Arab leaders berated Israel yesterday for unleashing its warplanes on a Syrian radar station in Lebanon in the early hours of the morning. But inside Israel there was a rare near-consensus on the political front as politicians on the left and the right backed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to order the strike.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians also upped the ante yesterday, firing mortar shells from the Gaza Strip at the working-class town of Sderot which is located in Israel proper, some 4 km from the Gaza border. There were no injuries in the attack, which brought a swift Israeli response in the form of heavy tank fire on Palestinian security installations in the Strip. The Palestinians reported two people injured.
After the Lebanon strike, in which three Syrian soldiers were killed and six injured, a senior aide to Mr Sharon, Mr Ra'anan Gissin, said that there was a "new price list, which certainly points out to the Syrians that there is a need for them, for Hizbullah, and for the Palestinians as well, to make a new reassessment regarding Israel's readiness, willingness and determination to react". Israel said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli soldier on Saturday by Hizbullah.
The Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, of the Labour Party, said that since Israel had withdrawn its army from Lebanon in May last year it had exercised a "policy of restraint in order to prevent escalation". But in the face of ongoing attacks by Shia Hizbullah guerrillas, Mr Ben-Eliezer said that the "rules of the game in Lebanon" had changed, that Israel would not tolerate attacks on its soldiers and civilians, and that it held Syria "responsible for these actions".
There have been growing calls in recent weeks in Beirut for Syria to end its military presence in Lebanon, where it has about 30,000 troops, but Damascus remains the major powerbroker there.
Even dovish Israeli political leaders backed the military action, the first attack by Israel on Syrian targets in Lebanon since 1996 when Israeli warplanes knocked out Syrian airdefence installations in Beirut. The Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, a strident supporter of the Middle East peace process, voted against the operation when the Cabinet met on Sunday night, but yesterday he publicly defended it.
Another adherent of the Oslo peace process, Labour's Mr Yossi Beilin, who spearheaded a campaign demanding that the army withdraw from south Lebanon, where it occupied a strip of land, said he believed Syria would "understand the message" of the attack. Echoing a view held by many Israelis, Mr Beilin said that Israel's strict adherence in withdrawing to the UN-determined border meant that it was fully justified in retaliating for Hizbullah attacks. Syria, added Mr Beilin, "must pay the price if Israel is hurt".
Since the Israeli retreat, Hizbullah attacks have focused on the Shebaa Farm area - referred to by Israelis as Har Dov, which Lebanon and Syria have insisted is Lebanese territory. The United Nations, however, determined that the area was conquered by Israel from Syria and that its future ultimately had to be settled in talks between Jerusalem and Damascus.
The only criticism in Israel for the attack came from Arab parliamentarians. Mr Mohammed Barakeh, of the Communist Hadash party, compared Mr Sharon to the deposed Yugoslav leader, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, saying the Israeli leader should be tried for "crimes against humanity". Another Israeli Arab deputy, Mr Abdulmalik Dehamshe, called the aerial strike an act of terrorism and promptly sent a telegram of condolence to Syrian President Bashar Assad for the deaths of the three soldiers.
Israel was widely condemned yesterday in the Arab world, where Mr Sharon is reviled, especially for the leading role he played in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon when he was defence minister. While the statecontrolled Syrian media made no mention of the attack for much of yesterday, the Foreign Minister, Mr Faroukh A-Shara finally broke Syrian silence, condemning the strike as a "grave error".
On a visit to Moscow, Mr AShara added that Israel was threatening regional stability and that it would "receive the appropriate response at the appropriate time".