeli/Palestinian problem for most of his presidency, but I hope we're not being dragged into something bigger. I have lots of questions and not too many answers at the moment. But I will say this: the world does not need more war right now.