The UN

I said it before the international community supports Israel. Now of course there is always a certain difference between the American camp and the Anti-American camp.

America and its allies (well I suppose it's only one ally: The UK), totally support Israel, but at the same time, America insists on defending the Lebanese interests in this conflict, or so it says. This was expressed on the first day of the conflict when president Bush declared that it's Israel's right to defend itself, he did mention that they have to respect the Lebanese government's interests and to do nothing to jeopardize the governments' means of survival... Ambiguous but shows a tendency to preserve the support that the USA has often promised the Sanioora government.

The Anti-American camp (I call them so because it's easier) also supports Israel in its right to protect itself. But they are more demanding, they demand that the civilians would be put aside in the conflict, and they frankly accuse Israel of employing excessive force to retaliate against the Hezbollah assault. In addition they criticize the Israeli's refusal to negotiate, implying that Israel doesn't seek the release of its soldiers but the destruction of Lebanon itself.

The UN meeting itself was such a fascinating Drama, Shakespeare couldn't have done better!

The Lebanese representative, as always, simply lamented the Lebanese situation, he deplored the huge destruction, he cried the innocent victims. In a very strict tone he simply said the obvious truth; it was a tragedy as far as we were concerned. But no political stand was taken, Israel was still the enemy and Hezbollah was still the poison that we can't reject.

The Israeli representative was more entertaining. He talked in a far more confident tone, he blamed the Lebanese part for failing to disarm Hezbollah when it had the chance to, on the other hand he showed so much compassion toward the Lebanese people, you could almost think that he loves us. He talked to the Lebanese representative as if he was his friend, he said that "you [the Lebanese representative] know that if things were different and if it was your own choice you would come and sit next to me here, because you know that we are doing the right thing". In general Israel tried to portray the situation as a favor to the Lebanese people, a sort of Liberation. Well that was almost true. It wasn't totally wrong because we as Lebanese felt very disappointed and helpless in front of Hezbollah, but on the other hand the Israelis were bombarding our infrastructure, OUR infrastructure, Hezbollah isn't really feeling sorry, any destruction in the South means that the Lebanese government will pay more money there and they always get a certain percentage.

The Lebanese answer to this position came from the Lebanese Forces (the only christian party in the government) when he said: "Well, we are extremely Grateful to Israel if this is there idea of helping, we thank them for destroying our airport and infrastructure and for bringing us back a few decades and destroying all we have worked for... Thank you very much!"

As a general tendency the whole international public opinion adopted and still adopts the two attackers one victim view.