Lois Capps has laid the blame for the current chapter of the
Middle East crisis firmly on Hezbollah’s shoulders. Formed in 1982
to fight Israeli Defense Forces who occupied Lebanon until 2000,
Hezbollah is the Lebanese Shi’a party with a stated goal of
removing Israel from the map and returning the land to Palestine.
After Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, Israel launched air
strikes on Lebanon last Wednesday and sent ground troops into
Southern Lebanon a few days later; about 230 Lebanese,
overwhelmingly civilians, have been killed. Meanwhile, Hezbollah
fired rockets on Haifa and other Northern Israeli cities, resulting
in the deaths of 25 Israelis as of Wednesday night. Arguing that
Israel “has the absolute right to defend itself from the unprovoked
cross-border attack by Hezbollah and continuous raining of deadly
missiles,” Capps said it is “in the U.S. national interest to force
Hezbollah to disarm.” She urged the Bush administration to “engage
in immediate, robust, hands-on diplomacy” in order to prevent the
“terrifying and ominous” conflict from spreading to Syria and Iran,
which have both supported Hezbollah.
