When Gavrilo Princip gunned down the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, the Austria-Hungary government held Serbia accountable for their involvement in and support for the Serbian terrorist group known as the Black Hand.

When Islamic Terrorists killed thousands of Americans in the 9/11 attacks, the US held Afghanistan’s Taleban government accountable for harboring these terrorists and allowing them the use of their country as a base of operations. Thus when Hezbollah extremists launch attacks into Israel from Lebanon and the Lebanese government does nothing to stop them it should come as no surprise when the Israelis hold Lebanon accountable for allowing this terrorist organization to operate unmolested within its borders.

For years Hezbollah has operated with absolute freedom within Lebanon, while the Lebanese government continues to maintain that they have not and do not support the terror group’s actions, but this statement is untrue. As a sovereign nation, Lebanon is entirely responsible when someone or something uses its territory to attack another.

As with most things Israeli, however, there is a double standard, Israel is expected to turn an indefinite number of cheeks when murdering savages launch wave after wave of rocket attacks, kidnappings, raids, and suicide bombings. To be sure Israel has made many, many, many mistakes, but such mistakes do not justify the actions of these terror groups nor do they give carte blanche for Israel’s neighbors to turn a blind eye as such terror groups operate freely within their midst. Any other nation, be it Britain, France, China or Russia, would do no less in response to an aggressor.

As went the Blank Hand and the Taleban so to must go Hezbollah. To that end Israel has stepped up operations in Lebanon, bombing the airport to prevent the flow of supplies to Hezbollah and targeting terror camps within that country. There is a growing fear of a widening regional war and such predictions are very much with the realm of possibility, all the more reason for the US to end its dependence of Middle Eastern energy resources and to hasten the transfer of authority to Iraqi Security Forces in that nation, thus allowing the US to avoid being entangled in yet another Arab Israeli War.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/13/mideast/index.html