Seems like Bush pulled the rest of the world leaders to a more supportive position toward Israel. And they are finally proposing to do something useful in the Middle East and disarm terrorists! What took them so long. I'm amazed that they might send in internation troops to disarm the terrorists:
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Monday for the deployment of international forces to stop Hezbollah from bombing Israel, an issue that has overshadowed the summit of world leaders.Israel has had to do what no other country has done and that is show restraint toward terrorists. It's about time they go in and disarm the terrorists. America would have been in Lebonan at the first bombing. Israel has shown incredible restraint.
[...]
The comments by Blair and Annan came a day after world leaders forged a unified response at their G-8 summit to the crisis in the Middle East, blaming Hezbollah and Hamas for the escalating violence and recognizing Israel's right to defend itself — although they called on the Jewish state to show restraint.
"I am most pleased that the leaders came together to say, look, we condemn violence. We honor innocent life," Bush said before heading into a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "For the first time, we've really begun to address with clarity the root causes of the conflict ... and that is terrorist activity — namely Hezbollah, that's housed and encouraged by Syria."
Bush also asserted that the militant Islamic group is financed by Iran. However, the G-8 statement makes no mention of Syria or Iran. Russian President
Vladimir Putin told reporters that Russia blocked the effort to name Syria.
"If we don't have enough grounds to blame somebody, we cannot ... put them in documents on such a serious state level just based on assertions," Putin said.
[...]
The statement was a compromise between a U.S. position strongly supporting Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist attacks and the views of other G-8 countries that Israel was engaging in excessive force.
The statement was carefully written so that different countries could claim it said different things.
French President Jacques Chirac said it was evident from the statement that the G-8 was calling for a cease-fire on both sides of the conflict. But Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, disagreed, saying, "There was no push by any country for a cease-fire."
The Bush administration insisted the call for halting Israeli airstrikes was conditioned on Hezbollah releasing captured Israeli soldiers and ending missile attacks on Israel, although the statement was not clear on these points.
But the poor people of Lebonan! They are stuck in the middle of this again.
