Any nation has the right to rescue its kidnapped soldiers and citizens. In fact, back in 1976, Israel successfully mounted a covert, heroic, multi-thousand-mile rescue of Israeli citizens held captive by Idi Amin in Entebbe, Uganda.
I was starting to think why Israel didn't pursue a similar action now - dropping in special ops behind Hezbollah lines, giving the commandos some air cover, and then rescuing their two soldiers.
Then I realized that maybe there is a broader imperative here. I believe that Israel views this as the optimal time in history to strike back full-force at Hezbollah and their ultimate ally, Iran.
Note that the Israeli initiative involves bombing intended to cut off access to Hezbollah escape routes to Syria. There's also a naval blockade intended to intercept any shipment of arms from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel has seized such shipments before, at the port of Eliat.
So what if the thinking goes that an Iranian ship might try to fight or circumvent the blockade, and doesn't back down when they are instructed to?
In such cases, Israel may feel compelled to sink the vessel.
And then what happens? Iran declares that this is an act of war. You can bet your bottom dollar they will, with the harshest of warnings - maybe even fling a non-nuclear tipped missile or two.
And then Israel, hearing that declaration, and seeing those missiles, decides that this is the time to strike against those Iranian reactors that it, and most of the world believes, are nearing the capability to produce nuclear weapons.
Israel has done pre-emptive anti-nuke production strikes before- against an Iraq reactor back in 1980.
But I believe that Israel feels that time is running out,and once Iran gets nukes, it will be too late to take them out without a mutual exchange of mushroom clouds.
I'm convinced that Israel has been war-gaming this scenario, and believes that if they are to take these nukes out, the time to act is now. It could well be that Hezbollah's actions may cause a chain of events that will give Israel the pretext it thinks it needs to do this.
To do this NOW- not a year or two later when it may be too late.
Just a final thought - although I doubt it, is it totally beyond the pale that these two Israeli soliders were instructed to allow themselves to be kidnapped in order to foster the chain of events I have just described?