By continuing to fire rockets into Israel, Hezbollah insures that Israeli public opinion will force the Israeli government to keep fighting until Hezbollah is crushed. Israelis aren’t going to tolerate any outcome that allows the Hez at will to force hundreds of thousands of them into bomb shelters for days at a time. This consideration trumps the Israeli political establishment’s great fear of a Lebanese quagmire and the enormous costs of mobilizing for a long war.
The Hez may be getting desperate. It appears the rocket attacks on Israel are becoming less effective, which suggests that the remaining launchers are being pushed back from the border and/or that the most-skilled Hez crews have been put out of action. But since the Hez are still firing salvos (albeit less-accurate ones) of short-range rockets as well as occasional larger, long-range rockets, the Israeli public will keep up the political pressure until the rockets stop coming or Hezbollah is destroyed as an effective force.
(See this post, and especially this article, for more on Israeli public opinion’s crucial role in this war.)
Watching the Lebanese spokesman on Lehrer was painful. While what he said was often irritating, he was walking a tightrope and not doing it all that successfully. And what a pit below! And exactly what is at the other end? And what a sadness after the joy of a year ago.
But his argument was flawed & he knew it; the representatives of his country included the elected Hezbollah; they had not been disarmed. These deaths came from weakness, from an unwillingness to act. Not acting has consequences that may be greater than actions. Sure, it is tragic that Lebanese who have more in common with the Israelis than the Syrians are being killed. But what being Lebanese is became a moving target as he spoke. He seemed to understand he had a weak logical argument; the emotional one, well, that has a certain power but it is not the power of reason.
When the Hezbollah are speaking openly of killing the Lebanese political leaders as soon as they defeat Israel, it is hard to see how anyone who sympathizes with Israel or sympathizes with the Cedar Revolution can believe any solution other than the true defeat & true disarmament of this faction can be an answer.