Evidence Israel won in Hezballah war

AP/Washington Post:

For years, whenever Asher Greenberg left his home in this frontier town to work in the orchards along the Lebanon border, he took his M-16 rifle in case Hezbollah guerrillas attacked. Since Israel's war with Hezbollah ended in August, Greenberg's rifle hasn't left his closet once.

At Zarit, a nearby farming village where chicken coops and red-roofed houses hug the border fence, farmers are beginning to return to orchards they abandoned during the years when Hezbollah guerrillas controlled the Lebanese side of the line.

More than two months after the war ended in stalemate, many Israelis have come to see it as a costly failure. Those who live closest to Lebanon, though, say it altered their lives dramatically for the better.

"The war erased a threat we lived with for years," Greenberg said. "We aren't afraid of snipers or kidnappings anymore. We can breathe."

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The sentiment is echoed in other small farming communities where Israelis have for decades lived with occasional barrages, infiltrations and Israeli army invasions and withdrawals.

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There is more. The Hezballah flags are gone and the Israelis can loft their flag without being in the cross hairs. This may be the most significant evidence yet of the scope of Hezballah's defeat in Lebanon.