[frame]http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-30T171354Z_01_L22849465_RTRUKOC_0_UK-MIDEAST.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage4[/frame]
They already killed more than 600 Lebonese civilians. That one attack by Israel killed more than all of Israel's casualties.
International Herald Tribune
News Analysis: On Arab TV, images of little corpses
By Helene Cooper The New York Times
SUNDAY, JULY 30, 2006
JERUSALEM Amid the diplomatic flurry, calls for a United Nations Security Council resolution and expressions of regret over Israel's bombing of a building in Lebanon, one fact remains: The United States, by not calling for an immediate cease-fire, is giving Israel more time to further degrade Hezbollah in Lebanon.
It is a tricky strategy for the United States because it risks further damaging America's image in the Arab world, where television coverage of dead children being pulled out of the wreckage the bombed building in Qana, Lebanon, dominated the airwaves.
But U.S. officials continue to say that, despite the mounting civilian death toll, an immediate cease-fire would do little good unless the underlying issues, including the ultimate disarmament of Hezbollah, are addressed.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in the middle of her biggest crisis as America's top diplomat, canceled her planned trip to Beirut on Sunday and will return to the United States on Monday.
A State Department official said Rice would travel to New York on Wednesday or Thursday to push for a Security Council resolution that would include a cease-fire. The contents of the diplomatic package are basically set, and Bush officials said that Rice would lay out its terms on Monday.
Under the proposal, Israel and Lebanon would agree to a cease-fire as part of a larger pact that would include installing 15,000 to 20,000 international peacekeepers throughout southern Lebanon, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
The Lebanese government would work to disband Hezbollah, and the United States and other countries would funnel money and send military officials to help train the Lebanese Army, so that it can work to prevent future attacks on Israel.
Israel would agree to talks on whether it would withdraw from the disputed border territory known as Shabaa Farms, a Hezbollah demand.
"We want the Security Council to take it up soon, and we want the Security Council to take it up with as much concrete progress toward a real ceasefire as is humanly possible by the time that that meeting takes place," Rice said.
She spoke at a hastily called news conference Sunday, just two hours after learning of the bombing at Qana. She appeared shaken, and said she had been informed of the bombing while meeting with the Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz.
She said she had reiterated to Peretz her "strong concern about the impact of Israeli military operations on innocent civilians," and added that she was "deeply saddened the terrible loss of innocent life."
American officials scrambled to try to counter wrenching television pictures of the devastation at Qana. Immediately after Rice's news conference, State Department officials worked to get coverage of her statement onto Arab television stations, including Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab outlet.
But that job was made more difficult when Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who met with Rice on Saturday night and again on Sunday, released a statement saying that he had told Rice that Israel needed an additional 10 to 14 days to complete its military aims.
"Do you think that, with the close relationship he has with Bush and Condi, he would go and say something like that without their consent?" a senior Israeli official asked.
The official, who asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said that American diplomats recognized what he called the need for Israeli armed forces to clear out a buffer zone in southern Lebanon before an international peacekeeping force could go in.
Even if Rice does begin work on a Security Council resolution by Thursday, he said, the resolution would probably take days to pass, which would ostensibly give Israel additional time to continue pounding Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
Rice had been set to travel to Beirut on Sunday afternoon for talks with the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, when news of the Qana bombing curtailed her trip. At 8:38 Sunday morning, as Rice and Peretz were meeting in a suite at her hotel in Jerusalem, an assistant secretary of state, David Welch, received an e-mail from Jeffrey Feldman, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, alerting him to the bombing.
In the e-mail, Feldman described some of the pictures appearing on television in Lebanon. Welch interrupted the meeting and gave Rice the news, a senior American official said. He said he did not know if Peretz was already aware of it.
Meanwhile, Siniora went on television and demanded an immediate cease-fire, saying he would not hold any talks on resolving the crisis without one.
Rice seemed to go out of her way to take issue over whether Siniora told her she was no longer welcome. She said she had canceled the trip immediately upon learning of the Qana bombing. "I want you to understand something too: I called him and told him that I was not coming today, because I felt very strongly that my work toward a ceasefire is really here, today," she said.
That said, she stopped short of calling for one.
[frame]http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/rice-hops-on-diplomatic-shuttle-as-bestlaid-plans-unravel/2006/07/30/1154198012523.html?page=fullpage#[/frame]
They already killed more than 600 Lebonese civilians. That one attack by Israel killed more than all of Israel's casualties.
International Herald Tribune
News Analysis: On Arab TV, images of little corpses
By Helene Cooper The New York Times
SUNDAY, JULY 30, 2006
JERUSALEM Amid the diplomatic flurry, calls for a United Nations Security Council resolution and expressions of regret over Israel's bombing of a building in Lebanon, one fact remains: The United States, by not calling for an immediate cease-fire, is giving Israel more time to further degrade Hezbollah in Lebanon.
It is a tricky strategy for the United States because it risks further damaging America's image in the Arab world, where television coverage of dead children being pulled out of the wreckage the bombed building in Qana, Lebanon, dominated the airwaves.
But U.S. officials continue to say that, despite the mounting civilian death toll, an immediate cease-fire would do little good unless the underlying issues, including the ultimate disarmament of Hezbollah, are addressed.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in the middle of her biggest crisis as America's top diplomat, canceled her planned trip to Beirut on Sunday and will return to the United States on Monday.
A State Department official said Rice would travel to New York on Wednesday or Thursday to push for a Security Council resolution that would include a cease-fire. The contents of the diplomatic package are basically set, and Bush officials said that Rice would lay out its terms on Monday.
Under the proposal, Israel and Lebanon would agree to a cease-fire as part of a larger pact that would include installing 15,000 to 20,000 international peacekeepers throughout southern Lebanon, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
The Lebanese government would work to disband Hezbollah, and the United States and other countries would funnel money and send military officials to help train the Lebanese Army, so that it can work to prevent future attacks on Israel.
Israel would agree to talks on whether it would withdraw from the disputed border territory known as Shabaa Farms, a Hezbollah demand.
"We want the Security Council to take it up soon, and we want the Security Council to take it up with as much concrete progress toward a real ceasefire as is humanly possible by the time that that meeting takes place," Rice said.
She spoke at a hastily called news conference Sunday, just two hours after learning of the bombing at Qana. She appeared shaken, and said she had been informed of the bombing while meeting with the Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz.
She said she had reiterated to Peretz her "strong concern about the impact of Israeli military operations on innocent civilians," and added that she was "deeply saddened the terrible loss of innocent life."
American officials scrambled to try to counter wrenching television pictures of the devastation at Qana. Immediately after Rice's news conference, State Department officials worked to get coverage of her statement onto Arab television stations, including Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab outlet.
But that job was made more difficult when Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who met with Rice on Saturday night and again on Sunday, released a statement saying that he had told Rice that Israel needed an additional 10 to 14 days to complete its military aims.
"Do you think that, with the close relationship he has with Bush and Condi, he would go and say something like that without their consent?" a senior Israeli official asked.
The official, who asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said that American diplomats recognized what he called the need for Israeli armed forces to clear out a buffer zone in southern Lebanon before an international peacekeeping force could go in.
Even if Rice does begin work on a Security Council resolution by Thursday, he said, the resolution would probably take days to pass, which would ostensibly give Israel additional time to continue pounding Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
Rice had been set to travel to Beirut on Sunday afternoon for talks with the Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, when news of the Qana bombing curtailed her trip. At 8:38 Sunday morning, as Rice and Peretz were meeting in a suite at her hotel in Jerusalem, an assistant secretary of state, David Welch, received an e-mail from Jeffrey Feldman, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, alerting him to the bombing.
In the e-mail, Feldman described some of the pictures appearing on television in Lebanon. Welch interrupted the meeting and gave Rice the news, a senior American official said. He said he did not know if Peretz was already aware of it.
Meanwhile, Siniora went on television and demanded an immediate cease-fire, saying he would not hold any talks on resolving the crisis without one.
Rice seemed to go out of her way to take issue over whether Siniora told her she was no longer welcome. She said she had canceled the trip immediately upon learning of the Qana bombing. "I want you to understand something too: I called him and told him that I was not coming today, because I felt very strongly that my work toward a ceasefire is really here, today," she said.
That said, she stopped short of calling for one.
[frame]http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/rice-hops-on-diplomatic-shuttle-as-bestlaid-plans-unravel/2006/07/30/1154198012523.html?page=fullpage#[/frame]
