View From a Height

One of the refrains from the Left about Israel's disengagement from Gaza was to compare it to Lebanon. After all, the argument went, since Israel pulled out from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has been quiet. Obviously, the violence there was solely a result of Israel's occupation.

Not now:

Following an afternoon of escalating violence along the northeastern border between Israel and Lebanon, residents of the north from the Mediterranean to Mount Hermon were ordered into bomb shelters Monday evening for the first time in years.

In the latest development, Hizbullah extended the fighting across the entire northern border, as mortars landed near the towns of Nahariya and Shlomi.

Earlier in the evening, mortar and Katyusha barrages hit the northern Galilee towns of Kiryat Shmona and Metulla during which one house in Metulla was directly hit by a Katyusha. While family members were in the house at the time, no injuries were reported. Extensive damage was caused to the building.

While it's tempting to think that everything your enemy does is in response to what you do, this may or may not have anything to do with Israel's announcement of early elections next March.

More importantly, it should remind us that the Islamist war on Israel isn't circumstantial, but existential.