Yesterday in this space, I speculated that Israel’s apparently deliberate and definitely fatal targeting of UN personnel in Lebanon might have been designed to force their withdrawal.
Today, Australia announced the withdrawal of it’s contingent, announcing that sending an international force to Lebanon right now was a ‘suicide mission’.
On the other hand, Australia is such a close chum of Israel’s main supporters, perhaps they were just being cooperative.
Also prominent in the news, more linguistic fiddledygoops from the Israeli government, which has declared it has permission from the rest of the world to continue its campaign.
“We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the world… to continue the operation,” Justice Minister Haim Ramon said, and went on to state that this permission came in the form a lack of condemnation.
Indeed, the international declaration was a sticky fudge of heart-stopping proportions and said that all parties must work with “utmost urgency” for a sustainable truce. This as the combined death toll of all sides, including the UN, climbed to near 500.
And what is this ‘permission from the rest of the world’ stuff? I certainly haven’t given my permission. Have you? Have you been asked for your permission? Without checking back, I seem to remember that the majority of British citizens had expressed their opposition to this Israeli campaign in a poll this week.
No, Mr. Olmert, permission denied. And while we are about it, permission denied to Hizbullah to rocket civilian populations in Israel.
Now let’s see if that brings the conflict to a halt.