connecting*the*dots

Some of the more insightful analysis (video uploaded to YouTube on July 18th):

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The next stage was Hezbollah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers, they say on the border. Their official reason for this is that they are aiming for prisoner release. There are a few, nobody knows how many. Officially, there are three Lebanese prisoners in Israel. There’s allegedly a couple hundred people missing. Nobody knows where they are.

But the real reason, I think it’s generally agreed by analysts, is that — I’ll read from the Financial Times, which happens to be right in front of me. “The timing and scale of the attack suggest it was partly intended to reduce the pressure on Palestinians by forcing Israel to fight on two fronts simultaneously.”

David Hurst, who knows this area well, describes it, I think this morning, as a display of solidarity with a suffering people, the clinching impulse.

It’s a very, in my view, a very irresponsible act. It subjects the Lebanese people to possible — certainly to plenty of terror and possible extreme disaster.

[…]