A Point of No Return

I think I can safely say we have reached the point of no return with the current Middle East conflict. A ceasefire will not be agreed upon, mainly because the conditions for a ceasefire established today in the G8 summit are one sided.

On other hand, the Israeli conditions for a ceasefire are ridiculous from Hezbollah’s point of view. Israel is calling for disarming Hezbollah, deploying the Lebanese army on the borders, and the return of the soldiers.

Now let’s put ourselves in Hezbollah’s shoes. They captured two soldiers, on the basis of trading them with prisoners in Israeli jails. The capturing lead to an all out offensive on civilian and military targets in Lebanon, resulting in roughly a 100 civilian deaths and hundreds injured. The only civilian airport in Beirut was hit, plus many bridges and main roads. After all this destruction, why would Hezbollah give the Israeli soldiers back? Hezbollah reached a point of no return. They will fight until the end.

On the other hand Israel cannot afford to trade the prisoners. First, they believe that a few weeks of fighting will exhaust Hezbollah’s arsenal leaving them with no option but to give the soldiers back. But as Israel waits, frustration from within will being to rise, and perhaps the Israelis will put pressure on their government to exchange the soldiers. But even then, Israeli government will shy away from a prisoner exchange. If Hezbollah’s demands are met, then Israel will appear weaker in its enemy’s eyes. The Palestinians will use Hezbollah’s success as inspiration. Furthermore, disarming Hezbollah will become a thing of the past. After all they won the battle against Israel again. They proved themselves worthy of beating the fourth strongest military in the world. Why would you take disarm such a militia?

technorati tags: Lebanon, Israel, Hezbollah, Conflict, Middle, East, War, Soldiers, Palestine