Good Israel news? Not sexy.

The AP sent out an article that describes a good dividend of the Hezbullah war, and it will probably not be running in your local paper.

On Israeli border, a surprising optimism
METULLA, Israel — For years, whenever Asher Greenberg left his home in this frontier town to work in the orchards along the Lebanon border, he took his M-16 rifle in case Hezbollah guerrillas attacked. Since Israel’s war with Hezbollah ended in August, Greenberg’s rifle hasn’t left his closet once.

At Zarit, a nearby farming village where chicken coops and red-roofed houses hug the border fence, farmers are beginning to return to orchards they abandoned during the years when Hezbollah guerrillas controlled the Lebanese side of the line.

More than two months after the war ended in stalemate, many Israelis have come to see it as a costly failure. Those who live closest to Lebanon, though, say it altered their lives dramatically for the better.

“The war erased a threat we lived with for years,” Greenberg said. “We aren’t afraid of snipers or kidnappings anymore. We can breathe.”

Today, he said, he sees more U.N. peacekeeping troops and, for the first time, Lebanese soldiers, 10,000 of whom have been deployed in south Lebanon since the war ended with a cease-fire on Aug. 14.

It goes on to add even more positives—for Israelis.

The mood is similarly upbeat at Manara, a kibbutz to the east. In May, its vulnerability was felt when a soldier in the kibbutz was wounded by a Hezbollah sniper.

The situation is different now. “I think the war critics are right in many ways, but they have created the impression that we lost,” said Shabtai Mayo, the kibbutz’s secretary general. “There were mistakes, but from here this looks very different from a defeat.”

Lt. Col. Ishai Efroni, a senior army officer in an Israeli border unit, said his men along the fence also feel a marked change for the better, now that Hezbollah men with grenade launchers are no longer a few yards from Israeli tanks.

Efroni said Israeli soldiers trade pleasantries with UNIFIL troops along the border, and that even the Lebanese soldiers sometimes wave. “They’re still hesitant _ this is new for them,” he said.

The army sometimes has to deal with Hezbollah supporters throwing stones over the fence at soldiers, but Efroni said he only has to call a U.N. liaison officer and “within half an hour” U.N. or Lebanese troops arrive.

The reasons you won’t see this in too many papers? Let me count the ways.

1. It’s good news about Israel. The mainstream media is uninterested in good things happening to Israelis.
2. It shows that Israel was right to go after Hezbullah. The mainstream media has been bashing Israel over the Hezbullah war since the second it began.
3. No palestinians were harmed in the making of this news article. What? A story where the Israelis are the victims? Sorry, but those racist, neo-colonial, imperialist, Zionist stooges of the United States can never be victims.

Feel free to add your reasons in the comments.