"The Invasion"

So Israel decided to invade Lebanon today after Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers. I'm so glad that Israel decided to respond with TANKS. That seems reasonable. I have no idea what is going to happen next, I'm not even going to speculate. It is very possible that the world will become enrageged and Israel will back off, or I may be coming home early. I doubt that quite a bit, but you never know. I do know that the most unnerving report thus far has been that Israel hit a Hizbullah base ten miles south of Beirut, and lets just say the Israelis and Lebanese exchanged greetings in the usual Middle Eastern fashion. I really doubt there will be any sort of prisoner exchange - I think the only way Hizbullah would give the soldiers back is if Israel stopped their little war on Gaza, and the only way Israel would do that is if Hamas backed down (or maybe if the Palestinians deposed Hamas?). That sounds like a lot of 'ifs' to me! Watching the news, both on TV and watching the headlines on the Internet, has been extremely interesting. First of all, the Western news sources focus on one side or the other, choosing to look at just the Israelis killing Palestinians and attacking Hizbullah, or just talking about how many Israelis Hizbullah has killed. There have been very few references to te fact that Israel killed an entire family (including 7 children) in Gaza yesterday because the father, whom I believe was a university administrator, but I need to double check, had ties to Hamas. The TV news here is far more graphic than in the US. A car full of reporters was hit by an Israeli bomb, and the news showed the men while they were in the emergency room (all of them lived) and were even trying to get an interview while they were putting one man into the MRI machine!

I don't know what else to say right now other than I am still safe, nothing has happened in Beirut as far as I know. Everyone is restless here because really, what can anyone do? Everyone is in the same boat, being American doesn't save me or hurt me anymore than any other person. And to answer the question probably on many of your minds right now, no, I do not regret coming here.

The Washington Post published a timeline detailing the history Israel-Lebanon conflict, which has been going on for quite some time. Might put a few things in perspective - I also know that the BBC tends to put up similar timelines on their website if anyone wants an alternate source.