Hezbollah's attack on Israel that killed 8 soldiers and left two as hostages, and the showering of rockets on Israeli cities, has caused a major crisis. Israel is responding forcefully, as it must.

In May, 2000, in full compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 425, Israel withdrew all military forces from southern Lebanon, vacating a buffer zone that had kept Hezbollah weaponry ten miles from its northern border.

The withdrawal was a military and strategic risk. Israel now had Hezbollah terror gangs, heavily armed and financed by Syria and Iran, literally on the other side of a border fence. It also gave Hezbollah, and radical Islamist allies, a propaganda victory - Israel didn't leave voluntarily, they proclaimed, it was chased out by Hezbollah.

Israel left Lebanon for political reasons. After the U.N. Security Council confirmed its complete withdrawal, Israel could occupy the high moral ground. Hezbollah had no legitimate pretext to attack the Jewish State, and Israel's response to such attacks would be more acceptable to the international community.

To keep Hezbollah, and its enablers in Syria and Iran, from causing trouble, Israel relied on a deterrence policy - any attack on Israel will have direct and severe consequences. Besides, how could Hezbollah strike when UN Resolution 425 also called for Lebanon's armed forces to re-establish its authority in southern Lebanon, and disarm all militias.

Regrettably, the Lebanese government never deployed along the border. Hezbollah took over southern Lebanon, fortified the area with an abundance of men and munitions, and used it as a springboard for repeated attacks against Israel. The government of Lebanon bears full responsibility for terror attacks perpetrated from its territory against a neighboring state.

Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hezbollah has in Lebanon a safe sanctuary. A place to recruit and train "holy warriors"; to create and distribute a noxious mix of anti-Semitic and anti-American propaganda that gets beamed across the Arab world via Hezbollah's highly advanced satellite television channels and Internet sites; to serve as Iran and Syria's proxy in combating American, and Western, political interests. (Hezbollah's list of murder and mayhem against American targets is long and bloody: 241 Marines killed in suicide bombing in Beirut; the torture and murder of the CIA bureau chief William Buckley; the killing of a US Navy diver aboard a hijacked TWA plane.)

Israel's military operation in Lebanon has several goals. One is to make it more difficult for Hezbollah to transfer their Israeli hostages to Iran, or to other parts of Lebanon. Another is to show Lebanon that there's a price to be paid for Hezbollah's presence, and push it toward taking its security obligations seriously. Finally, Israel wants to keep Iranian arms and money from reaching Hezbollah. Beirut's airport was the key link in the supply chain between Iran and its proxy; the road from Beirut to Damascus is similarly used by Syria.

More and more voices are being heard in Lebanon saying that the Lebanese government has a duty to extend its control over all Lebanese territory. With the requisite political will, the Lebanese government can establish control over its own borders and curtail Hezbollah's terrorist activities. This will give citizens on both sides of the border peace and quiet.