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Not to gloat …or anything, but I think have some reason to feel smug about my over/under on the Israeli/Hez ceasefire.
On day six of the ceasefire, we get:
Israeli commandos raided a Hezbollah stronghold deep in Lebanon on Saturday, engaging in a fierce gunbattle, and the Lebanese government threatened to halt further troop deployments in protest as the 6-day-old U.N.-brokered cease-fire was put to a critical test.
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Come on, look at the context!! Which country is really fighting to survive?
Why will no one believe that the context is really important?
And why is it so difficult to believe that when attacked the reaction is to fight back harder?
If Israel wins, ‘fine’ i.e. we still have a sort of status quo, if Israel really loses then no more Israel. Who is prepared to cope with that scenario? Europe? The Arab countries? Could they cope with the Israeli immigrants????
May be a bit early to start feeling smug – depending on how you define a break in the ceasefire, I mean. There was some limited fighting, but that’s surprisingly “normal” in the early stages of a ceasefire – and similar (though smaller-scale) incidents have anyway been occuring off and on since Israel withdrew in 2000. I’ll consider the ceasefire over when Israel restarts its campaign – which I do think (hope?) is only a matter of time.
“Which country is really fighting to survive?” At the moment, that would be Lebanon.
There’s no way a ceasefire can survive neither side _wants_ a ceasefire.
The Syrians are re-arming Hizbollah and yet the ‘UN’ have declared that Israel has violated the ceasefire. Pathetic. Since when did thie self-defence of a democratic nation state – and member of the UN – become an exercise in propping up the old tart in NYC?
Let’s hope that this whole fiasco was deliberately engineered to show how inept the UN is – and that Israel hits Syria hard in the second round.
Mind you I have been called a full time dreamer in my time….
“There’s no way a ceasefire can survive neither side _wants_ a ceasefire.”
I’m not so sure. Both sides make victory noises, and bellicose noises, but it seems both are shaken and tired, physically and mentally.
The cease fire is going to hold.
A very risky prediciton…. so we’ll see.
depending on how you define a break in the ceasefire, I mean.
Of course, but I see no reason for the current pattern of events (Hez rearming, Lebanon complicit, UN ineffectual, Israeli responing) to change. If this pattern continues and there are more armed excursions, I think we can safely say the ceasefire is done.
There was some limited fighting, but that’s surprisingly “normal” in the early stages of a ceasefire
A helicopter assault in the Bekaa valley is hardly what I would call normal cease-fire activity.
Hehe, well played, Mr Dean.
Since France after all talking shafted USA and UN
there is no way that UN force will ever get 15000 soldiers and i really doubt it will ever reach 5000, this UN thing will broke apart. Peretz the “Union” Defense Minister are already talking about second round in months.
Btw it was prefectly clear from begining. This is what Chirac have been saying about Assad:
Comment avancer sans dialogue avec la Syrie ?
Il fut un temps où je parlais Á Bachar Al-Assad. Je parlais avec son père. Pour ne rien vous cacher, ce dialogue s’est interrompu. C’est lui qui l’a voulu. Et puis je me suis aperçu qu’il ne débouchait sur rien. Que le régime incarné par Bachar Al-Assad me paraissait difficilement compatible avec la sécurité et la paix.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-734511,36-798546@51-759824@45-100,0.html
More reference here:
http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/
So Chirac have been recently calling Assad a liar, and would put 5000 human shields in Lebanon? No way!
I think things will fall apart and Israel will go in again but this time the illusion that the UN, Europe or the “world community” is willing to enforce international norms will be gone.
I’ll note that the main architect of the cease-fire, France, has said it will only send 200 peacekeepers (of the 15,000 required under the UN resolution) until their rules of engagement are more clearly defined.
I suppose the cheese eating surrender monkeys are concerned about being held hostage by Hezbollah if they actually try to disarm them.
Both the UN and Lebanon have refused to disarm Hezbollah, as required by the resolution they both agreed to, so IMHO the cease fire was dead from the get-go.
Rock on, Israel, rock on. Make the rubble bounce.