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Monday, August 14, 2006

Ceasefire in Lebanon takes hold..or does it?

Officially, the UN brokered ceasefire in Lebanon has taken hold.

The IDF stopped all offensive action in accordance with the ceasefire this morning, but there is still no word from Hezbollah.

There have been two post ceasefire `incidents' so far, one at Banduriya in the central sector of South Lebanon and one at in Hadata. In each case, Hezbollah fighters were killed trying to attack the IDF.

Hezbollah, as I reported, has refused to disarm its soldiers south of the Litani River, contrary to the UN ceasefire agreement.Neither the Lebanese Army or UNFIL will put boiots onthe ground until they do...and the IDF troops inside Lebanon have orders to hold to their positions until UNIFIL and the Lebanese army take over.

Lebanon’s Shiite parliament speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri has a new curveball to throw that weakens an already toothless agreement even further. Now, he's asked for 48 hours to try and persuade Hassan Nasrallah to accept a new proposal for Hezballah forces to remain in the south with their arms, attached as an auxiliary force to the Lebanese army!

Needless to say, this is totally contrary to the ceasefire agreement...but who's quibbling? The Olmert government will probably go along with it.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Monday that his guerrillas achieved a "strategic, historic victory" against Israel, and that now is `not the time' to discuss disarming Hezbollah's fighters.

In view of this, Olmert's speech to the Israeli Knesset this morning was simply astounding.

In his first address to the Knesset since the cease-fire went into effect, Olmert said that Hezbollah was no longer a state within state, saying that there was no longer a situation in which "a terrorist organization is allowed to act inside a state as an arm of the axis of evil." (!)

Remember, he was saying this as the Lebanese parliament speaker was working on a proposal to allow Hezbollah to keep their arms.

Olmert admitted that there had been "shortcomings" in the way in which the conflict had been managed.

"We will have to review ourselves.... We won't sweep things under the carpet," he pledged, but warned that the country "does not have the luxury of falling into endless internal disputes."

"The overall responsibility for this operation lies with me, the prime minister. I am not asking to share this with anyone," said Olmert.

Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu was far more realistic in his speech to the Knesset.

Following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's address to the Knesset last night, Netanyahu took the stage. He was quick to criticize the government's policies.

"There were failures in identifying the threat, in managing the war, in dealing with the homefront…There is no doubt that we must learn our lesson and correct our mistakes. We were asleep and we received a wake-up call."

"In 2000, we withdrew from Lebanon without guarantees and without security agreements, and this action brought about Hizbullah's speech about spider webs, which was adopted by Hamas. The resulting Intifada made us decide, out of pain and out of good will, to withdraw unilaterally once more," Netanyahu said.

"These unilateral withdrawals deteriorate our deterrence, and lend credence to our enemies, a credence that improves their ability to bombard our cities and towns. This concept (of unilateral withdrawals) is now disappearing, and rightly so," he added.

Netanyahu also emphasized that "This is a moment of unity and a moment of self examination. I don't mean simply learning lessons from the recent conflict. I think that we need to examine our collective self as a state, based on one basic principle – every living thing must do two things in order to survive: it must identify dangers and it must arm itself sufficiently to protect itself from these dangers."

"A hundred years ago, our people did not have such capabilities. A leader, Herzl, saw the burning coals of anti-Semitism and understood that there was a threat of a fire that would threaten the Jews of Europe and eventually the Jews of the rest of the world. Today I say: we are standing before a grave danger. A new potential fire threatens our people. Not only our soldiers, citizens and economy, but our very existence."

"Yes, in each generation there are those that rise up seeking our destruction. But since Hitler, there has not risen such a bitter enemy as Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, who openly declares his desire to annihilate us and his development of nuclear weapons in order to carry out this desire. Until he carries out his scheme, he is using his covert forces: in the south, Hamas, a Sunni force, and in the north, Hizbullah, a part of the Shiite arc that extends from Tehran to Lebanon."

Netanyahu concluded by reminding his audience that this war is by no means over.He told the Knesset that "unfortunately, there will be another round [in this war] because the government's just demands weren't met" by the cease-fire agreement that went into effect Monday morning.

"The [kidnapped] soldiers weren't returned home, Hezbollah was not disarmed … Right now, we are [merely] in an interim period between wars," Netanyahu warned. "And there is no one who will prevent our enemies from rearmed and preparing for the next round."

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:04 PM

    ....and with that israel tells bibi thanks but no thanks all we want to do is be left alone wake us when they start the next war and goes back to sleep.............

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  2. Oh, I think you misjudge the Israeli public, Louie.

    Bibi has a few credibility problems of his own over there that he's in the process of overcoming. His role remains to be seen.

    But Olmert has been totally, and I mean totally discredited. I know we disagree on this but I will be very surprised to see him remain in power too much longer.

    Y'see, it's impossible to `go back to sleep' when not only were missiles being dropped on you but you can easily imagine the next time out, when the missiles will be better and more accurate and probably tipped with non-conventional warheads...

    As Netanyahu very ably put it, this war was a wakeup call for Israel.

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  3. Anonymous3:42 PM

    we can still disagree on tactics as well. i said from the beginning of the hamas kidnapping of galid s. that the best tactic would be to lina a couple of 10,000 of these on the east border of gaza and point them west.

    http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/vehicles/engineer_vehicles/bulldozers/D9_D10.html

    and when they get to the mediterainian haul'em north and push lebanon into syria where it belongs. and i still think i was/am correct.
    as we have it now, all this has done is give us a new islamic state. the state of hezzbanon.

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  4. I have been going back and forth in my head, trying to determine if this latest action accomplished anything. Largely it was a failure, but they fucked Lebanon up pretty good. I learned a lot personally about how the world works. How everyone, and I mean everyone is a Jew hater. You have these Hezzy guys staging photos with little dead girls, while the photographers lap it up, so these staged photos can end up on "Respectable" publications worldwide to anger anybody who doesn't know better, which is most of the population. The terrorists are masters at ptopaganda and manipulation and they have many enablers, and I'm not talking about just Al-Jazeera, but Al-Reuters, Al-Times, CN-Al-N et al.

    I mentioned in an earlier post the we need Netanyahu back. We may get him yet.

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  5. Hi Rosy,
    I don't agree with you that `everyone is a Jew hater'. Frankly, many American Christians are much more supportive of Israel than a lot of self-hating leftist Jews...as I'm sure you can testify to from your own experience.

    A great many left leaning Jews are having a major ephiphany now as they see clearly for the first time how much the Angry Left really does hate them, even though many pundits on the Angry Left are trying to hedge the question.

    Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos said he wouldn't personally write anything on Israel and Lebanon - but allowed the vilist anti-Semitic bile imaginable on `Kos Diaries', thus having it both ways.

    Believe it or not, all Muslims don't hate Jews either, in spite of what the Qu'ran says.

    I'm not suggesting that you fail to recognize what is being put in front of you, but realize that when you give into that kind of mentality you give the Jew haters, including the nominally `jewish'(small j) ones a rather large victory.

    Also, I think it's important that you realize (along with a lot of non-Jewish supporters of Israel) that this is bigger than just `the Jews' and that Israel is only a pretext for a larger, more general attack.

    Or, to use the tagline I see on Islamist websites and chatrooms, `first the Saturday people and then the Sunday people'.

    BiBi? There are others I'd prefer before him (Effie Eitam, Bennie Elon or Avigdor Lieberman, to name a few - especially Eitam)..but we'll see....

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  6. Anonymous7:19 PM

    Freedom Fighter didn't just show up here one day. G_d prepared him long ago for this day. Freedom Fighter is a level headed individual who tries so hard to be fair and open to all who come here. I am sure not every one would be so kind and welcoming to those who faith, skin color and language are not the same as their own.
    I was deeply moved to find a link to a Muslim site on his list of links. I have written to the lady who is in charge of that link. I can tell you I thank G-d Freedom Fighter is such a person or my wife and I would have missed a very special lady.

    Freedom Fighter keep doing what you are doing, it is a successful formate because I know you seek to serve H_m and not man. Keep serving G_d and when you acknowledge H_m before man H_ will acknowledge you before G_d.

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  7. Anonymous8:19 AM

    Rosey said...
    "I have been going back and forth in my head, trying to determine if this latest action accomplished anything. Largely it was a failure, but they fucked Lebanon up pretty good. I learned a lot personally about how the world works."

    Well our friend Rosey knows some swear words, how nice for a fight over a beer in some bar. However, Freedom Fighter has put together a professional Blog site here for all interested individuals. Leave the swearing out for the and make your point it will give you more creditablity frome other sincere individuals whose options reflect your own. Honestly I could curse the paint off a Battle Ship, but do you think anyone stuck around to hear my option, no. I've been there, you are smarter and wiser than that, you have a wonderful command of the language. Use it my friend,

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  8. Hi Rosy, Friendly...thanks for dropping by.

    Friendly, I assume you are speaking of either Irshad Manji or Nonie Darwish. Both indeed are very special people who overcame years of negative programming to try and live their faith minus the obscene hatred that is too prevalent in Islam.

    I also recommend you check out Iraq the Model, for a moderate Muslim's eye view of what's going on in Iraq (tell Omar and Mohammed I said hi).

    ReplyDelete