Posted by
J.P. Farris on Thursday, July 27, 2006 10:26:25 PM
I get a constant flow of news from CNN and world newspapers, so my email inbox is almost always full. One thing that has been receiving almost constant coverage is what is unfolding in the Middle East. I’ve been tuned in to CNN all day and aside from the occasional story of how Andrea Yates was found not guilty of murdering her children by reason of insanity or the continuing war in Iraq the news was dominated by the Israel/Hezbollah conflict. I also get news from the UN and its role in world affairs. A lot of people I talk too don’t have any confidence in the UN, saying it’s ineffective or referring to it as “having no teeth”. I myself believe that had UN resolution 1559 which was adopted on September 2, 2004 been enforced then Hezbollah wouldn’t be a threat and the tensions Israel is facing right now would not be in play.
{http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/498/92/PDF/N0449892.pdf?OpenElement}
Israel’s two-front conflict saw its heaviest day of fighting on Wednesday, killing 9 Israeli soldiers, dozens of Hezbollah fighters and at least 23 Palestinians in Gaza. As the battles raged, a meeting of the United States and European and Arab countries in Rome failed to reach agreement on a plan to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as the United States resisted calls for an immediate cease-fire.
{http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print}
Israel does not intend to expand its ground operations into Lebanon at the moment although there are some that believe that ground operations are necessary in order to root out Hezbollah terrorists.
An editorial in last week's New York Post writes,
"All Hezbollah has to do to achieve victory is not to lose completely. But for Israel to emerge the acknowledged winner, it has to shatter Hezbollah... Israel has to pull itself together now, to send in ground troops in sufficient numbers, with fierce resolve to do what must be done: Root out Hezbollah fighters and kill them. This means Israel will suffer painful casualties - more today than if the Israeli Defense Force had gone in full blast at this fight's beginning.
"The situation is grave. A perceived Hezbollah win will be a massive victory for terror, as well as a triumph for Iran and Syria... Israel can't afford a Hezbollah win. America can't afford it. Civilization can't afford it. Yet it just might happen...
The 'world community' wants a cease-fire - which would only benefit the terrorists. Hezbollah would claim (accurately) that it had withstood Israel's assault. Couldn't get a better terrorist recruiting advertisement... A cease-fire would be under U.N. auspices. Gee, thanks. No U.N. force would protect Israel's interests, but plenty of U.N. contingents would cooperate with or turn a blind eye to the terrorists... One bright spot: The Bush administration continues to resist international attempts to bully Israel into a premature cease-fire.
{http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=108527}
The UN proposes sending in an interim Force consisting of 1,990 troops, supported by 50 military observers, 95 international civilian personnel, and 304 local civilian staff and made up of China, France, Ghana, India, Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine.
{http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/27/un_in_lebanon/}
And as for the UN observers killed by Israeli crossfire:
The words of a Canadian United Nations observer written just days before he was killed in an Israeli bombing of a UN post in Lebanon are evidence Hezbollah was using the post as a "shield" to fire rockets into Israel, says a former UN commander in Bosnia.
{http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=37278180-a261-421d-84a9-7f94d5fc6d50}
Using a UN outpost to fire rockets at Israel? That is despicable.
Now everyone agrees that a peacekeeping force should be sent to southern Lebanon, but no one wants to commit any troops, leaving it up to Israel to maintain its own security against Hezbollah without any help.
And why did Israel go in with as much force as it did:
• On July 12, 2006 the BBC had the headline describing the only possible result of the UN's inaction:
Hezbollah Seizes Israel Soldiers
Lebanese guerrillas have captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, triggering the first Israeli land incursion into the country since 2000.
• Farther down in the piece we learn why the Israelis have reacted as they have:
Hezbollah captured three Israeli soldiers in 2000. They died during the operation, but four years later, the group was able to exchange their bodies for 430 Palestinians and Lebanese held in Israeli jails.
• Oh. I see. Cease fire. Prisoner swap after four years (three dead Israelis for 430 live Palestinians and Hezbollah). Everyone lives happily ever after. Until they do it again. Two years later.
{http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/RichGalen/2006/07/27/its_up_to_israel_again}
On Monday’s "Anderson Cooper 360," CNN’s Anderson Cooper related his visit to a Hezbollah-controlled section of Beirut where he was supposed to photograph certain damaged buildings, part of the terrorist group’s strategy of generating news stories about Lebanese civilian casualties caused by Israeli bombs.
But instead of merely transmitting Hezbollah’s unverified and unverifiable claims to the outside world, Cooper — to his credit — exposed the efforts by Hezbollah to manipulate CNN and other Western reporters. It’s quite a contrast from the much more accommodating approach taken by his colleague, Nic Robertson, in a report that aired on a variety of CNN programs (including AC360) back on July 18, a report that Robertson himself has now conceded was put together under Hezbollah's control.
{http://newsbusters.org/node/6574}
Hezbollah, like Hamas, has a way of manipulating the media and making the world see what it wants it to see. Sometimes you have to do a little digging to get the facts. I read a report from HonestReporting about the myths and the facts concerning the current conflict.
{http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Israel_Under_Fire.asp}
The prisoner whom Hezbollah is demanding, above all others, be released, is Samir Kuntar, jailed in Israel since a 1979 attack in the northern Israeli town of Nahariyah, in which he entered an apartment and murdered three family members and an Israeli police officer.
Kuntar is quite simply a terrorist and a murderer who committed a terrible atrocity on Israeli soil. Those prisoners held in Israeli jails captured during Israel's stay in southern Lebanon are, likewise, held for terrorist offences and due to the inherent risk that they will return to their previous activities.
In a past blog entry I mentioned him and how he murdered a four-year old by bashing her head in. Today I read the whole heartbreaking account from the wife and mother whose family was so brutally murdered by the terrorists.
{http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2740-2003May17¬Found=true}
Behind the terrorists, and often pulling the strings are nations like Iran and Syria. The President condemned Iran for its support of terrorists, and some write that standing up to the states that sponsor terrorism is a necessity in combating the terrorists it sponsors.
{http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/27/us.mideast.ap/index.html}
{http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/13/AR2006071301668_pf.html}
{http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4045906.html}
{http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008658}
As Lebanon's largest political party and most potent armed force, Hezbollah has long been described as a "state within a state" — a Shiite Muslim minigovernment boasting close ties to Iran and Syria.
But Wednesday's move across the border to capture two Israeli soldiers went a step further: Hezbollah acted as the state itself, threatening to drag Lebanon into a war.
{http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hezbollah13jul13,0,4053216.story?coll=la-home-headlines}
Hezbollah has no regard for the Lebanese government or its people which it uses as human shields. They claim to fight for Lebanon, but in truth they make themselves an enemy to Lebanon by committing unprovoked acts of war.
Now Al Qaeda threatens to join the cadre of conflict trying to wipe-out Israel.
Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader issued a worldwide call Thursday for Muslims to rise up in a holy war against Israel and join the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza until Islam reigns from "Spain to Iraq."
Spain? It sounds like the terrorists have more in mind than just the destruction of Israel. They want world domination.
{http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/27/zawahiri.ap/index.html}
With the war on terror escalating and many nations of the world wanting to take a backseat, imposing sanctions or arguing over diplomacy there are some that say until the threat of terrorism is over and the terrorist Hezbollah is stopped, ”Roll Israel Roll”.
{http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MattTowery/2006/07/27/roll,_israel,_roll}