Interest and Perspective

While the Lebanese Prime Minister calls for peace, Hezbollah pokes at Israel, which the bait.

Unperturbed by international criticism, the Government of Israel continued to pound Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, destroying roads, bridges, fuel dumps and mobile telephone installations as well as Hezbollah targets, including a Beirut radio station.

Artillery, rockets and tanks mass along the border - World - Times Online. Israeli Lieutenant-General Yossi Kuperwasser, who recently stood down as Israel’s head of military intelligence research, says

“We want to hit Hezbollah really hard and enable Lebanese reform groups that want to see Lebanon prosper and become a real democracy be courageous enough and understand the need to do something themselves.”

Sounds like the Shock & Awe theory: Israel is "determined not merely to punish Hezbollah, but to destroy it once and for all as a military threat." There's more:

Lebanese police say that 66 people, almost all civilians, have been killed and at least 200 wounded in the past three days. The Lebanese accuse the Israelis of needlessly killing scores of civilians and destroying the country’s infrastructure. But Israel says that its F16s and artillery are striking buildings holding rockets and other Hezbollah weapons.

Collateral damage, then. Israel has copied America's rhetoric for using disproportionate force:

....Four other civilians were killed when an Israeli missile missed its intended target, Hizbullah's Al-Nour radio station, striking instead a residential apartment building in Haret Hreik.

Ali Assi, director of MP Marwan Fares' office, was killed when Israel took out the bridge leading from the Dahiyeh to Rafik Hariri International Airport.

Also, Israeli rockets were made in Texas - hey, were exporting everything!