Since none of the principals have any apparent willingness to examine the jihad ideology or the overall goals of Hizballah, it is unlikely that this resolution will do anything but give the jihadists time to regroup. Peace In Our Time Alert from NEWS.com.au, with thanks to JE:
UN Security Council countries appear to have agreed on the wording of a resolution designed to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said today. "The members of the UN Security Council now appear to have agreed” on the text on Lebanon, Steinmeier said before leaving for the Middle East, and amid haggling at the world body over how to end the bloody four-week-old conflict.The reported development came as Israel vowed to press ahead with the conflict and its defence minister said it was poised to occupy more areas of south Lebanon from which rockets are fired.
Siniora, he of the crooked mouth and crooked politics (he himself is not one of the financiallly corrupt, but rather, morally corrupt, as we now see, by a failure to stand up to Hezbollah and demand that it, as simply one more "militia," be disarmed. After all, this is the best moment to do so -- the Lebanese now can present themselves, to the Hezbollah bullies, as having been "forced to acquiesce" to the dismantlement of Hezbollah ("much as we appreciate all you've done for us, Hezbollah"), with the protection afforded by American and other attention.
Lebanon is akin to a Wild-West town, little by little taken over, and the law-abiding townsfolk, who did nothing for six years, have themselves to blame, when they could have done something about that gang, for doing nothing, for assuming that somehow those 12,000-15,000 missiles (yes, this script has its anachronisms, just like the telephone wires glimpsed by the camera over the saloon's swinging doors, or the shot of a plane's contrail picked up over some saguaro cactus in Monument Valley) were there just for fun, and would never be used, never threaten anyone.
Very well then. If Siniora will not rise to the occasion, figuring he has much to lose if he comes out for the disarming of Hezbollah, even if there are hints that possibly even the French government would like, just a bit, to help decent and quasi-decent and not-decent-at-all-but-nonetheless-non-Hezbollah Lebanese to recover something like a semblance of sovereignty, and who recognize that Hezbollah is a permanent menace that has now been weakened by Israel's attacks, and that now is the time to put the blame for whatever damage has been done to non-Hezbollah targets on Hezbollah, on hated Syria, and on distant and fanatical Shi'a Iran.
The word "Lebanese" is used as casually, and as misleadingly, as is the word "Iraqi." Nothing at all, other than the fact of both being citizens of a geographical spot called Lebanon, links or connects the thoroughly Western man, a Christian Lebanese, an admirere of, say, Charles Malik, or of the late Antoine Fattal (author of the best book on the legal status of non-Muslms under Islam), and those who have those in their rooms and in their minds pictures of Nasrallah, the Qur'an, and a kalashnikov: the Three Pillars of Hezbollah Faith. We should not want "democracy" in Lebanon if, through mere head-counting, those whom we should support -- the Christians of Lebanon, and those clever or advanced enough among the Druse and even some of the Sunni Arabs (for some Muslims in the Middle East, those most familiar with a coherent and confident non-Muslim minority, such as the Christians in Lebanon or the Jews in Israel, are the beneficiaries of an unrecognized "mission civilisatrice," the secret ministry performed merely by observation of those non-Muslims, by contiguity with them).
Lebanon is a geographical designation. The "Lebanese" we care about are the Lebanese who call themselves "Lebanese," who explain when asked that they speak "Lebanese," who if asked if they are Arabs often reply, somewhat puzzlingly and incompletely, "I am a user of Arabic." Many of those people are now in exile; their ancestors left the region when it was ruled by the Ottomans, or later surrouned by a steadily growing population of Muslims. Others left in the last few decades. Not surprising -- what would you do if you were a Lebanese Christian, a thoroughly Western man, part of the Western world, but had been abandoned by the Western world, and were subject, in the one place that had for centuries served as refuge and redoubt for the many Christians who, while they may have been forced to accept Arabic, may even possess Arab names, refuse to consider themselves as just one more subset of the many arabized and islamized peoples, now all convinced they are "Arabs," everywhere that Islam conquered.
The Lebanonese speak in tongues, trying to appear western while supporting Islamic terrorists. They are playing both sides and will side with the victor. Do not trust them.
My husband's Sito, his Lebanese grandmother, always commented on how interesting it was that, here in America, the Lebanese and Syrians got along so well. The implication was that in Lebanon, where she was born and raised, they didn't get along so well.
My feelings were that the reason they got along so well was that the ones who had emigrated were Christians and had no reason not to get along.
I wish I could get her wise opinion on what was happening in her nation of birth....though I think I know what she'd say about the change in Lebanon's demographics since the days of her youth.
Perhaps Shunkleash has some insight?