Published on 10 March 2013, by M. Tomazy.
On a dusty field in Israel's southern desert, the military is gearing up for the next battle against a familiar foe: Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
As the Syrian civil war intensifies, military planners are growing increasingly jittery that the fighting could spill over into Israel, potentially dragging the Islamic militant group that is allied with President Bashar Assad into the fray. After battling Hezbollah to a stalemate in 2006, the Israeli military says it has learned key lessons and is prepared to inflict heavy damage on the group if fighting begins again.
The Israel-Lebanon border has remained largely quiet since that last war. But Hezbollah has since replenished its arsenal and has waged a shadow war with Israel around the world. The fall of the Syrian leader or alternatively an Israel strike against Hezbollah's other main patron, Iran, could spark another full-fledged war.
In any conflict on the Israeli/Lebanon border, you can almost bet real money that it will be the Israelis who will start the aggression. And Syria, with its fighting against foreign mercenaries, is simply a convenient excuse.
Israel wants to come in and claim Lebanese territory as its own, because it desperately wants the water resources of the Litani River. It is only waiting for the moment when the Israeli government thinks they can get away with it.
(What really happened)
