LAWMAKERS ARE BEHIND ISRAEL AMBASSADOR DOESN'T MINCE WORDS; SAYS HIS MIDEAST NATION IS AT WAR.

Byline: LISA FRIEDMAN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- As the crisis in the Middle East escalated Thursday with Israel striking against Beirut and Hezbollah guerillas raining rockets on Haifa, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon officially declared the Jewish state to be at war.

Ayalon's pronouncement -- answering simply ``yes'' when asked if Israel was at war -- cut through earlier diplomatic phrasing that stopped just short of the term.

``Our objective is to win this war,'' Ayalon said. Moments later, reading a slip of paper informing him that at least one rocket had hit the northern port city of Haifa, Ayalon said, ``This is a major, major escalation.''

``We will have to continue with the escalation until there is no ability for Hezbollah to do what it is doing,'' he said.

Israeli forces twice struck Beirut's international airport and other Lebanese targets Thursday, capping two days of bombings that killed at least 45 Lebanese civilians and two soldiers.

The attacks came after Hezbollah, whose guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid Wednesday, directed rocket attacks killing at least two Israelis and wounding 50.

U.S. lawmakers, including Southern Californians with key positions on the House and Senate foreign relations committees, rallied around Israel even as the European Union and Russia condemned Israel.

``If anyone is going to call these actions disproportionate, let them say Israel is not doing enough,'' said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, the leading Democrat on the House International Relations subcommittee over international terrorism and non-proliferation.

Speaking before Ayalon at a National Press Club news conference organized by the Israel Project, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting Israel's public image, Sherman blamed Iran for the attacks.

Sherman said Tehran is ``calling the shots'' and said the kidnappings and years of Hezbollah rocket attacks are part of an ``open conspiracy to destroy Israel as a state and expel its people.''

Ayalon went one step further, saying Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers -- on the heels of a Hamas-led kidnapping of another soldier two weeks earlier -- was ``a premeditated strategy concocted in Damascus and Iran.''

``For them, the Middle East is a big chess board and they are trying to advance their positions,'' Ayalon said, charging that the primary aim of the attacks against Israel is to distract international attention away from Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

``It's not just a matter of Israel having the right to defend itself. There are much, much bigger things at stake, which is the future of the region,'' Ayalon said.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, one of four Lebanese Americans in Congress, said he believes Israel's bombing of the Beirut airport and other infrastructure was necessary -- both to prevent Hezbollah from flying the captured soldiers out of the region and into Iran, and to block military assets supporting the terrorist group.

``Hezbollah's claims that they are acting in retaliation completely misses the point that they began this escalation, and they are in a position to end it simply by returning the two captured soldiers and standing down,'' he said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, who leads the House foreign affairs oversight committee, declined to comment on the Middle East violence. Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, who also sits on the House International Relations Committee, did not return a call.

Rep. Howard Berman, a leading member of the House subcommittee on Middle East issues, said the issue is about more than just the captured soldiers.

``Lebanon is going to have to comply with the (2004) U.N. resolution which requires them to disband militias, which includes specifically Hezbollah,'' the Van Nuys Democrat said.

Lawrence Haas, an Iran policy expert and visiting professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, said the intensifying violence underscores the danger of a nuclear Iran.

``The fact is, Iran is the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism, Hezbollah and Hamas are two of its major terrorist clients, and through those clients and other means, Iran's president is proudly and openly marching toward a confrontation with the West,'' he said. ``Can you imagine how much more frightening this situation would be if he had an atomic bomb to use himself or shift to or transfer to one of these terrorist clients?''

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com

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