They have shown that a terrorist organization is armed to the teeth that is a neighbor of theirs that was supposed to be disarmed. They did not get their soldiers back(unless they make an exchange), but they have exposed a very large threat on their Northern Border. They have shown the world that Hezbollah will fire rockets among innocents they use as fodder. They have shown that Hezbollah and Iran are closely tied to each other. And they have shown that they vastly underestimated the capacity of this terrorist threat and that their citizens must decide how much their Northern border means. Do people just leave the Northern cities of Israel?

And if the ceasefire tonight and the repositioning that will take more than a week does not work, you will see a buffer created by the complete leveling of Southern Lebanon. They still have troops massed on the border. And their airforce can easily pound any and all structures above ground at least 10 miles into Southern Lebanon. They will in effect make a sterile zone where only Hezbollah in their tunnels will be. Israel went into this conflict with minor use of their military. The TV makes it seem like they have ruined Lebanon. If they use their larger conventional weapons, Southern Lebanon is a true wasteland. Southern Lebanon is a tiny areas and can be completely destroyed. World opinion and their own democratic citizenry holds them back at this moment. There are generals who wanted to do much, much more. Right or wrong.