Hezbollah Says Israeli Response a Surprise

AP reported A senior Hezbollah official said Tuesday the guerrilla group did not expect Israel to react so strongly to its capture of two Israeli soldiers.

Gee, we only killed several of their soldiers and kidnapped two. Why should they be upset about that? We gave them a free fireworks display with our rockets.

Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah's political arm, also told The Associated Press in an interview that his group will not lay down arms. "The truth is _ let me say this clearly _ we didn't even expect (this) response.... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati.

But we are still not going to lay down our arms.

He said Hezbollah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel to the July 12 cross-border raid, in which three Israelis were killed. In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hezbollah actions included sending commandos into Lebanon to seize Hezbollah officials or briefly targeting specific Hezbollah strongholds.

And did that response work? No? Maybe that is why this response is stronger.

He said the Shiite group had anticipated there would be negotiations on exchanging the Israeli soldiers for three Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, with Germany acting as a mediator as it did before.

The four Arab countries that attacked Israel in 1967 did not expect that after six days the war would be over, and each country would lose major blocks of land either. You need to figure out how to live in peace with Israel.