« The Altalena challenge | Home | Blogs are now an accepted news source »
July 17, 2006
Cliff May on the Israel-Hizbullah war
I love posting links to Cliff May's stuff at the Corner. He consistently nails the salient point with a few pithy words. A recent sample:
Why calling for a UN peacekeeping force on the Lebanese border is way stupid. (Let's refresh our memories what the UN did the last time it patrolled that border.) Also:
The U.N. may have forgotten: They already have a presence in southern Lebanon. I’ve been on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border a few times. Binoculars help but even with the naked eye you can see Hezbollah outposts flying their yellow Hezbollah flags (not the Lebanese flag).Within a few hundred yards of these Hezbollah outposts are U.N. outposts—flying UN flags. The U.N. presence does nothing to rein in Hezbollah. It may serve to empower and embolden Hezbollah.
Here’s a question I haven’t seen reported on: What have the U.N. forces in southern Lebanon been doing these past few days?
More:
The more dovish talking heads are calling for more diplomacy in the Middle East. What does that mean? Initiate bilateral talks with Hezbollah? Offer incentives to Assad? Send Condi to Tehran to ask for assistance?Previous "I heart Cliff May" posts here and here.No, the proper role for diplomacy is this: to provide a backchannel between moderate members of the Lebanese government and Israel, so those two parties can begin to plan for an eventual handover of southern Lebanon to Lebanese forces – after Hezbollah has been effectively disarmed by Israeli forces.
Diplomacy also can make it difficult for Europeans and UN officials to object, since the disarming of Hezbollah is demanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1559.
If Israel doesn’t disarm Hezbollah now, no one else will later.
Since disarming Hezbollah is what is called for by the “international community” in UN Security Council Resolution 1559, it is hard to see how even the French could call such an action disproportionate.”
It makes one wonder what the French would regard as a proportionate response. Forming a collaborationist government in Vichy, perhaps?
RELATED: Either Vichy or a massacre. Not Cliff May, but a letter to Maariv reminds us of the French response to an incident in the Cote d'Ivoire in 2004, which in fact shows what the French do not think is "disproportionate."
Judith | 07/17/06 at 07:33 PM | Categories: - Our NGO Masters
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.keshertalk.com/cgi-bin/mtb.cgi/5230
Comments
Cliff May? Had I his record of progosticating I'd be hiding in my cistern eating MREs.
skip in Annapolis | July 18, 2006 12:31 PM
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.keshertalk.com/nav-commenters.gif)
