NYT Analysis Not False, Just Vaguely Dishonest
The New York Times is reporting as "news" the fact that Hezbollah isn't about to disarm. Fair enough. But check this part out:
For the moment, Hezbollah is bathed in a heroic light, not just in Lebanon but throughout the Muslim world. Lebanon’s prime minister, Fouad Siniora, appears unable or unwilling to force the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament, at least in the south, as called for in the United Nations Security Council resolution that halted the combat. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in a television speech that his fighters would accept the cease-fire. Yet he insisted that Hezbollah would continue to fight in violation of it so long as Israeli troops remained on Lebanese soil.
It is true that UNSC Resolution 1701 called on Hezbollah to disarm. But this was at least the second UN resolution that has done so. The first was 1559, where Israel was told to withdraw and in exchange Hezbollah would be disarmed. Israel withdrew, and yet no Hezbollah disarmament. So the implication that this time a new Israeli concession is supposed to be exchanged for the same old Hezbollah promise seems kind of dishonest.
On the other hand, journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian peace process used to pull this infuriating trick all the time. Israel would make a deal with Arafat - something like, "we'll give you these 5 towns, and in exchange you should stop telling Palestinian kids to murder Jews". Israel would begin implementing its half of the deal, and in exchange Arafat would do nothing. So there would be another round of negotiations, and Israel would make another deal - something like, "we'll give you these additional 5 towns, and seriously, in exchange, how about you stop telling Palestinian kids to murder Jews?" And of course, Arafat would do nothing of the sort.
But here's where the trick came in: when reporting on the second round of talks, journalists would write something like "Arafat keeps writing things like 'good kids kill Jews' in Palestinian textbooks, even though he promised in his last agreement not to". No mention would be made of the fact that he had also promised to do so in the agreement before that, and in the agreement before that agreement, and so on. So it always looks like the Israelis are slowly implementing their obligations on one side and the Arabs may or may not be implementing their obligations on the other - instead of the real situation, which is that Israel has already fully implemented a past UN resolution that was supposed to secure Hezbollah's dismantling to no effect, and now this new UN resolution will also have no effect.
For the moment, Hezbollah is bathed in a heroic light, not just in Lebanon but throughout the Muslim world. Lebanon’s prime minister, Fouad Siniora, appears unable or unwilling to force the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament, at least in the south, as called for in the United Nations Security Council resolution that halted the combat. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in a television speech that his fighters would accept the cease-fire. Yet he insisted that Hezbollah would continue to fight in violation of it so long as Israeli troops remained on Lebanese soil.
It is true that UNSC Resolution 1701 called on Hezbollah to disarm. But this was at least the second UN resolution that has done so. The first was 1559, where Israel was told to withdraw and in exchange Hezbollah would be disarmed. Israel withdrew, and yet no Hezbollah disarmament. So the implication that this time a new Israeli concession is supposed to be exchanged for the same old Hezbollah promise seems kind of dishonest.
On the other hand, journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian peace process used to pull this infuriating trick all the time. Israel would make a deal with Arafat - something like, "we'll give you these 5 towns, and in exchange you should stop telling Palestinian kids to murder Jews". Israel would begin implementing its half of the deal, and in exchange Arafat would do nothing. So there would be another round of negotiations, and Israel would make another deal - something like, "we'll give you these additional 5 towns, and seriously, in exchange, how about you stop telling Palestinian kids to murder Jews?" And of course, Arafat would do nothing of the sort.
But here's where the trick came in: when reporting on the second round of talks, journalists would write something like "Arafat keeps writing things like 'good kids kill Jews' in Palestinian textbooks, even though he promised in his last agreement not to". No mention would be made of the fact that he had also promised to do so in the agreement before that, and in the agreement before that agreement, and so on. So it always looks like the Israelis are slowly implementing their obligations on one side and the Arabs may or may not be implementing their obligations on the other - instead of the real situation, which is that Israel has already fully implemented a past UN resolution that was supposed to secure Hezbollah's dismantling to no effect, and now this new UN resolution will also have no effect.
