In a belligerent mood

The French are pissing me off again. Not an unusual statement from someone who was born and brought up in the UK and has lived in Israel for a decade; it's almost inevitable that I'll have my nose put out of joint by something that M. Chirac or one of his cronies comes out with. It has come as little surprise that whilst Israelis are sitting in their bomb shelters, with 1 dead and 70 wounded in the barrage as well as 8 dead soldiers and 2 more kidnapped, the French Foreign Minister has actually had the gall to condemn Israel for responding in what he termed "a disproportionate act of war".

Whilst it's possible to understand this attitude within the context that the idea of responding to an attack on your country hasn't been a part of French military doctrine for close to a century, it would seem rational to me (even President Bush agrees with me) that if you come under attack you have the right to defend yourself.

The Russians have also taken the high moral ground and weighed in with their thoughts:

"The continued destruction of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and the disproportionate use of force by Israel, which causes suffering to the civilian population, can be neither understood nor justified,"

With a few changes that sentence becomes:

"The destruction of civilian infrastructure in Chechnya and the disproportionate use of force by Russia, which caused 200,000 civilian deaths, can be neither understood nor justified"

Get your own house in order before you start making your opinions known.

The EU are at it too. Israel's now been condemned by the Finns.

It seems fairly clear that there is a simple solution to the French Defence Minister's helpful comment that

"we must move towards a dialogue, recognising each other and permitting the civilian population to live in peace"

I'm not altogether convinced that we need a dialogue at all though it certainly won't do any harm - I'll couch it in simple terms for the Lebanese, Syrians and French: if you don't give us a reason to shoot at you, we won't shoot at you.

In a little more detail - if you allow a militia (which also happens to have a Minister in your Government) to operate freely out of your sovereign territory then you are going to bear the consequences of their actions. If you are the country supplying them with weapons you should be worried too. No one (on this side) wants to be in a state of conflict - but we will defend ourselves and punish those who are party to attacks on our State. If Lebanon is indeed "a friend of France" then the French should be having a friendly word in their ear - suggesting that kicking Hezbollah out would be no great loss and would enhance the chances of a lasting peace in the region.


Gilly