World reactions and the journalists who pass them on…
* Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour having a little chit-chat in the hallway with Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman: Gillerman responded: “Your own people, your government had two choices. Take care of its people or turn it into a terrorist. You chose the latter, and you’re paying the price.” “No, that is not true,” Mansour said. “The problem is occupation,” Mansour said. “Once occupation is completely out, then peace and freedom will prevail. Consider it seriously.” Oh yeah, obviously. We mean, that’s exactly what happened when Israel completely ended its presence in Lebanon – the terrorists put down their weapons, and peace and freedom prevailed. Wait, no – that’s not right. The terrorists armed themselves, kept up their anti-Jewish lunacy, and now there’s a war going on.
* President Bush defended Israel’s right to defend itself… right before his State Department issued calls for restraint. Let’s see, where have we heard that before… calls for restraint, calls for restraint… oh, calls for restraint!.
* It’s almost cute to watch shallow, reflexively liberal newspapers – outlets not used to covering things like wars with any more depth than that provided by knee-jerk anti-Americanism – publish editorials advising Israel on diplomatic-military strategy. The Boston Globe announces that Iran is behind the multi-prong conspiracy to draw Israel into a regional war (no kidding? Maybe if we sent European diplomats to Iran they’d change their minds). And then, applying their Bismarck-like geopolitical instincts, they conclude that Israel shouldn’t attack Lebanon. Because the best way for Israel to foil Iran’s plans to murder Israelis is to let Hamas and Hezbollah murder Israelis. And before you ask, no – there are no suggesting in the article for what Israel could do instead of attacking Lebanon.
* The New York Times thinks it might be the case that Arab and Muslims countries are working together to coordinate attacks on Israel. This is news that still news to the Los Angeles Times, which quotes a blind source that we’re going to assume they totally made up to the effect that Hezbollah and Hamas are in competition with each other (link is to Slate… quote might be from LAT print edition because we can’t find it online)
* Speaking of the New York Times, this is from about 20 minutes ago:
The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah surprised Israel with a bold daylight assault across the border on Wednesday, leading to fighting in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and at least eight killed, and elevating recent tensions into a serious two-front battle. Early on Thursday morning, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the runways at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, shutting the airport and potentially stranding thousands of visitors at the peak of tourist season.
We leave you with this question: what’s more annoying? The totally irrelevant little thing about tourists, or the propaganda-like poetry celebrating the boldness and heroics of Hezbollah thugs? We think it’s the tourist thing because it’s just so random, but we can see an argument going the other way
