

The village I described was actually the closest I could come to
describing mine.  I agree there may be other villages where the civilian
population has deserted because it is too close to Israeli lines and
thus gets bombed more often.  In such villages often the only remaining 
inhabitants are guerillas and some elderly who have nowhere else to go.
But for the most part the typical South Lebanon village is more like
mine.  One where civilians and guerillas live together.  They are
often inhabiting the same house.  Many families are large, some
have members of the families involved in Hizollah, most others
are not.  That is what is so hard of South Lebanon, Israel is
not fighting an army with well drawn battle lines, but a guerilla
tyoe resistance which by definition and necessity blends with
the local populace.  Not because they are evil cowards that
use women and children as shields, but because that is the only
way one can fight a more powerful better equipped occupying army.


Hizbollah and Amal are now the main two militias.  Though
Hizbollah people tend to be more committed to resistrance
operation and better motivated by religious conviction.

  As to retaliation,

It may be a mixture of what we both say.  Sometimes Israel chooses
its targets carefully.  At other times it just sends its pilots on
sorties aimed at a town in general since it only knows that the 
attackers came from that specific village but has no further
intelligence.  On several occasions Israel retalliated against 
civilian refugee camps, even in North Lebanon, just to show
that it will not sit idly after its soldiers have been attacked.
Most of the time it directs the SLA to do the dirty work and
indiscriminately shell some Lebanese villages on the other side.
I have experienced this shelling myself on several occasions,
this is why the SLA militia is sometimes even more despised than 
Israeli troops.


I hope you are right on Israeli willingness to withdraw, but I still
contend that withdrawal would be the better course for Israel's
security, since it would reduce its  military losses, and I claim
that the Lebanese and Syrian gov'ts would be able to prevent any 
further attacks on Northern Israel.
 


Hmm...  Here we disagree on what serves Syria interests better.
I think Syria wants to have Lebanon all to itself.  It would
be willing to guarantee Northern Israel's security in return for
Israeli withdrawal.  I don't think Syria wants Israel to be
involved in its protectorate of Lebanon.  Syria is sitting at the
negotiating table because it has come to accept that and wants
to get a political resolution.  A renewal of hostilities
along the Lebanese front could put the whole ME peace negotiations
back in question.




I agree that the loss of any human life is deplorable and regrettable.
