Hmm. Interesting statement. Have you ever read anything at all about the 1967 War? Lebanon didn't participate in that war, by the way, but the Lebanese suffered for it, primarily because they had a couple hundred thousand Palestinian "guests" deposited on their border by Israel. The presence of these Palestinian guerrilla groups, who used and continue to use Lebanon as their playgroup to make war on Israel, led directly to the destabilization of Lebanon and the subsequent civil war.
The first attack that Israel made against Lebanon was, I believe (I could be mistaken, who can keep count) on December 28, 1968. As you may recall, Israeli commandos attacked Beirut International Airport and destroyed 13 brand new MEA (Middle Eastern Airlines) civilian jet airplanes that were just sitting idle at the gates of Beirut International.
Brand new, ready to shuttle tourists and businessmen to and from the jewel of the Levant -- "the Paris of the Middle East".
"Why?" you ask. It was in retaliation for a Palestinian attack on an Israeli civilian airplane at the airport in Athens, Greece. Two Palestinians (you remember them, they're the "guests" that Israel escorted to Lebanon and dumped in refugee camps for the Lebanese take care of them) were charged in the Athens attack that left one Israeli passenger dead.
So... seeing as how Israel attacked Lebanon for something the Lebanese weren't even responsible for, do you feel that Lebanon was "duty bound to protect its citizens, and to do that it MUST respond forcefully to aggression against it"?
Just curious. I can't wait to read your apologia for Israel. It ought to be a hoot. Actually, I predict that I will be either: a) lynched by the FR "Israel Uber Alles Amen Corner" crowd, b) be branded anti-Semitic (ironic considering that I am semitic!), c) be banned from FR for life, or d) all of the above with worse punishment to follow. Such is the state of debate in our free Republic.
Maybe if the non-Islamolunatic politicos of Lebanon had more backbone than that of the feckless and shameful Vichy regime in today's Paris, then the Lebanese would have driven the Hezbollah criminals from their soil or executed them en masse and there would have benn no Israeli involvement.