Crisis

According to the main news outlets, Israel is levelling Lebanon. Except that doesn't seem to be quite true, as Mr Eugenides points out.

Israel is attacking Lebanon and too many innocent people are dying. But there is not the total devastation that, in what smells unpleasantly like anti-semitism, our media is reporting.

Let's be honest, this is a classic example of a test of strength. Olmert is realtively new to the job and does not have an extensive miliatry background (unlike his predecessor - who, incidentally, is still clinging to life). He needs to be seen as strong and ruthless when Israel is attacked - but it does not help his cause or the cause of his nation to push that unstable region into total war. Israel is a country surrounded by other nations that hate them - they have to prove, when challenged, that they will fight back and can win. If the whole of the Middle East decided that it wanted to destroy Israel then Israel would probably be finished (although the events of the Six Day War throws that comment open to debate). But that is not the logic on which Israel operates - it is more along the lines of "we will hit back hard at the first country to attack us, and we want to be sure that you don't want to be that first country".