BERNARD SHAW, Anchor: Hizbullah guerrillas fire rockets at northern Israel. Israel responds with air strikes against Hizbullah targets in Lebanon. And now, Israeli residents near the Lebanese border are running for cover, fearing a new round of retaliation. Joining us now to discuss the escalating warfare between Israel and Lebanon, the Israel ambassador to the United States, Itamar Rabinovich.

Mr. Ambassador, what, in your judgment, is the solution to this conflict?

ITAMAR RABINOVICH, Israeli Ambassador to U.S.: It's the ultimate solution and the real solution to this conflict is peace. We are in the midst of a peace process. Sometimes, it's difficult to remember that fact, given the many, many attacks against the peace process. But we are in a peace process. Negotiations with Lebanon have been suspended by the Lebanese a long time ago, but we are negotiating with Syria, and we expect that a political solution with Syria would result also in a political solution with Lebanon, and that is a solution, but that, of course, is for the longer range. In the immediate range, our main purpose is to put an end to these Hizbullah attacks.

BERNARD SHAW: What should be Syria's role in this?

ITAMAR RABINOVICH: Syria holds real sway in Lebanon. There is a Lebanese state and there is a Lebanese government, and Iran meddles in the affairs of Lebanon, but the real power in Lebanon is Syria. The Syrians have exercised some influence, and we think that they should exercise full influence in order to bring an end to this. They can do it. BERNARD SHAW: CNN's Walter Rodgers reported earlier on World View that Damascus Radio calls your country's raids 'dangerous and unjust.' Other than that, Syria has had no official response. Does that surprise you?

ITAMAR RABINOVICH: No. On the face of it, this is the Syrian position - that this is a form of legitimate resistance, but over the past few months, and in fact, over the past few years, every so often, the Syrians have exercised limited influence on Hizbullah to restrain its activities. Over the past few weeks, this has been to no avail. You mentioned the Israeli residents going down to shelters. This is not the first time that this has happened in the past few weeks, and the last salvo of Katyusha rockets was really unprovoked and Hizbullah, apparently at the Iranian orders, has decided to challenge us and the peace process directly. The Syrian channel is not effective, and we had to take matters into our own hands.

BERNARD SHAW: And I infer from that that this violence is going to continue - as long as one side attacks the other, the other side will retaliate?

ITAMAR RABINOVICH: I don't call our action retaliation. I think we would like to put an end to this, and certainly, we cannot tolerate the situation where Hizbullah, at will, launches rockets into northern Israel. So this is not retaliation. This is an attempt to put an end to it.

BERNARD SHAW: Some observers speculate that what is going on here is related to politics within your country. There have been charges by the Likud Party that Prime Minister Peres is weak. The speculation being that the prime minister has decided to retaliate here to show that he is not weak.

ITAMAR RABINOVICH: I don't think this is the case, because I think we have waited, we have been biting our lips for a very long time. And there is a point at which you lose your credibility, you lose your deterrence. We have supporters inside Lebanon who expect to see us acting. There are repercussions with regard to the Palestinians as to what happens. Hizbullah could be a source of inspiration for Palestinians. There are many, many good reasons for acting, and the fact is that the shoe is on the other foot. That is to say that the government has restrained for a very long, and has acted, I think, when we crossed a red line.

BERNARD SHAW: And finally, as we saw in the report that preceded us in this interview, the speculation on the part of some people in the Middle East that these air strikes by your country might actually embolden Hizbullah into further acts.

ITAMAR RABINOVICH: As a matter of fact, we are not limiting ourselves to air strikes. Helicopters acted, and we are not saying that it will be limited to air strikes if Hizbullah continues. No, this is the argument that we always hear, that you're playing to the opposition's hand by responding, but what is the alternative? If we sit with you our hands folded, will Hizbullah cease its operations, or will it be even more emboldened by Israeli passivity? This is not something we like to do, and as I said earlier, we have waited long enough, but a powerful response at this point, I think, is the response that is called for.

BERNARD SHAW: And very quickly, did I just hear a possible hint of the use of ground troops by Israel, if necessary?

ITAMAR RABINOVICH: We are not threatening with anything, we are not ruling out anything. The prime minister said today that we'll make our judgment as the situation unfolds. We are not making any commitments and we are not making any statements.

BERNARD SHAW: Ambassador Rabinovich, thank you very much for joining us.

ITAMAR RABINOVICH: Thank you very much.