Originally Posted by visioninthedark

This is my personal understanding of this issue - please note; I am not taking sides - just trying to understand what happened and why - do share your views and educate me with your views.

Actually - lets see both sides of the story:

Hizbollah - claim that they have been negotiating for the release of more than 10,000 Palestinian and Labenese prisnors still in Israeli prisons despite the Israeli pullout from Southern Lebanon nearly 5 years ago - and negotiations have repeatedly failed.

Hizbollah claim that Israel should have released its prisnors as was the deal - and they have tried negotiating but to no avail - so they take prisnor two IDF soldiers to use as a swap for their more than 10,000 prisnors in Israel.

Israel - after having reacted strongly to he capture of their soldier in Gaza was trying to send the message that this type of action does not payy-off for the captors - precisely to avoid more soldiers being captured - but exactly what they wanted to preven has happened!

Now the Israelis are in a fix - if the negotiate with Hizbollah straight away it will make their actions in Gaza look stupid - I mean - why not negotiate there in the first place as well!!

SO - they have to give a similar reply IN THE BEGINNING! - just to maintain that they will not take lightly the captpture of their soldiers.

Now - to be fair to the Israelis - they are not directly targeting civiliand - most of their attacks have been so as to destroy targets of strategic value without unnecessary loss of civilian life - but as in all wars - civilians do get caught in the cross-fire.

Prediction - both sides will be caught up in a spiral of violence - but eventually - this will be solved through negotiations and a prisnor swap when Israeli public opinion sees that that is the only way forward.