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Ex Oz ambassador on Mid East conflict

Ross Burns was an Australian ambassador to Syria and Lebanon in the 1980s and until 2003 to Israel. So, he knows the area and its politics.

On the ABC Radio National program Perspective he said this:

"It is clear that Hezbollah deliberately taunted Israel into this crisis. The issue of Shabaa Farms has been crafted for just such a purpose. It is also possible that they got a stronger response than they calculated (after all kidnappings across borders and prisoner exchanges have been an art form in this neighbourhood). But there are indications that Hezbollah can only be encouraged by the outcome so far - they are now seen as pivotal to the way in which the Middle East question will play out and the Palestinian secularists and the Sunni states are further marginalised.

So Israel, again, may have fallen into a trap. Unleashing a response which virtually knows no bounds in terms of its effects on the Lebanese population is a familiar story which could again provoke unforeseen consequences. Israel itself unwittingly set the scene for Hezbollah's rise during its 18 year occupation of southern Lebanon; as it did for Hama's supremacy over Fatah in Palestine.

So it's not just a question of Israel's 'disproportionate' response. Because the consequences of Israel's actions can't be foreseen, and may be precisely what Hezbollah and Iran want, it is plain foolhardy.

There are other signs that Israel got it wrong - poor intelligence on Hezbollah's rockets (after 7 days they are still falling on Israeli towns); the Patriots' failure to take out incoming missiles; soldiers being snatched hints at poor discipline and field craft; Hezbollah's stage-managed attack on an Israeli ship."

Read the whole piece or access the audio here.

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