Arab nations reject UN draft resolution as biased

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1708304.htm

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ELEANOR HALL: So what are the key things missing from this agreement from an Arab perspective?

ANDREW VINCENT: Well, I think from the Arab perspective the key things that are missing are the withdrawal of Israelis from southern Lebanon. There's not enough mention of the return of the Shebaa farms.

There's an imbalance over prisoner exchange - the resolution demands the return of the two captured Israelis but it doesn't really talk about any kind of return of captured Lebanese or Hezbollah fighters.

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ELEANOR HALL: How does it look that this has been put forward by the United Nations and all the objections are coming from the Arab side?

ANDREW VINCENT: Well, it looks as if it's a one-sided resolution which has largely been orchestrated by the United States, and the United States, of course, is a principle backer and supporter of Israel.

The fact that we've had to wait so long before we have a draft resolution I think is seen by many Arabs as indicting that the US was holding off to try and give Israel time to finish the job.

The US is holding back to let Israel finish the job.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

thye know the end game.

They hate us for sh*t like THAT.

TC

ELEANOR HALL: Do you see these ultimately escalating to... I mean, is this a proxy war between the United States and Iran?

ANDREW VINCENT: I don't think it's a proxy war between the United States and Iran. A lot fairly partisan analysts of the war have said that this is exactly what it is, but that assumes that Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran.

Now, I think Hezbollah is no more a proxy of Iran than Israel is a proxy of the United States. I think Hezbollah has independent decision-making ability. It's armed and financed by Iran, there's no doubt about that, but then so is Israel armed and financed by the United States.

hezbollah is an armed street gang.

is a behaving like a terrorist nation. much like the US in Iraq.

Outside of Europe, East Asia and most of Latin America, the concept of the Nation-State is weak (And the concept generally imposed on those areas by outside forces). This is especially true of the Mid-East where one's tribe is more important than one's Nation and has always been so even under Ottoman rule prior to WWI (The Ottoman Empire was a typical middle eastern Empire, weak overall control but the real power was retained by the local tribes who worked with the Ottomans when it was to the local tribes advantage, the Empire was only concerned with raising revenue for the Sultan NOT changing the power structures in the areas he technically ruled).

A recent example of tribal outlook overcoming the Concept of the Nation state was when Syria first entered Lebanon. Syria entered Lebanon to protect the President of Syria's tribe's traditional Allies (The Christians Planange) from Defeat by the Shiites of South Lebanon. This alliance was based on traditional trade routes in the area (Which ignored national borders and often called smuggling). Syria defeated the Shiites, but once the Christian were saved from losing control of their area of Lebanon, Syria then started to back the Shiite for the Shiites were fighting the Israelis.

To our western ears, that local interest was more important than National interest sounds illegal, but to most of the world this is normal practice. TRIBES ARE OFTEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT NATION ONE HAPPENS TO LIVE IN. Thus Hezbollah is viewed as MORE LEGITIMATE by the people of South Lebanon than they view the Lebanese Government. You, the US, Israel and most of the Western World do NOT want to view Hezbollah as more legitimate than the Lebanese Government but that is NOT how the Shiite of South Lebanon view Hezbollah and the Lebanese Government. If anything the people of South Lebanon remember WHO drove out the occupying Israelis the last time Israel invaded Lebanon and it was NOT the Lebanese Government.

Remember the main purpose of Government is to protect its Citizens from its enemies, The Lebanese Government has NEVER been able to protect the Shiites from anyone (Syrians or Israelis) but Hezbollah has driven Israel out of South Lebanese and Hezbollah's predecessors almost won the Lebanese Civil war (and should have won except for Foreign intervention). Given that history why would the people of South Lebanon View the Lebanese Government as more legit than Hezbollah? Given the History of South Lebanon I would not if I was a Shiite in South Lebanon.

remember somalia? sounds like anarchy to me. i have heard the weirdest explanations to excuse hezbollah and it's violence. more rabbit hole reasoning. BTW, israel voluntarily withdrew from lebanon. let's not revise history.
in my opinion hezbollah is a dangerous group of punks....and remember musso9lini got the trains running on time.

Just like the US voluntary left Vietnam.... Technically the US did withdraw from Vietnam, the US was NOT kicked out, we left. Subsequent to our withdraw the Government of South Vietnam fell. Why did we leave? The North Vietnamese had won the war and we could not stay. The same with South Lebanon, the situation in South Lebanon had become so bad by the late 1990s that Israel had two choice,s genocide of the local Shiite Population o withdraw. Israel withdrew knowing it was NOT able to commit genocide even if Israel wanted to.

In the 1980s the Israelis developed the South Lebanese Army (SLA) to help Israel occupy South Lebanon. At that time the SLA was dominated by local Christian militiamen. Do to the pressure from the local Shiites and Israelis, most of the Local Christians in South Lebanon started to migrate out of Lebanon, either to Beirut, to the US or to Israel (Where they then went ot the US). By the mid-1990s the SLA had ceased to be Christian in makeup, the SLA was majority Shiite mercenaries hired by the Israelis. Unlike the Christians who were fighting for their homes and families in South Lebanon (Before they all moved out), the Shiites of the SLA were in the SLA for the pay. This made the SAL very unreliable. The Israelis used the SLA to do most of the grunt work on South Lebanon and thus suffered most of the Casuistries. AS the SAL became more and more Shiite, the SLA became less and less effective forcing the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to do more of the grunt work leading to an increase in losses among Israeli Troops. With these increase losses cam increase pressure in Israel to withdraw, which Israel did in 2000.

Thus Israel did voluntary withdraw from Southern Lebanon, but only do to the opposition of Hezbollah which caused the increase losses of Israeli Solders and the decrease in recruits into the SLA.

In the Mid-East. You have trade routes dominated by tribes who had dominated those trade routes for Millennia. You have cities that connect to those trade routes, these tend to be independent of the Tribes but the control of the cities rarely go beyond the cities wall (and in some cities not even that far, just look at Baghdad and Kabul).

The Taliban success in Afghanistan in the 1990s was more to do that their were all Pathians taking over areas when other Pathians live then what we would call a war of Conquest (and the Taliban success ended as they ran into various non-Pathian tribes that made up the Northern Alliance). Pakistan can NOT capture bin laden for he is the quest of the Pathians who dominate the Mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Thus my point was the tribes of the Mid-East are more important than what we call the Nation-States of the mid-east. When something goes wrong, the locals do NOT go to their Representative in the national Government, they do to their Tribal Chief (Who may or may not take it up with the Central Government). Unless force is used (aka Saddam) the tries decide what National laws are enforced in the tribal areas. This is the tribal tradition, a tradition still strong in the Mid-East.

It has its own social network of schools, commerce, government and places of worship. The fighters are only the miltary wing of the whole network.

silly reasoning when the "military wing" is a bunch of murdering punks.

From all the news reports it looks like the main thing is that Lebanon doesn't want to be occupied, and the other Arab nations are agreeing, they are also against the occupation. But does that matter? I mean why do they need them to sign it? The whole subject of UN resolutions is confusing to me.

After all, from the Syrian perspective it's not about Lebanon or Israel, it's about Syria and Israel.

Arab solidarity and all that. After all, one must consider the great outpouring of concern from the Syrian government--and other Arab nations and peoples--over Hama.

the total destruction of Hezzbolah. They keep saying they want a peace unlike the peace agreements from the past. They want a cease fire that will be a true cease fire that will bring about a lasting peace. What they are saying is anything short of a complete destruction of Hezzbolah is unacceptable. But they will never mouth the words. It is the reason the Arab world distrusts anything coming from this administration.

(A) The U.S. position is that Israel should be able to "defend" itself.

(B) The U.S. position is that everything Israel has done up to this point has been necessary for Israel to "defend" itself.

(C) The resolution allows Israel to continue to "defend" itself.

Therefore, (D) Israel can keep on doing what it's doing for ever, thus Lebanon must stop existing as a sovereign state.

It's a bunch of fascist shit.