Netanyahu sobre os objectivos de Israel

No Cease-Fire
Remove Hezbollah's missiles--or destroy them.
Por Benjamin Netanyahu###

It is not enough to push Hezbollah 30 kilometers north of the border. Hezbollah rockets have a range of up to 200 kilometers, and could easily be fired from Beirut. Nor is it enough to achieve a cease fire. With its missile arsenal intact, Hezbollah could re-emerge triumphant a year or two from now and again menace Israel's population.

The objective of the military campaign currently being waged on Israel's northern border, as well as any diplomatic effort to bring that campaign to an end, must therefore be to disarm Hezbollah, first and foremost from its missile arsenal. A failure to do so would be a great victory for that terror organization and for its sponsors in Tehran and facilitators in Damascus.

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Imagine what the U.S. would do if, on its northern border, a terror state-within-a-state pledged to its destruction was established from which flurries of missiles were fired at Chicago, its third-largest city. With that in mind, to suggest, as some have, that Israel is not acting with restraint is preposterous. Unlike Hezbollah, which is indiscriminately launching hundreds of missiles at Israeli cities and towns to kill as many civilians as possible, Israel is using only a fraction of its firepower and is in fact acting with great care to minimize harm to civilians. But because Hezbollah not only targets civilians but also uses them as human shields by hiding its missile launchers in population centers, Hezbollah has deliberately placed innocent Lebanese civilians in harm's way.