(Turkey PM) Erdogan Calls International Community to Shoulder...

[Ghost Dog]

Erdogan Calls International Community to Shoulder its responsibilities
http://www.sana.org/eng/22/2006/08/10/56578.htm
Thursday, August 10, 2006 - 05:35 PM (Ankara/Damascus)

ANKARA, (SANA) – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan called Thursday the international community to shoulder its responsibilities against the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, stressing that the Israeli escalation on the Palestinian people and Lebanon takes dangerous dimensions and threatenthe security in the region.

"We cant be silent and stay just watching what is happening, the international community must move to extinguish this fire before it spreads in the whole region which in turn will enflame an international fire." The Turkish Ekhlas News Agency quoted Erdogan.

He underlined that "stopping this fire is a historical and human responsibility according to the countries of the region," Pointing out that Turkey will exert the possible efforts to solve this matter.

/...

[neoblues]

1. So, how much of the peace keeping forces will Türkiye provide...

After all, that's what it would take... and whoever goes in is going to have to keep Hizbullah from lobbing rockets at Israel.

I suppose, like everyone else, I suffer from a variety of bias owing to shortages of information. For one, I've presumed that Hizbullah isn't really interested in peace (aside from, perhaps, a cessation of the destruction of Lebanon long before Israel has managed to actually do Hizbullah itself much serious harm). I just don't know what would satisfy them (such that they would live as peaceful neighbors) that would be both reasonable (from the world's perspective) and also tolerable to Israel. If it's true that Hizbullah simply cannot or will not stop it's aggressive actions until its destroyed the state of Israel and restored the land to the Palestinians, then there may be no point in stopping the war--it will just continue in one form or another until hell freezes over or one side manages something close to a genocide. If they can be satisfied or if Israel has indeed failed to deal fairly in some egregious** way (such as Galloway's claims that Israel had been holding over a 1000 prisoners and though they pulled out of Lebanon, they didn't fully pull out) and Israel is willing to negotiate a settlement on those (or whatever) issues, then perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel (hopefully it's not the onrushing train). My point? If I had one, I've lost it (I was interrupted for--many hours--so why bother anyway; no big loss I'm sure, I'm just blabbering). Alas.

One thing is for sure, and this is not saying anything against Israel (I believe they have the same rights as anybody to try to exist), but try imagining the world if Israel and the Zionist movement simply had never existed. Our relationship with the middle east would be unimaginably different and presumably vastly less antagonistic. Oh well, we're faced with the world as it is, and we've decided who we're going to support (rightly or wrongly, but apparently regardless of the consequences (which might be a noble thing)).



**there's usually two sides to every offense; an example (not necessarily applicable to the current discussion) might be that some prisoners might continue to be held even after the end of a conflict if their charges involved, say, murder or some such thing; yet the other side would see this as a flagrant offense, unfair since all things are fair in love and war and so all prisoners should be released. Then again, unless there actually is an end declared to a given conflict, owing to a peace treaty or some other settlement, a release of prisoners is not necessarily automatically included. I am no historian and certainly not overly familiar with the middle-east or the Arab/Israeli conflict, so I don't know the details of the many insults and wounds exchanged between the two sides and the many indivdual parties and groups over the decades, therefore, all I can do is speculate.