Israel won't ask Hizbullah to disarm.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060729/wl_nm/mideast_israel_hizbollah_dc_2

ERUSALEM (Reuters) -
Israel will not demand the immediate disarming of Hizbollah as part of a deal to end the fighting in Lebanon, a senior Israeli official said on Saturday.
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Israel's position could make it easier to reach agreement with Western powers and the Lebanese government on the proposed deployment of a peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Hizbollah would almost certainly reject a force whose mandate called for its disarmament.

"Disarming Hizbollah will not be part of the mandate for the (peacekeeping) mission for now," a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

"However it is supposed to strengthen the Lebanese army, the responsibility of which will be to implement (
U.N. Security Council resolution) 1559 which calls for disarming Hizbollah eventually."

Voices of reason emerging?

[Selatius]

1. I think Lebanon will be less likely to disarm Hezbollah now

Israel has totally alienated most Lebanese with the 600 civilian casualties. Before there was ambivalence about Hezbollah. Now there is an increasing consensus falling into supporting Hezbollah.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Quite right. As I posted on another thread.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5224650.stm

[oneold1-4u]

5. A country that cannot-

remove the tyrannical terrorists from their midst had best, just give up the country and allow the world to remove them.
We may soon see how the world will react to the takeover of this nation by a radical force in November!

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Are you referring to Israel or Lebanon?

:rofl:

[TahitiNut]

12. No country can call itself a democracy and go against 35% of its people.

Any government that imposes force of arms on 35% of its people is, by definition, a police state. No democracy can survive that doesn't tolerate such a large plurality of political/cultural dissent. That's the very reason the US, in our misguided and insane "War On (Some) Drugs," has sacrificed democracy in favor of an increased police state and the highest rate of imprisonment in the industrialized world. Easily 25% of our population profoundly disagrees with (and violates) the criminalization of (at least some) drugs, particularly marijuana and specifically for medical purposes. The fallacy in thinking that democracy means "mob rule" is that when it actually becomes "mob rule" it stops being a democracy.

[HereSince1628]

3. Reason be damned...Israel needs to reassess its position.

They underestimated Hezbollah's capacity to resist and damned near lost a ship by being too arrogant to turn on their anti-missle defense. At this point I'd be wanting to put off door-to-door break-ins and searches, too.

[madrchsod]

4. i think the politicians in israel realize

they screwed up and they are trying to figure a way out. hizbollah will melt into the lebanonese army....

[mazzarro]

8. Hezbollah = Lebanese Army

Hezbollah will be strengthened and will have the added legitimacy of holding the power in the army - henceforth.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Which shows they are a helluva lot smarter than BushCo.

Which still hasn't realized that they screwed up on a much more massive scale in Iraq.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. How the mighty have fallen...

:eyes:

[malaise]

10. If you don't understand a culture

and make no attempt so to do, you will fail everytime. American and Israeli arrogance and belief that might is right is doomed to fail and fail and fail. If the intention is to share space with your neighbours you learn to listen, but that has never been the intention. If your intention is simply to steal your neighbours resources then you suffer the consequences of believing they are any less capable of defending what is theirs by any means necessary.

Fugg all expansionists and imperialists. Back to UN 242 - get the hell out of peoples lands.

[BillZBubb]

11. If this is true, Olmert and the Israeli apologists have blundered.

This would be a massive victory for Hezbollah. Olmert's foolish, thoughtless and brutal actions have now severely damaged Israel. The fools who backed Israel's every criminal move "because they were going to end the Hezbollah threat" are now proven to be clueless idiots.

Israel never was going to eliminate Hezbollah. Now they have only made Hezbollah an order of magnitude stronger. And they have made Israel's position in the world much worse. It's pretty sad when your only ally is the criminal Bush gang.