The Daily Background

THE MIDDLE EAST
Yesterday, the big news was that the United States and France had miraculously worked out a draft of a UN resolution agreeing on the Israeli-Hezbollah war in the middle east. The resolution calls for and end to fighting.

What you’re not hearing is that the “big breakthrough” storyline is complete bullshit. France essentially caved into US demands that the resolution, which will now go in front of the Security Council for a full vote, not include a call for an actual immediate ceasefire or Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

The draft of the resolution calls for Israel to continue “defending herself,” which is what the Israeli military has claimed it has been doing the entire time. So in reality, it doesn’t call for any real change, besides calling for Hezbollah to stop attacking Israeli civilians (which almost everyone in the entire world has been calling for since Day 1).

This resolution is utter bullshit. Hezbollah won’t stop sending rockets into Israel until either the Israeli military withdraws from Lebanon, or they run out of rockets to send. And the Israeli military is not pulling out of Lebanon until some sort of vague international force arrives in the area. But the Israeli military doesn’t want it to be a UN force, because it doesn’t like the UN. It wants a NATO force (in other words, a US-led force). But President Bush doesn’t want to contribute troops for this force, possibly because there are no troops left to be sent.

Meanwhile, the violence is getting worse, and civilians are the ones hurting the worst.

Bottom line: this fighting has to stop. Hezbollah has said that it is open to a ceasefire and prisoner exchange if the Israeli military withdraws from Lebanon. The White House has to stop enabling the Israeli military by sending them more bombs, and has to stop encouraging further violence in the area by not joining the rest of the international community in calling for an immediate ceasefire.

–Update:
Israel is now saying that a UN force would be okay, apparently having realized that no other force is going to arrive. However, in a one step forward one step back move, the Israeli government has announced, perhaps surprisingly that it will not agree to the UN “compromise” (discussed above) reached between the US and France, because it interprets the language calling for a “full cessation of violence” as a ceasefire, and it cannot agree to that. Lebanon will not agree either if the resolution does not call for an Israeli withdrawal from its occupation of southern Lebanon.

–Mideast Bits and Pieces
Former President Carter has criticized President Bush’s Middle East policy, including handling of Israel/Lebanon and is calling for withdrawal from Iraq.

Former and probably future candidate for President John Edwards is also now calling for withdrawal from Iraq.

A new poll has found that a majority of Americans support an immediate ceasefire. Another surprise: a substantial majority of Americans want the US to be neutral and not favor Israel in future middle east conflicts. This is the first such poll I’ve seen that indicates this, so it’s surprising to me. I’ll start believing it when more polls confirm this.

NYT: “White House’s Iraq Strategy Is Dealt a Blow”

Apparently a Republican Representative has been threatened to be added to the lawsuit against Representative Murtha regarding his talk about the Haditha case.

Several people have been calling the situation in Iraq a civil war recently (as have I), and the next group to be added to the list are U.S. troops in Iraq. They’re saying it’s a civil war as well. And who would know better than them?

Expect non-middle east related news, including a brief on the Lamont vs Lieberman primary later today…

Filed under: Middle East Crisis, Z-TDB Blog