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That U.N. Security Council resolution requires getting Syrian troops and intelligence officials out of Lebanon so that the Lebanese can have elections here this spring that are free and fair and free of outside influence.

We are not going to damage our safety and our security. We're not going to give those extremists the privilege to come so freely to Israel in order to carry out more attacks against us and kill us one day after another.

So I think we should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It's not Israel. It's these dictatorships that are developing nuclear weapons with the specific goal of wiping Israel away.

Israel specifically does not want Syria to hand over weapons, chemical or conventional, to Hezbollah.

The liberals and free people of the world will not like to see the Palestinian people living under siege. We have received indications from the international community that they will not stop their aid.

Under a decades-old agreement, Palestinian refugee camps are supposed to administer and police themselves. Lebanese troops are technically not allowed to enter them.

The threat that Syria might transfer more advanced weapons to Hezbollah has existed for a long time.

Israel will continue to act proactively to prevent the transfer of heavy missiles or advanced air defense systems from Syria to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which, of course, carries the risk of a military showdown.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon - no alternative.

If there are no consequences now for breaking the prohibition on chemical weapons, it will be harder to muster an international consensus to ensure that Hezbollah and other terrorist groups are prevented from acquiring or using these weapons themselves.