i would prefer to oppose a ground invasion of southern lebanon by israel. unfortunately, the complete and abject failure of the un mission in the region, which is mostly run by the useless french, has rendered it necessary for the israelis to carry through on. the french are apparently only interested in "peacekeeping" in areas that they can extract resources from, like western africa. 

france should completely withdraw from lebanon and stop pretending it's interested in it.

that means the israelis are justified in occupying the south of lebanon up to the river litani in order to show the french how to do what they've demonstrated that they're incapable of doing. the french should be embarrassed by their uselessness, and should stop pretending they're a world power and stop trying to involve itself in the region. the israelis should also send the french a bill for the labour costs of having to do their work for them.

if hezbollah continues to attack israel after setting up positions in the demilitarized zone, they will be justified in pursuing them, but i cannot support a full ground invasion of lebanon until that happens. it's consequently up to hezbollah to decide if it wants to get invaded or not.

i don't normally support israeli attacks on civilians; i'm normally relatively critical of israel. october 7th created an exception, and partly because it was carried out with the broad support of the people of gaza. israel had no option but to obliterate gaza. when the romans wanted to destroy a city for carrying out crimes against it, they would kill who they could and sell the rest into slavery, they would burn every structure to the ground and then they would unearth the paving stones, letting the fields reclaim the space. there are at least two well known examples of this, carthage (in north africa) and corinth (in greece). gaza is only being spared this fate, which is what it deserves, due to (i think regressive) changes in social attitudes around this kind of retribution and due to a lack of resolve in the west. the west should be making an effort to reconnect with it's indigenous religions and value systems, as it continues and completes the long overthrow of christian colonialiasm.

as hezbollah acted in concert with hamas, and has in the process created a deadzone in israel, israel has no choice but to secure it's borders by pushing hezbollah back.  

however, there is a fundamental difference between how the gazan people, who are muslims that are mostly descended from the philistines, influenced and participated in the terrorist attack on oct 7th and what level of participation the lebanese people, who are christians that are descended from the indigenous phoenecians, have played in the attacks carried out by hezbollah, which is a colonizing muslim occupying force trying to control and dominate the indigenous christian population, and this cannot be conflated.

israel has told lebanon that it is targeting hezbollah and not lebanon and that it is at war with hezbollah and not lebanon. it needs to hold to it's word as closely as possible in doing everything it can to minimize civilian casualties.

the following are examples of legitimate targets:

- members of hezbollah leadership (or anything that targets people working for or associated with hezbollah)

- weapons depots

- missile launch sites

the following are not legitimate targets:

- united nations missions in lebanon, who have failed to secure a buffer zone

- civilian infrastructure

- civilians, and particularly not christian civilians

further, i need to state again that israel should be seeking political allies on the ground that want to expel hezbollah (which is a colonizing imperial military occupation) from the country, of which there are many to choose from.