In its great days, the Jerusalem Post sometimes expressed unease at the effects on Israeli society and Jewish ethics of military occupation of so many areas. The West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, the Golan Heights and south Lebanon were drawing young conscripts into harsh reprisals against resistance.

Civilians, including women and children, were being killed and wounded. Older Jews had seen occupations in Europe and the brutalising effects on occupier and occupied alike.

Israeli troops in south Lebanon varied from 1,000 to many thousands in crisis times. The South Lebanon Army had about 2,500 armed men.

The usual figure for active Hizbullah is 300 to 500, with 3,000 supporters. Discipline, dedication to practical action, willingness to learn from experience, acceptance of casualties and few informers made them formidable.

Intelligent Israeli conscripts knew their cause was unjust and that the Lebanese were within their rights in resisting. If young Israelis are not like their fathers perhaps that is better for Israel in the long run.

Israel has 3,500 main battle tanks (well maintained but not all modern) and 5,500 armoured personnel carriers. There are 1,430 artillery pieces, 200 multiple-rocket launchers and 450 combat aircraft - but why go on?

The Israelis have not given up easily. For 22 years this inventive army tried new formations, new weapons, specially-trained anti-guerrilla forces, naval commandos (12 men were lost in a sea raid in 1997) and torture. All failed.

The Israeli control of the area and its extended surveillance by manned and unmanned aircraft was thorough.

Hizbullah weapons had to be light and concealable - a few multiple-rocket launchers; many rocket and recoilless single launchers; many old but serviceable anti-tank weapons; some shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons; adequate explosives.

The SLA had 30 main battle tanks (old types), armoured personnel carriers, artillery up to 155mm and large 160mm mortars, apart from good small arms, communications and other equipment. Israeli mechanics did maintenance.

If firepower, armour, airpower and money were the answers, Hizbullah should have been crushed.

A tiny, exultant and successful guerrilla force, stiffened by tortured prisoners now released, faces a frustrated giant with immense destructive power and a feeling that legality is at last on its side.

A fence with sensors and a strip of sand to show footprints divides them. The sensors will indicate fence interference. Rapid reaction forces can be immediately directed there.

Cool heads are needed on both sides. The Lebanese army is moving south, armed and trained for conventional war.

The Lebanese government will try to avoid clashes but cannot allow Beirut to be destroyed. Hizbullah will need its famed discipline. So far the signs are good.

Much will depend on how completely the Israelis evacuate and whether they restrain the SLA from raiding from Israel.

Syria seems to be the loser at present. Three years ago, Israeli reports said that 50 per cent of Syrian tanks were unserviceable. The new tanks, aircraft and air defence S-300 system said to have been ordered from Russia last year may or may not have arrived.

Syria now knows that the military and financial realities are against it. The leverage of resistance in south Lebanon to secure evacuation of the Golan Heights is gone. The area remains illegally annexed.

The present Israeli mood might not find a short, sharp war with Syria wholly unwelcome.

One reason the land restoration talks broke down seems to be that Syria wanted back the Galilee shore fronting the occupied heights. Unreasonable?

The military situation is such that rational actors have much to lose and little to gain from further violence. Israel might console itself with the lesson often quoted about last century Germany.

Easy victories are said to have moved Germany towards militarism and military solutions. The Six-Day War and its subsequent occupations and expansions may have given Mr Begin the same idea.

The occasional defeat may be bitter but salutary.

Col ED Doyle is a retired Army officer who served with the UN