That is a somewhat surprising and bizarre statement. No offense to your brother, but if he listened to NPR or watched any of the war's coverage, he would have heard that the war was started when Hizbullah abducted 2 Israeli soldiers. He would have heard that Hizbullah was launching missiles onto civilian population centers in Israel, all the while using human shields to do so. He might have also heard that Hizbullah provides a lot of services to the Lebanese in the south (as you stated). I am not sure how it was possible to follow ANY coverage last summer and to somehow miss all the above-mentioned items, and only hear about the services HA provided (but none of the negative stuff). PS: Just so no one thinks I'm an Israeli regurgitating the Israeli point of view here, I am a Lebanese living in the US.