At 10:30 last Thursday morning the telephone lines all over Beirut suddenly and mysteriously went dead. The glitch was probably caused by the city's notoriously fickle communication lines. But in retrospect, it seemed more like a sign that trouble was in the air. Literally in the air, it turned out: just off the coast, four Israeli helicopter gunships were loosing laser-homing Hellfire missiles and delivering Israel's first attack on Beirut in 14 years.
Operation "Grapes of Wrath," which was continuing at the end of last week, is a series of coordinated Israeli raids against Hizballah, the Iranian-backed militia that has been...
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