Bint Jbeil, still not fallen!

The heroic stand made at Bint Jbeil in Southern Lebanon has bloodied the nose of Israel's occupation forces. They have been suffering heavy casualties as a result of their offensive, yet nothing is heard of this on Western news. The Israeli military has been checked in its advance by a force of irregular troops, and the West does not seem to comprehend the profoundness of this event.

For the first time in a generation, Israel, and by proxy the United States is being resisted actively and it's strength rendered useless. The weakness and frustration of Israel as it lashes against Lebanese civilians is borne out of the the feeling of being helpless. While the US is bogged down in Iraq, it's client state Israel is finding that it cannot impose it's hegemony on the region. The lesson to be learned from what is happening is that fighting a nation is not like fighting a modern conventional army, you cannot defeat it, period.

The challenge now, for Hezbullah and other countries wishing to resist this hegemony, is to find a way of fighting back while averting the catastrophic damage inflicted on the civilian population. I don't want to say deterrent, as that word is laden with connotations of a nuclear nature, but something which can deny Western nations (including Israel) dominance of the sky over the Arab countries (as well as Iran) and thus restrict their ability to strike when and where they wish. Only then can progress be made, either in rolling back the occupation on the ground, or through negotiations. This decision however, is a sovereign choice to be decided by the Arab world as a whole, and not one to be dictated to us from the West, particularly with regards to the fate of occupied Palestine.