It was said in the past: “War begins with speech.” Zuhair bin Abi Salma, the third of three great pre-Islamic poets, after Imru’ al-Qais and al-Nabigha al-Dhubyani, said: “War is nothing but what you have learned and tasted, and it is nothing but a word of remembrance.”

It is the war, then, whose fire is still raging in Gaza, and is approaching the ignition of its second flame, with no horizon for its extinguishing or its flames to die down, while the flash of another fire appears from behind the columns of smoke that envelop the north, amidst a dense curtain of flammable speech, to the sound of the exchange of responses that exceeds the limits and escapes any restrictions.

"Netanyahu's safety war" is the accurate description that a columnist in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz concluded yesterday, in his reading of the repercussions of the explosions that targeted communications devices in Lebanon, during the past two days.

He called on the Israelis, with a "choked throat," not to respond to Netanyahu's personal inclinations to go like a herd to the slaughter.

All the visible evidence on the ground, and in the fiery statements that are being tossed about, suggest the approach of the postponed confrontation, which needed the friction that would ignite the spark in the haystack, before the onset of winter, so that Netanyahu could market himself as a man who would fulfill his promise to those fleeing the northern settlements, to guarantee them the “right of return” to the homes they left about a year ago.

The deceitful liar says one thing and its opposite. He claims to be keen on negotiations, but puts sticks in their wheels. He promises the Americans not to go to war with Hezbollah, and calls for a response by bombing communications devices, in order to appear as the victim and cover himself with international legitimacy, if the party responds to what it was subjected to in this large and unprecedented operation, as stated in Nasrallah’s speech yesterday.

According to estimates, Netanyahu will exploit any response, no matter how large, from the party, to respond with heavy air strikes, which will spiral into a large-scale war that will spiral out of control, from which he will reap nothing but illusions and a grasping for wind.