The groves of southern Lebanon had been quiet for nearly 17 years. But as farmers tended to orange trees and banana crops last Thursday, rocket men lurked among them, readying the biggest barrage fired into Israel since the war of 2006 and taking a startled region to the precipice of another conflict that leaders on both sides of the border fear will be worse than all before them.
In Beirut and Tel Aviv, an escalation seemed imminent. But as a troubling afternoon wore on, the apocalyptic showdown between Hezbollah and Israel that had been widely