Furthermore, its "disproportionate" use of force (I use the term "disproportionate," bean-counting obnoxious and paternalistic as it may be, in its legalistic, Geneva-Conventions sense) it must be recognized for what it is: an act of state terrorism. Terrorism, as we know by now, is defined in various US codes as the use of force against civilians to obtain political objectives. It was not Hizballah that launched the first round of this terror: they targeted military personnel to obtain the release of their prisoners in Israel -- a common military tactic between hostile forces.

Israel's all-out attack on a sovereign country, which had nothing to do with Hizballah's action nor had any power to control it, sets a record -- topping the already egregious example of Iraq -- for unprovoked imperial aggression and ratchets up the threshold of terror to which defenseless and blameless victims can be subjected by nations protected by the imperial umbrella of US power.

Too, the Lebanese people should draw conclusions in the interest of their future self-preservation from the consequences of US false democracy-building projects like the expulsion of Syria and the installation of a US-friendly regime in Lebanon, which left them unprotected against the latest attack. They should weigh the gifting of any alleged US democracy export against the relentless reality of the US onslaught for hegemony in the region.

The US is not an honest broker -- the Lebanese war proves it. Bunker-busters for Israel. No ceasefire for Lebanon. If anything, the US is Israel's dishonest broker for war and occupation, furnishing the funds and the weapons. As someone (most probably Gandhi) once noted of a previous empire, so it should be noted of the current one: "The sun never sets on the British Empire. Who would trust them in the dark?"

The US's conscious lies, proferred as democracy offerings, are calculated to open up the deceived countries to either military or economic aggression. In fact, the people of Lebanon, including 74 percent of Lebanese Christians, are already coming to the conclusion that Hizballah -- not the UN, the western democracies, the Arab states, the EU -- is their only defense against the unscrupulous might of the triple entente of the US, Britain, and Israel.

The world is aghast -- and rightly so -- at this inhuman scandal and triumphalist celebration in Lebanon of naked force by a state claiming to be defending itself against the existential threat of UN peacekeepers, ambulances, fleeing families, airports, bridges, ports, electrical grids, and water purifying plants. The threat seems to be Lebanese life itself and the object seems to be terrorizing the life out of the Lebanese people.

Imagine if Britain in the 1970s had found that two of its soldiers in Northern Ireland had been captured by the IRA and decided to "negotiate" their release by bombing Dublin and Ireland to smithereens in retaliation, claiming it was defending itself. Who would have believed that the objective of Britain was defensive? Britain could have argued, too, that the US was complicit with, perhaps even a sponsor of IRA terror, since a sizeable portion of IRA funds came from supporters in the US. Who could have blamed us if we assumed that the real target of Britain's assault was the US, that by killing Irish civilians it was sending a message to the US?

Such a scenario was unthinkable then and is unthinkable now.

For one thing, the Irish were Catholic -- though, from a Protestant point of view, unfortunately so. The IRA, though designated a "terrorist" group, were not pegged by official propaganda as enemies of western civilization. No one was calling Catholicism an irrational religion of war, intolerant of democracy -- though the claim might have easily found some solid evidence in a long history of Vatican opposition to democracy and freedom from autocratic rule. For another thing, the Irish as a Catholic people were not stigmatized as "untermenschen" quite to the degree that Arab-Muslims have been stigmatized by the Israeli-Anglo-American campaign to subjugate the Middle East.

Absent the complete demonization of the Irish people (and the smashing of British imperialism on all fronts), such an attack by Britain on Ireland was and remained unthinkable in modern times, though it had empowered Irish massacres in the past by the British in their thousand-year brutal domination and repression of Ireland.

Jonathan Swift, the eighteenth century writer and intellectual, advisor to Queen Anne of England, well understood that British policy toward Ireland was rooted in an internalized conception of the Irish as "sub-human." He wrote the infamously famous essay "A Modest Proposal" in which he served up to English readers the formula that, since they consumed Ireland's life to the point where life for the Irish was unsustainable, they should consider a proposal to buy, roast and eat Irish babies, like suckling pigs at their tenderest. In this way, the Irish problem would go away, while the modest fee of buying an infant to sup on would make, for a time, the Irish dependency self-paying.

Swift was deemed mad -- what, for holding up the mirror to England of the implications of its virtually cannibalistic policy toward Ireland? Why not make it literal -- as it, indeed, appeared to be.

Empires are finicky. Many videos depicting the reality of war in Lebanon made available on the Internet by progressive sites are preceded by a warning that the graphic content may be "disturbing" to some viewers. What an infinitely depraved and hypocritical society we live in! The killings our governments carry out in our name are indeed "disturbing," but, unlike our victims by proxy, we can choose not to see them. That was Swift's point -- and one we would do well to heed, if we want to prevent our descent into protective moral callousness, enabling the murder of innocents while we close our eyes to images of bloody dying and our ears to agonized cries for help. To force oneself to view the violence of our government and its protegees is the duty we owe to the prevention of violence. It is to bear witness to violence, the last comfort and ultimate right we owe to the slain.

Every war has its picture. Mine, in this cruelest, most heartless, and least excusable of all recent inexcusable wars is an image of a mother and a son -- a reversed "Pieta." You may have seen it. It is all over the Internet.

A woman, a mother, is dying, her eyes turned in the last, lingering sweetness of her now helpless love toward her young son, her white arm raised to touch his blood-streaked face, to calm his wildly sobbing and inconsolable grief, to soothe his desperate entreaties attempting to convince her not to die, while himself gripped by the dawning certainty that she is beyond recall. In the moment before her death, she is already far from the war, calm in the intimacy of her departure, her large, liquid eyes softened by the tender softness of a love that no war can kill, her sadness not for her fate but for his own.

This killing of mothers in Lebanon is not in any "self-defense." How could it be? I see no gun in the dying victim's hand nor in the hand of the orphan she leaves behind.

Luciana Bohne teaches film and literature at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at lbohne@edinboro.edu.

Here are developments on Day 21 of the crisis in the Middle East:
# Israeli forces thrust into Lebanon in escalation of war and land troops by helicopter in Hezbollah heartland near Baalbek.
# Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has rejected international calls for immediate halt to hostilities, says he sees signs of movement toward ceasefire.
# Olmert's deputy, Shimon Peres, says campaign could end in weeks.
# Israeli army says three Israeli soldiers die in fighting and five are wounded in cross-border fire. Hezbollah says it fired rockets at Matzuva in northern Israel.
# Israel's security cabinet agrees to step up offensive, entailing ground sweep seven kilometres into Lebanon, political source says.
# Israel says it will resume full air strikes in Lebanon early today at end of partial, 48-hour suspension.
# U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says ceasefire could be reached in Lebanon within days.
# UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reschedules for tomorrow a meeting of potential contributors for an international force. It had been postponed on Monday.
# EU calls for immediate halt to hostilities to be followed by sustainable ceasefire, watering down demands for an immediate ceasefire at insistence of Britain, other U.S. allies.
# Israel's army says it warned residents living north of Lebanon's Litani River to leave the area, suggesting air raids could target areas farther north than most previous strikes.
# Israeli infrastructure minister says army needs up to two weeks to complete its objectives.
# UN and Red Cross say they were forced to delay dispatch of aid to southern Lebanon because of failure to get security guarantees.
# Israel's tourism minister claims about 400 Hezbollah guerrillas have been killed. Hezbollah says 46 fighters have died.
# At least 532 people have been killed in Lebanon, although the health minister puts toll at 750 including bodies still buried under rubble. Fifty-four Israelis have been killed.

Reuters News Agency

Israel refused to identify the guerrillas it captured at the hospital, but the target of the raid was thought to be Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, a member of the Hizbullah high council and a representative of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Residents of the area claimed the hospital was financed by an Iranian charity, the Imam Khomeini Charitable Society, which is close to Hizbullah.

Hizbullah confirmed some people had been seized, but claimed they were civilians.

"It will not be long before the enemy will discover that they are ordinary citizens," Hizbullah said in a statement broadcast on its al-Manar television channel.

Hizbullah's chief spokesman, Hussein Rahal told Associated Press that fierce fighting raged for more than one hour at the hospital, which witnesses said was partially destroyed.

"A group of Israeli commandos were brought to the hospital by a helicopter," Mr Rahal said. He added that Israeli jets were attacking the surrounding guerrilla force with missiles.

At least 12 people were killed in an air strike on the village of Jammaliyeh near Baalbek. A missile hit the house of the village's mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, instantly killing his son Ali, the mayor's brother Awad, and five other relatives, witnesses said.

The witnesses said the mayor - who survived the raid - and his relatives were political opponents of Hizbullah, and had apparently been hit randomly.

A family of five were also killed in a strike on the village of Saath. Later Mr Olmert gave a defiant interview to Reuters. He said: "If indeed, as we hope, the international force will be an effective force made of combat units, then we will be able to stop fire when the international force will be on the ground in the south part of Lebanon."

Asked if that meant Israel would carry on fighting until then, Mr Olmert said: "Yes."

Earlier today, Israeli warplanes raided an army base in south Lebanon, killing three soldiers, a Lebanese security official said. The jets fired at least one missile at the base in the village of Sarba, in a hilly region where Hizbullah is also believed to have offices and bases.

Air strikes also targeted a bridge, an overpass and a road in the northern province of Akkar, officials said.

Hizbullah said in a statement that it had attacked an Israeli army armoured unit that crossed into Lebanon this morning, destroying two tanks and leaving their crews dead or wounded.

The statement said the fighting began when the unit attempted to advance on the Rub Thalatheen hill at Adaisseh, a border village in the central section of the frontier. The Israeli army denied the allegation.

Israeli troops are operating in their thousands all along the Israel-Lebanon border, with additional soldiers crossing into Lebanon yesterday. They entered through four different points along the border and advanced at least four miles inside Lebanon.

Thousands of reservists, called up over the weekend, are also gathering at staging areas on the Israeli side of the border, ready to join the battles and extend the range of the offensive.

Israeli officials said their soldiers were to go as far as the Litani river, about 18 miles from the border, and hold the ground until an international peacekeeping force came ashore.

The Israelis say they want to keep Hizbullah away from the border so their patrols and civilians along the frontier are not in danger of attack, such as the July 12 raid in which guerrillas killed eight soldiers and seized two others.

'At the 21st day of the Israeli offensive on Lebanon, the health ministry has counted 828 dead, more than 3,200 wounded,' an HRC spokesman who did not wish to be identified said.

'These are identified bodies, and the toll does not count the people still believed to be under the rubble,' he said.

The five captives have been named as Bilal Nasrallah, his father Hasan Nasrallah, Muhammad Shukr, Ahmad al-Ghouta and Hasan al-Bourji.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the men were brought to Israel.

She said none of the soldiers who took part in the operation were injured.

They had landed by helicopter near the al-Hikmah hospital in Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa valley.

Israel has continued airstrikes across South Lebanon, including the city of Tyre, the towns of al-Sultaniye, Froun and Jibbin and the border villages of Qabrikha, Qantara and Tallousa.

Civilians killed

At least 19 civilians, including a Syrian national, were killed and more than 20 wounded in airstrikes near where the operation took place.

Security sources said jets bombarded the village of Jammaliyeh during clashes nearby between the commandos and Hezbollah, destroying several houses.

They said the seven members of a family were found dead in one house.

The toll was expected to rise when rescuers finish lifting the rubble of other houses.

Baalbek is about 100km north of the Litani River, which the Israelis have set as the northern boundary for their expanded ground operation announced on Tuesday.

Israel hit

Lebanese security officials have reported that more than 300 rockets have been fired towards Israel by Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday.

Israeli police said more than 80 had landed in the north of the country, wounding 14 people.

Israel Radio reported that one rocket hit the town of Beit Shean almost 70km from the border - the furthest inside Israel a rocket has struck. The army and police are checking the report.

The heavy bombardment marked a step up in attacks after a two-day lull in activity by the Lebanese group.

Rockets fell on the tourist town of Tiberias, near the Sea of Galilee, as well as Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya and Safed.

Sirens also sounded in Haifa, Israel's third largest city, which lies about 35km from the Lebanese border, in anticipation of rocket strikes.

Lebanese soldiers killed

In a separate development, Israeli aircraft attacked a Lebanese army base in south Lebanon, killing three soldiers.

The jets fired at least one missile at the base in the village of Sarba, in the Iqlim al Tuffah province, a highland region where Hezbollah is also believed to have offices and bases.

An official said the three soldiers were killed instantly.

It was not clear what prompted Wednesday's airstrike on the base.

The casualties bring to 28 the number of Lebanese army soldiers killed in Israeli airstrikes since the start of the Israeli offensive against Lebanon on July 12.

Israel has normalized its behaviour patterns and has created a mainstream public which passively supports these policies in the name of security. This disconnection between citizens and state is one of the reasons Israel can justify violations of human rights and international law to a domestic audience. The Israeli public, by not speaking out against the state's policies, are passively sanctioning the actions of the state's institutions including the military.

There are myriad examples of the misuses of state power. According to Reporters Without Borders, "Israel has for years pursued a policy of assassinating its political opponents. Because extrajudicial executions are universally condemned, most governments who practice assassinations surround such actions in secrecy and deny carrying out the killings they may have ordered. Although the Israeli government prefers to talk about 'targeted killings' and 'preventive actions' (or 'pinpointed preventive actions') rather than 'extrajudicial executions', members of the Israeli government have confirmed that such killings are a deliberate government policy carried out under government orders.(...)."

Reporters Without Borders has added that "the extrajudicial killings carried out by Israel constitute 'wilful killings' which constitute a 'grave breach' of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 147) to which Israel is a High Contracting Party. The comprehensive list of war crimes set out in article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions." Additionally, through the process of carrying out assassinations, Israel has also killed innocent civilians.

Only a few months ago, Israeli political leaders were openly talking about killing Ismail Haniyeh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, in the mainstream Israeli press without any criticism by established political leaders. Where else in the world is this normal public discourse?

Certainly, Hamas should also be investigated for war crimes for its role in violence which crossed the line of resistance activities and resulted in the loss of life of innocent civilians since the nineties related to suicide bombings. In short, people deserve the rule of law to be established even within the context of a conflict environment.

Israeli political messaging and public relations which justify such actions as the bombardment of Lebanon is an act of violence. "Existential" threats do not absolve Israel of the responsibility they must bear for their actions. Israeli citizens who don't hold their government to account for such violations of international law are inadvertently supporting collaboration with illegitimate forms of violence which are clearly documented.

The European Union, by not utilizing the human rights components of their trading relationship with Israel, is passively endorsing Israeli policy. The US, by funding and resourcing Israel's military, is partially responsible for the actions of the state and the harm it does to innocent civilians.

Israel is a rogue, Frankenstein state supported and maintained by the US and Europe. By supporting Israeli policies for the purposes of achieving regional objectives, the US and the European Union support the war crimes of its Israeli ally. It is in the Western orbit, and as such, needs to be reined in by its supporters. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be a destabilizing force in the Middle East, but denying the horrible effects of the Israeli state is highly disengenuous.

The Israeli government has also consistently followed the principles of collective punishment not only during the present conflict, but throughout the occupation. Under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, it reads, "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited (...). Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

The principle of proportionality in international law is complex. Determining excessive injury and damage in relation to the 'military advantage anticipated' is something that needs to be investigated by the UN.

Public statements from Louise Arbour are good, but not good enough. The hypocrisy and complicity of the UN since the signing of the Oslo Accords and its failure to respond effectively to violations of human rights is a profoundly embarrassing example of the ineffectiveness, arbitrariness and bias of the present configuration of the international system.

International law also has language distinguishing between legitimate targets and civilians who are not participating in the battlefield. Dropping leaflets is not sufficient warning to justify the use of force in civilian areas. This too must be investigated as quickly as possible.

The failure to call and implement a ceasefire for the purposes of giving Israel strategic and tactical advantages in the current conflict was also emblematic of the racist lens by which Western countries view international relations. They essentially gave Israel the green light to continue bombardment in Lebanon knowing full well that innocent civilians would inordinately pay the highest price.

The use of official language, how things are said, how they are interpreted, has the power to kill, maim, destroy and illegitimately sanction immoral acts - every day in Israel is a grave act of distortion.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in article 6(1) states, "Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life."

Unfortunately, government spokespeople and mainstream media create a language which justifies actions of militaries and militia groups and assigns the principles of proportionality for us. By broadcasting this view of the conflict, they dehumanize the victims and render the principles of international law illegitimate. War becomes a game. We all become barbarians.

It is important to note, however, that the law of armed conflict does not override other aspects of international law.

Israel has in the past and is still currently utilizing interrogation techniques including the use of sleep deprivation, prolonged tying, shackling to a chair in painful positions, the use of beating, slapping and kicking during an interrogation, forcing detainees in to a the 'qambaz' position, exposure to articial light and by not allowing communication with family members.

The Palestinian Authority and groups connected with it, have also utilized similar means and methods to execute collaborators. The Public Committee Against Torture estimates that dozens of Palestinians are mistreated every month by Israeli security officials.

Socio-economic discrimination and differential treatment of Arab citizens of Israel is also well-documented.

The chill which has entered Israeli life has also now even immersed deeper in to domestic dissent. The past few weeks have seen dozens of non-violent protestors arrested, aggressively pushed and detained for simply questioning Israeli policy in Lebanon. Security officials have attacked protestors without provocation. Israel is the clearest example of a state where security matters precede the importance of human rights.

The Israeli state is letting its critics know that they will pay a high price for raising important questions and attempting to exercise their basic, democratic rights. Criminalizing legitimate dissent is a dangerous road for any state to put in to practise.

It induces a kind of trauma where people spend their whole lives getting even.

How blithely the US and British governments have erased the narrative of the old Multinational Force - the MNF - which arrived in Beirut to escort Palestinian guerrillas out of Lebanon in August of 1982 and then, after the massacre of up to 1,700 Palestinian guerrillas at the Sabra and Chatila camps by Israel's proxy Lebanese militia, returned to protect the survivors and extend the sovereignty of the Lebanese government.

Does that sound familiar? And they also came to train the Lebanese army - one of the missions being foisted on the new Bush-Blair army - and they failed. Blown up by suicide bombers at their Beirut headquarters with the loss of 241 American lives, the US Marines retreated into the ground, digging earthworks beneath Beirut airport.

And there they lived until the newly-trained Lebanese army broke apart in February 1984 - at which point, President Ronald Reagan decided to "redeploy" his troops offshore. Like other famous historical redeployments - Napoleon's redeployment from Moscow, for example, or Custer's last redeployment - it represented a national disaster, a colossal blow to US prestige in the region and a warning that such Lebanese adventures always end in tears. The French left shortly afterwards. So did the Italians. A company of British troops had been the first to scuttle out.

So, how come anyone believes that the next foreign army to arrive in the Lebanese meat-grinder is going to be any more successful? True, the MNF was not backed by a UN Security Council resolution. But since when were Hizbollah susceptible to the UN? They have already failed to disarm - as they were required to under UN resolution 1559 - and one of the world's toughest guerrilla armies is not going to hand over its guns to Nato generals. But most of the force will be Muslim, we are told. This may be true, and the Turks are already unwisely agreeing to participate. But are the Lebanese going to accept the descendants of the hated Ottoman empire? Will the the Shia south of Lebanon accept Sunni Muslim soldiers?

Indeed, how come the people of southern Lebanon have not been consulted about the army which is supposed to live in their lands? Because, of course, it is not coming for them. It will come because the Israelis and the Americans want it there to help reshape the Middle East. This no doubt makes sense in Washington - where self-delusion rules diplomacy almost as much as it does in Israel - but America's dreams usually become the Middle East's nightmares.

And this time, we will watch a Nato-led army's disintegration at close quarters. South-west Afghan-istan and Iraq are now so dangerous that no reporters can witness the carnage being perpetrated as a result of our hopeless projects. But, in Lebanon, it's going to be live-time coverage of a disaster that can only be avoided by the one diplomatic step Messrs Bush and Blair refuse to take: by talking to Damascus.

So when this latest foreign army arrives, count the days - or hours - to the first attack upon it. Then we'll hear all over again that we are fighting evil, that "they" - Hizbollah or Palestinian guerrillas, or anyone else planning to destroy "our" army - hate our values; and then, of course, we'll be told that this is all part of the "War on Terror" - the nonsense which Israel has been peddling. And then perhaps we'll remember what George Bush senior said after Hizbollah's allies suicide-bombed the Marines in 1982, that American policy would not be swayed by a bunch of "insidious terrorist cowards".

And we all know what happened then. Or have we forgotten?

Day 20

* Lebanese dead - at least 577 confirmed, could be up to 750. Israeli dead - 51.

* Israel bombs and shells southern Lebanon despite announced halt in air raids.

* Rescue workers find 28 bodies buried for days in destroyed buildings in three Lebanese villages.

* UN postpones a meeting on Lebanon peacekeeping force indefinitely.

* Bush says he will seek UN action this week to end the fighting.

* Clashes near Aita Al-Shaab leave four Hizbollah fighters dead and three Israelis wounded.

Every foreign army - including the Israelis - comes to grief in Lebanon.

In New York,
United Nations officials announced that nations willing to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force would meet on Thursday. An earlier meeting scheduled for Monday was scrapped after France said there was no point talking about peacekeepers with the war continuing.

The Bush administration provided little detail about what progress might be occurring. The White House said an immediate halt to the bloody fighting "doesn't seem to be in the cards."

"Neither side is headed that way," said presidential spokesman Tony Snow. "What the president is working on and what our allies are working on are providing those conditions for a sustainable cease-fire."

Shimon Peres, Israel's deputy prime minister, said Israel was nearing a decisive point in battling Hezbollah. Asked how long the fighting might go on, Peres said, "I don't want to say but it's a matter of weeks. Maybe even less."

He said it took awhile for Israel's army to understand what it faced but "now they feel they're in control." Peres met at the White House with
President Bush's national security adviser,
Stephen Hadley.

The administration credited France, Britain, the Lebanese government and other allies for cooperating with the United States at the
U.N. Security Council and through diplomatic channels to make the new security force a reality.

Upbeat on prospects for a "stable and enduring" cease-fire, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said "the diplomacy is moving ahead" and an agreement on how to end the fighting was possible within days, not weeks. "I think we are making progress," Rice said on PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We believe that we are going to be able to have some action in the Security Council in the coming days, and hopefully this week."

U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, after meeting with the U.S., British, French, Chinese and Russian ambassadors, urged governments debating Lebanon's future to put aside their differences to help solve the conflict.

Annan then announced the Thursday meeting of governments contributing peacekeeping troops, but late Tuesday a spokesman for France's U.N. mission said France still believes it is too early to talk about troops and will not attend.

The French spokesman, who refused to be identified by name because an official announcement was still forthcoming, said France's view remained unchanged from Monday. That day, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said, "France is in favor of setting up an international force to implement a political settlement. It is important to have this political settlement before having the force deployed. So it is premature to have such a meeting."

Annan wants nations to lay the groundwork for a force, apparently so it can be deployed as quickly as possible once a political framework to end the fighting is settled.

"He did ask them to set those differences aside and move along quickly on the question of a mandate for the force and the formation of the force, and who's going to be able to give what and which countries will be able to contribute," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said.

Despite the meeting, diplomats acknowledge that sharp differences remain.

The United States objects to French proposals calling for creation of a multinational peacekeeping force and a new buffer zone empty of either Israeli troops or Hezbollah militants - but only after a halt in fighting. The U.S. wants any force to help the Lebanese army extend its authority throughout southern Lebanon, which is now under Hezbollah's control, and disarm the powerful militia.

While there is wide disagreement over whether to try to compel Israel to accept an immediate cease-fire - the United States supports Israel in taking more time to pummel Hezbollah arsenals - there is consensus building around a peacekeeping force that would be more potent than the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) created in 1978 with a weak mandate.

The Bush administration views a new force as useful in helping Lebanon gain control of its southern region, from which Hezbollah has fought a cross-border war with Israel.

President Bush is pressing for a U.N. resolution linking a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah with a broader plan for peace in the Middle East, despite rising international pressure for a simple no-strings-attached halt to the fighting.

State Department spokesman McCormack said the administration wants the resolution to call urgently for an end to the fighting, a lasting solution and an international peace force.

In a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Peres gave qualified endorsement to an international security force. "If the international community thinks the force will help, OK," Peres said.

But, in any event, "we will not permit Hezbollah to return to southern Lebanon and fire at us," he added.

Later, Peres met with Secretary of State Rice and told reporters afterward: "We didn't ask for time, we didn't ask for soldiers and we didn't ask for money. ... We shall do our job."

As for the war, Peres said, "We feel a turning point" in Israel's favor. At the White House, Peres said Israel had destroyed 70-80 percent of Hezbollah's long-range missiles and rockets, although he conceded that Hezbollah still had short-range weapons. He said Israel had killed 250-300 of Hezbollah's 2,500 fighters.