-- it's a pleasure. thank you for joining us on this. you have a top israeli officials saying the idf is ready to defend israel, quote, through the force of arms against hezbollah. they add that the potential for a diplomatic resolution is still open. what do you make of these varying degrees of response? >> well, so many challenges for secretary blinken on a trip in which the israeli minister of defense talked about israel fighting a six or seven front war. he has been, where do you even begin? you mentioned just now about the north. i think all eyes in the intelligence world are focused on the north because, in essence, israel has 80,000 citizens who can return home. you have this escalating cross border strikes between israel and hezbollah. israelis are saying, look, we will give diplomacy a chance but if that does not work there is always the military option. from previous reporting, we