Kofi Annan Is Starting to Get Predictable
Sigh. Obviously:
In a departure from language used by the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Annan yesterday linked the issue of releasing Israeli soldiers to freeing Lebanese terrorists held by Israel. Hezbollah demanded a prisoner swap when it kidnapped the two soldiers on July 12, launching a month-long war... He then dropped a key provision in Security Council resolution 1701 that called for the immediate release of the two Israelis - whose kidnapping was the cause for the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah - without reference to an immediate release of any other prisoners. At America's insistence, under the terms of the resolution, the release must be "unconditional." The document also deals with the fates of the two Israelis and the prisoners in Israeli jails separately.
As always, the frustrating thing isn't the perennial anti-Israel bait-and-switch - where Israel gets baited with something decent, like peace, and then there's a switch to something that's the opposite, like war (or the bait is getting soldiers back, and then the switch is to not getting the soldiers back). The frustrating thing is that everybody always knew that the UN and the Europeans and Israel's Arab enemies would back out of their commitments - and yet negotiations were conducted as if that wasn't common knowledge. If we were an Arab entity negotiating with Israel, we would offer enormous promises of normalization and peace in order to get massive concessions - because we'd be very secure that we could always back out of what we promised, whereas the Israelis would be forced to live up to their deal. Like the Oslo Accords. Or Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. Or the Wye Agreements. Or... hey!
In a departure from language used by the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Annan yesterday linked the issue of releasing Israeli soldiers to freeing Lebanese terrorists held by Israel. Hezbollah demanded a prisoner swap when it kidnapped the two soldiers on July 12, launching a month-long war... He then dropped a key provision in Security Council resolution 1701 that called for the immediate release of the two Israelis - whose kidnapping was the cause for the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah - without reference to an immediate release of any other prisoners. At America's insistence, under the terms of the resolution, the release must be "unconditional." The document also deals with the fates of the two Israelis and the prisoners in Israeli jails separately.
As always, the frustrating thing isn't the perennial anti-Israel bait-and-switch - where Israel gets baited with something decent, like peace, and then there's a switch to something that's the opposite, like war (or the bait is getting soldiers back, and then the switch is to not getting the soldiers back). The frustrating thing is that everybody always knew that the UN and the Europeans and Israel's Arab enemies would back out of their commitments - and yet negotiations were conducted as if that wasn't common knowledge. If we were an Arab entity negotiating with Israel, we would offer enormous promises of normalization and peace in order to get massive concessions - because we'd be very secure that we could always back out of what we promised, whereas the Israelis would be forced to live up to their deal. Like the Oslo Accords. Or Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. Or the Wye Agreements. Or... hey!
