glass and laor in the LRB

Two more excellent pieces from the LRB--Charles Glass on Hizbullah's political adaptability (via dear F., who I love & respect even when we're fighting) and Yitzhak Laor on the IDF and the mood of unthinking pro-war sentiment in Israel at the moment. The latter is really disturbing, especially in light of this Guardian story with the ambiguous headline "Israel faces domestic backlash over conflict." At first I felt a spark of hope that this was about a rallying of anti-war forces--but no, it turns out that the primary opposition is between those who support the war as is, and those who think it should be waged more forcefully. (Though the piece does mention some growing opposition to the war, at the end.) One of the unbelieveably depressing aspect of this conflict is the way that the rocket attacks within Israel have further radicalised the population and marginalized dissent--now Likud and the settlers are happily pointing to Lebanon as evidence of why withdrawal from occupied territory is a bad idea. Absent a change in either domestic Israeli opinion, or US support for Israel (ain't gonna happen: now they're asking for a new shipment of more lethal cluster bombs, and I'm sure my craven government will be happy to oblige) this is just going to go on, and on, and on.