Sunday, July 30, 2006
Israel suspends Operation Rolling Hebrew Thunder for 48 hours
The Israeli government has agreed to stop bombing the shit out of Lebanon for 48 hours. The Israelis say it is to "investigate" the bombing in Qana according to the NY Times. Or to arrange a 24 hr evacuation of civilians over bombed out roads and destroyed bridges according to the AP. Either way, the reaction from the civilized world was complete and total condemnation of the attack on Qana.
The Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, demanded an immediate cease-fire and made it clear that Ms. Rice would not be welcome in Beirut today. “There is no place on this sad day for any discussion other than an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, as well as in international investigation into the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now,” Mr. Siniora said.And if he said that in public, can you imagine what he told Condi in private on the phone? And she deserved every word of it.
In Lebanon, Qana is nearly synonymous with the killing of civilians. Ten years ago, in an eerily similar attack, Israel, responding to mortar fire, mistakenly shelled a United Nations post in Qana where refugees were sheltering, killing 100 people and wounding another 100. That attack, on April 18, 1996, shocked the world and helped bring an end to that conflict with Hezbollah after an eight-day diplomatic shuttle by the President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, Warren Christopher.
In a speech to the diplomatic corps, Mr. Siniora accused Israel of war crimes and asked: “Why, we wonder, did they choose Qana yet again?” He asked the diplomats to work at the United Nations for a cease-fire, saying: “We cannot be expected to negotiate or discuss anything else while the ruthless, pitiless sword of the Israeli war machine continues to drip with the blood of innocent women and children.”
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