Via the Washington Post:
The Lebanese government must fully implement a recent U.N. resolution requiring the disarming of the militant Shiite group Hezbollah or Israel will be less reluctant to attack the Lebanese state if Hezbollah resumes hostilities, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said yesterday.
Livni, in an interview with editors and reporters of The Washington Post, said that when the fighting began in July after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers, Israel heeded calls from world officials not to undermine the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora because the formation of the government and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops was an "achievement of the international community."
Israel launched attacks across southern Lebanon, Hezbollah's base, and it demolished bridges to Syria and bombed Beirut's airport. Livni said Israel's efforts to keep the military campaign limited made it more difficult to achieve its objectives.
"The result is it was more difficult to find these terrorists among civilians, compared to attacking a weak Lebanon," Livni said. "We could have done Lebanon in a few days, I think, if we had decided to attack Lebanon as a state."
Excuse me??
If that was a limited attack which used everything short of nuclear weapons in total disregard to the numerous cries of disporportionality from the world community because it was so ridiculously overblown, then what we can expect the next time? Lebanon was absolutely devastated, its infrastructure demolished, its inhabitants killed, displace d and wounded in a massive humanitarian crisis and all Livni can say is 'just be thankful we didn't completely destroy your country'?
She's got some damn nerve. But, I guess, in order to try and cover her own ass for a war that went so horribly wrong, she has to pretend that the IDF went soft on the Lebanese people because they cared so fucking much about its government and other global leaders who told the Israeli government to get with the program. And now she thinks it's wise to be threatening the Lebanese state with total destruction before they've even had a chance to begin implimenting resolution 1701?
If Israel is attacked again, "we are not looking again to find these terrorists among the civilian population," Livni added. "We are going to face a state which does not implement its responsibility or maybe does not exercise its sovereignty. And so in French, they say tant pis " -- which translates as "too bad."
Asked specifically if Israel would attack Lebanon, Livni replied: "It is the responsibility of the state of Lebanon. I don't want to say so clearly that next time this is what we will do. But we will take it into consideration that this is part of their responsibility."
That is just unadulterated warmongering.
The Israeli government could actually be helping Lebanon to pick up the pieces. Instead, it's been busy objecting to the makeup of the peacekeeping force and enforcing blockades (until last week) that have made it increasingly difficult for Lebanon to even begin to recover.
If you want peace, you have to make it work, and threatening a country that you've just destroyed is not the way to do that. And, if Israel again decides to overreact to the threat posed by Hezbollah and, in doing so, is embarassed at home and around the world - then I guess the rest of us can just tell Livni 'too bad' as well.
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