Weeping Lebonan PM wants cease fire, but rejects one offered by UN

Haaretz:

Lebanon's prime minister, choking back tears, demanded a "quick and decisive cease-fire" Monday, as he and Arab foreign ministers on Monday pressed for changes in a U.S.-French peace plan aimed at ending nearly a month of warfare between Israel and Hezbollah.

His eyes brimming with tears as he spoke about the suffering of civilians, Siniora appealed to fellow Arab states to help a nation "stunned" by devastating Israel Defense Forces attacks. He said more than 40
civilians had been killed in an IAF strike Monday while sheltering from fighting in a southern village.

"It is imperative that the Israeli enemy stops its aggressive actions and withdraw immediately..., hand it [territory] over to international forces, exchange prisoners, and reveal land mine maps," he said.

Siniora earlier expressed a new willingness to quickly deploy Lebanese troops in the south to bring a halt in the fighting.

On Monday, France said it is studying a Lebanese counter-proposal to the UN draft resolution.

Siniora has backed the idea of swiftly moving in Lebanese troops, with the support of beefed-up UN forces, in order to ensure that thousands of Israel Defense Forces soldiers leave the south with any cease-fire, an aide to the prime minister said.

A previous Lebanese peace proposal called for deploying the Lebanese army in the south, but only after a cease-fire was reached and a set of political demands was met - including a release of Lebanese prisoners in Israel and steps toward resolving Lebanon's claims on a patch of border territory held by Israel for years.

But Siniora was backing a speeded-up deployment because the U.S.-French cease-fire plan - due to be voted on by the UN Security Council in the coming days - would leave IDF troops in south Lebanon after a halt in fighting. Hezbollah immediately rejected that as unacceptable, raising the likelihood of a continued escalation in the violence.

...
So who is in charge, Lebanon or Hezballah? The very existance of Hezballah is at the heart of the problem and Lebanon does not appear up to the task of dealing with it. Perhaps it should quit pretending to be the government and just turn the country over to Hezballah and let them take the responsibility and the consequences for their disasterous decisions. Hezballah has taken actions that have resulted in the destruction of significant portions of Lebanon's infrastructure, yet because it is not the government it acts as if it has suffered no losses other than its fighters. Lebanon has to hold Hezballah responsible for repairing all this infrastructure as part of its taking control of the country.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more