As A procession of helicopters sweeps in to land, loudspeakers blast Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" over the hillsides of southern Lebanon. The UN peacekeepers' noisy display is a deliberate reference to the Vietnam war, as depicted in the film "Apocalypse Now". Pundits had predicted an apocalypse in Lebanon if Israel made good its promise to withdraw from the country's southern fringes even without a peace deal with Syria. The angry Syrians, it was said, would send mercenaries to fire over the border, and the Israelis would respond with unparalleled severity. But the Israeli-Lebanese border has remained remarkably quiet since Israel's army retreated to its side of it on May 24th, ending a 22-year occupation.
展开▼
