Israel: about a week . . .

"Israel, you have about a week to go straight ahead with your plans." This is what the TV reporters were saying yesterday about the schedule for the current second war in the Middle East. I do not know where they got their information but it seems solid, since it is reported in the papers today.

The NYT reports that there seems to be a consensus between the U.S. and Israel about the timetable of the conflict. To quote (using their links),

The outlines of an American-Israeli consensus began to emerge on Tuesday in which Israel would continue to bombard Lebanon for about another week to degrade the capabilities of the Hezbollah militia, officials of the two countries said.
Then, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the region and seek to establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and perhaps an international force to monitor Lebanon’s borders to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining more rockets with which to bombard Israel.
American officials signaled that Ms. Rice was waiting at least a few more days before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more time to weaken Hezbollah forces.
The strategy carries risk, partly because it remains unclear just how long the rest of the world, particularly America’s Arab allies, will continue to stay silent as the toll
on Lebanese civilians rises.

The BBC carried a story that gives a good outline of where the various parties stand in the Mideast crisis. Quoting from the article,

Israel - The Israelis are confident they have a green light from the Americans to carry out air and artillery strikes for the time being. How long they will take may depend more on the results than a timetable. They have variously said they will need 10 to 14 days or even weeks. . .
Hezbolla - (They) must have realised that in view of the Israeli reaction to the earlier capture of its soldier by Hamas and its announced refusal to negotiate, that a strong Israeli response would be expected. If it did not realise this, it might have miscalculated.
On the other hand, it might have thought that it could withstand, cover and benefit from the onslaught and that, at the end of the day, Israel would have to negotiate for its soldiers. . . Whether it was acting under instructions from Iran to divert attention from the Iranian nuclear issue before the G8 summit as Israel has alleged is not known. . . .
United States - President George W Bush openly blames Hezbollah for the crisis, and beyond them its supporters Syria and Iran. In the American view, Israel should be allowed some time in which to reduce the power of Hezbollah. This explains why there has been no intervention by the US. When that reduction has been accomplished, the diplomacy can kick in.
But it agrees with Israel that there can be no return to the previous situation whereby Hezbollah watchtowers were overlooking the Israeli border with Lebanon.
The US is however concerned about the effect of the air war on the Lebanese government. . . .
The Lebanese government - The Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was in tears on television appealing for the UN to prevent a "disaster" for his country. Mr. Siniora is an anti-Syrian Sunni Muslim former finance minister who has presided over a coalition government comprising reforming elements of the "Cedar Revolution" with, for the first time, Hezbollah, whose right to "resistance" he has recognised.
He fears that this government will fall apart and that Lebanon will split along sectarian lines again - and that in any case is suffering unacceptable casualties and damage. . . .
The UN - wants implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 of September 2004. This calls in particular for "the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias" and "the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory".
However the resolution has never been implemented due to the difficulties involved.
So the UN, supported by Britain, is now proposing that an international force be
inserted into southern Lebanon. This would have powers beyond the monitoring ability of the current 2000-strong UN force there, Unifil.
EU - However the EU has collectively - through its foreign policy representative Javier Solana - told Israel to be more restrained and that its attacks have been disproportionate.

Individual opinion about the war - The letters to the editors section of the New York Times carried 7 interesting letters with a variety of individual opinions on the "right and wrong" of all the questions surrounding the conflict.
The paper also carried a poignant piece, "The Way We War," written recently by an Israeli living in Tel Aviv. He closes with these two paragraphs, from which I quote,

Suddenly, the first salvo of missiles returned us to that familiar feeling of a war fought against a ruthless enemy who attacks our borders, a truly vicious enemy, not one fighting for its freedom and self-determination, not the kind that makes us stammer and throws us into confusion. Once again we’re confident about the rightness of our cause and we return with lightning speed to the bosom of the patriotism we had almost abandoned. Once again, we’re a small country surrounded by enemies, fighting for our lives, not a strong, occupying country forced to fight daily against a civilian population.
So is it any wonder that we’re all secretly just a tiny bit relieved? Give us Iran, give us a pinch of Syria, give us a handful of Sheik Nasrallah and we’ll devour them whole. After all, we’re no better than anyone else at resolving moral ambiguities. But we always did know how to win a war.

U.S. Muslim opinion - Aljaeera carried the story of U.S. Muslim criticism of President Bush for his stance with Israel. Quoting from the article,

American Muslims have criticised the US government for its reluctance to condemn
Israel, as they worry about countless relatives and friends trapped in Lebanon.
US officials have said Israel "has the right to defend itself," since its incursion into Gaza three weeks ago and air raids on Lebanon; but president Bush's stance is offending Americans who are Muslims or of Arab descent.
Early last week, a coalition of 11 major Muslim organisations publicly called on Bush to forcefully condemn the attacks on Gaza and to designate as "war crimes" the destruction of Palestine's civilian infrastructure.

My own opinion is one of mixed feelings. Israel has a right to defend itself and recover its kidnapped soldiers. Lebanon's soverignty has not been respected by Israel, however. Hezbolla has shown itself to be more interested in violence than in becoming a viable political party in Lebanon. And the United States has failed to exert appropriate even-handed leadership to try to end the conflict as soon as possible. Plenty of blame to go all around!
Tags: Middle East U.S. foreign policy Bush administration Israel Lebanon current events terrorism Hezbollah political public opinion