Whether or not ‘Hezbollah cannot be destroyed’ will remain a moot point as long as Israel and the West in general is handicapped by the meddling United Nations and weak Europeans.

Because of the meddling and unwillingness to have the job done properly, we now see ‘innocent’ Lebanese, running around, waving Hezbollah flags and proclaiming ‘victory’ over Israel. The Syrian and Iranian presidents have also declared a ‘victory’ over Israel.

Whispering Kofi and his gang have done it again. The terror will continue indefinitely at regular intervals, while the gutless West vegetates and cringes.

What a shame olo have published this out of date blurb by Clive.

I think Seymour Hersh's investigation into Israel's plan to do this months before the soldiers were captured blows his whole argument to pieces.

The stench around Israel today is about the same as the stench around George Dubya for his rotten and illegal invasion of Iraq, which was largely based on phoney "intelligence" from the out of date and paranoid Israeli secret service.

Leigh you can rabbit on all you like about Kofi Annan and the Europeans - they were spot on about Iraq and they called on a ceasefire in Lebanon within 2 days of the invasion.

Lebanon has never to my knowledge invaded Israel yet Israel has violated them 4 times, staying 22 years in an illegal occupation, using christian Lebanese militias to massacre Palestinian refugees in Shatila and Sabra - cases which found Ariel Sharon to be a war criminal.

Clive's information about Hezbollah is about as out of date as his blurbs were on Iraq. It is not the same organisation that started in 1982 as that was mainly the PLO resisting the invasion of Lebanon and the massacres stated above where some 22,000 Lebanese in all were killed by Israel.

This Hezbollah are politicians, social welfare workers, they are Lebanese and should not be confused with the former group.

As for the Hamas and Hezbollah working together - I don't know where Clive gets this stuff but not one person of note has ever proved that sunni's in Palestine or Shi'ites in Lebanon even consider each other to be human beings.

Now Clive should run off and write a new piece for us that is not one month out of date, when over 1100 innocent men, women and children have been slaughtered in a plan to teach Iran a lesson the repugnance and illegality is clear.

Hezbollah should be kept out of Australia. I am glad that our government did not give in to demands that it be recognised here. All Islamic institutions here should be under surveillance and should be open to public scrutiny at all times.
If they are innocent , they will be agreeable to this.

Marilyn, if Israel is pushed far enough by the barbarians surrounding it, it WILL use nuclear weapons to fix the problem once and for all. Israel is NOT going anywhere, so get used to it.

I do not understand what Clive Williams article is trying to say.

He kept harping on the notion that Israel can never destroy Hezbollah, as some sort of proof that sooner or later, Israel has to surrender. Boing, boing?

Well, Clive, guess what? Hezbollah will never destroy Israel. So, nyaa, nyaa, nyaa nyaa, nyaa.

Hezbollah has 500-600 "fulltime fighters" and "10,000 part timers", do they Clive? Big deal. Israel has six million people, and every single one of them over the age of 13, with access to any sort of firearm, is going to let a bunch of Muslims exterminate them without a mother of all battles fight where notions of humanity are considered somewhat quaint.

When the Arabs leave the Israelis alone, Clive, then, and only then, will there be peace. Because the Israelis will never let themselves be overrun and they will never surrender no matter how many katyushkas that the terrs toss at them. They have got the Masada complex big time, and their dedication, self sacrifice and deturmination is greater than anything a bunch of neuronally challenged Muslim misfits, who have been breeding with their cousins for far too long, will ever achieve.

I am not a religious peson at all. But if I was, I would like to be a Jew. I really admire their social cohesion, their guts, and committment to each other. It is something which we Anglos once had, but which we lost through too much complacentcy and inappropriate introspective naval gazing.

Marilyn Shephard

I know that you will hurl abuse at me for what I am about to say but if you do it may indicate that you are running out of arguments.

I am not sidestepping the fact that many Lebanese were killed by the attack as well as many Israelis including Israeli Arab Muslims. And this was a tragedy.

You say that Hezbollah are politicians, social welfare workers - why would social workers possess thousands of missiles and missile launchers?

But the issue was the Hezbollah cry to destroy Israel and their possession of all this armament - aimed at Israel. Of course the IDF planned this in advance - they knew of the threat and otherwise would have been incompetent if they did nothing to protect the lives of all their citizens. The kidnapping was just the signal that something much worse was to follow.

And don't pretend Hezbollah had not produced it's own plans in advance. Why the accumulation of deadly weapons? And why was the army of the sovereign state of Lebanon not anywhere in the area if was protected only by politicians and welfare workers?