I have a real bad feeling about this. How Israel's leaders thought this was a good idea is beyond me. They believe that once the truce goes into effect, all military operations will be halted. Until then, Israel has tripled the number of troops operating inside Lebanon. They're pushing to the Litani River, which should have been the intent from the first day of the conflict, but political considerations and dithering by the Israeli leadership meant lost opportunities to use overwhelming force in the early hours of the conflict to disrupt and get Hizbullah leaders off-guard.
The Russians hail this plan, and think that Israel needs to reopen its dialogue with the Palestinians. Sorry, but the Palestinian word for dialogue is war. Egypt says Israel should respect the ceasefire and UN resolution. Ummm, what about Hizbullah? Oh wait, it is barely mentioned in the UN resolution, and there's no way to force it to disarm - and I simply do not trust the Lebanese military to disarm the terrorist group, nor do I think that UNIFIL could be trusted to that task either.
Israel struck at the last Syria-Lebanon crossing point, which is something that should have been done far earlier.
Lebanon now seems inclined to accept this resolution.
Interestingly enough, the Iranians think that this resolution serves Israel's interest. Perhaps we should reevaluate our assessment of the resolution, as if Iran thinks it's a bad idea, then it might actually help Israel far more than we thought.
My concern is that Hizbullah will use this time to regroup and rearm, despite the claims in the ceasefire agreement that it will disarm the terrorist group.
Bloggers to check in with for daily updates are Blue Crab Boulevard, Carl in Jerusalem, Israellycool, Dave Bender, Meryl Yourish, Euphoric Reality, Pajamas Media, Hot Air, Jameel at the Muqata, Greetings from the French Hill, R'Lazer, and Live from an Israeli Bunker. Check back with them regularly for updates.
Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Rains, Summer, cavaliers, wrath, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.
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