The Israeli front.(AT WAR)

NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT was ancient Roman wisdom, meaning, "Nobody harms me with impunity," or, in the present context, Don't try to terrorize the Israelis. Over 700 Hezbollah rockets have taken lives and destroyed property widely within Israel, but there are no refugees, no panicky crowds at the airport, no cries to be rescued by the great powers. The Israeli Left, accustomed to damn every government, has rallied behind Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The national unity is as impressive as the determination.

The difficulty for Israel is that, while Hezbollah is the overt enemy, the real authors of this crisis are Iran and its opportunistic sidekick Syria. Arab states and their terrorist groups have discovered that attempts to wipe out Israel do irremediable damage to themselves. Iran's Shiite leaders believe that their messianic Islamic revolution can achieve the victory that eluded the secular or Sunni Arabs. Hezbollah is their frontline weapon for the purpose, supposedly a vanguard of Shiite supremacy but in reality just a group of mercenaries that Tehran arms, finances, and disavows all in the same breath.

Iran's growing imperialism is a threat to Arabs and Israelis alike, which is why Saudi Arabia, in a rather original statement, objects to what it calls Hezbollah's "uncalculated adventures." In the not so distant future, the world is going to have to take a position about Iranian imperialism as the country goes nuclear. The Israeli clipping of Hezbollah claws is meanwhile evoking cries of rage in Tehran, where they are unaccustomed to having their deceptions exposed.

Hezbollah has been hiding among the Lebanese--a trick borrowed from Yasser Arafat. That trick ended badly for Arafat and the PLO, when the Israelis routed them from the country in 1982. Broken by years of civil war and a tyrannical and corrupt Syrian occupation, Lebanon has not been able to muster the will or the strength to disarm Hezbollah, allowing it to become a state within the state, in effect surrendering to Iranian imperialism. Security Council Resolution 1559 mandates the dissolution of the Hezbollah militia, but Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, is as unimpressed as Tehran by anything coming out of the U.N. Thanks to his militia, he is rich, controlling charities; he has tame representation in parliament; and he is the leading power in the country.

The majority of Lebanese, including Shiite elements, especially intellectuals, deplore Hezbollah and recognize that Israel is getting particularly vicious terrorists off their back, in effect doing for them what they could not do for themselves. Even more than the Israelis, the Lebanese people are victims of Hezbollah. For Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and all who had hopes for renewed national independence, it is a catastrophe, a real tragedy, that Hezbollah has hijacked the Cedar Revolution.

In a close parallel, the United States and its allies did for Iraq what Iraqis could not do for ...