Last week I argued that Israel's attack on Lebanon was premeditated. Hizbullah's capture of two soldiers gave the government the excuse to launch an assault it had been planning since 2004. Both Bush and Blair knew that it would happen and gave it their approval.
I was, of course, denounced by supporters of Israel's government as an anti-semite and an apologist for terror. But on Sunday this hypothesis was confirmed by an article Seymour Hersh published in the New Yorker. Israel, his informants told him, "had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah - and shared it with Bush Administration officials - well before the July 12th kidnappings." One US government consultant revealed that Israeli officials visited Washington earlier in the summer "to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear."(1)
One obvious question then arises. Why? Given that the invasion has cost Israel far more in terms of both lives and international standing than the status quo could have done, why did Ehud Olmert's government choose to attack?
clipped from: www.zmag.org