Objectives of the operation surpass the hope for hostage retrivals, they aim to go as far as to destroy the economy and significantly harm its people when neither the country or its people are at fault. This agression can be defined in terms of utter ruthless acts against humanity.
The Israeli military assault on Lebanese and Palestinian people and infrastructure is another example of Israel’s use of collective punishment in violation of international law. Many of these Israeli attacks on civilian populations are with US weapons, in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act. These facts have largely been missing from US media coverage of the issue.
These confrontations will not solve the problem. The core issues of Palestinian-Israeli conflict (land, return, Jerusalem) need to be addressed. The Bush adminstration has by its partial management of this conflict exacerbated the problem.
