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Israel Committed to Block Arms to Hizballah

[New York Times] Steven Erlanger - Despite a cease-fire agreement, Israel intends to do its best to keep Iran and Syria from rearming Hizballah, a senior Israeli commander said Friday. International commitments to exclude Hizballah from southern Lebanon and to disarm it already seem hollow, said the commander, who had a well-placed view of the war and its planning and has extensive experience in Lebanon. He emphasized that he considered the threat and the fighting ability of Hizballah to have been severely diminished. What is important "is the understanding that the Lebanese government took control of southern Lebanon. Now we can deal with them as a country and a government, and speak and compromise. This is the huge change this operation created." Hizballah is no longer just Israel's problem, and "the world understands that we are helping to stop the influence of Iran." The Israeli Army feels it fought well within the limits set for it, and the commander insisted that the Israelis won every battle with Hizballah. "We believe it was important to stop the war with Hizballah understanding that we can beat them anywhere, any time, and we did that," he said. "I believe it will change the situation for a long time." Israelis are spoiled by the 1967 and 1973 wars, he said, but there is no decisive victory against terrorism. In Washington, too, "I believe the military and security professionals understand what we did, and they are not disappointed." Good intelligence allowed the Israeli Army to knock out up to 80 percent of Hizballah's medium- and long-range missile launchers in the first two days of the air war, preventing missiles on Tel Aviv. Israel is able to destroy launchers within 45 seconds to a minute after they are used, which no other army in the world can do with regularity.
2006-08-21 01:00:00
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