Hezbollah wins, Israel goes French and surrenders

Apparently, the Reuterization of the news has taken its toll on Israel. Their waving the French white flag on this one, and it's damned depressing. From the Jerusalem Post:

The weekend's news about expanded operations in Lebanon and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's acceptance of a United Nations resolution calling for a cease-fire gave politicians on both the Right and the Left reasons to attack the government.

MKs on the Right said Israel would regret accepting the cease-fire, those on the Left said it was wrong to send so many troops deep into Lebanon and politicians from across the spectrum said the government had mismanaged the war.

MK Zvi Hendel (NU-NRP) said the opposition would resume efforts to topple the prime minister, ending a self-imposed hiatus on attacking the government during the war. He said inquiries would be made into Olmert's handling of the war and that his mistakes would be exposed.

"Olmert is not fit to stay in power, he won't last one day longer," Hendel said. "The ministers should listen to [Hizbullah leader Hassan] Nasrallah's satisfaction with the cease-fire to understand how bad it is for Israel."

MK Silvan Shalom (Likud) said the cease-fire was one of the worst Israel had ever been offered. He said Israel would not achieve any of its goals, including returning its kidnapped soldiers and the disarming of Hizbullah, while issues like the return of Mount Dov (Shaba Farms) and the release of Lebanese terrorists from jail had been put on the agenda.

"If we would have known that this would be of the result of the war no one would have supported it," Shalom told The Jerusalem Post. "Just last month Olmert called UNIFIL worthless pensioners and now they are being entrusted with protecting our country."

Shalom said he was also not happy with the news about the IDF reaching the Litani River because the IDF should have entered deep into Lebanon a long time ago.

On the Left, Meretz leader Yossi Beilin said that the expansion of operations in Lebanon was a "prize for Hizbullah" that would entail weeks of arduous warfare and heavy casualties.

Whatever happened to "We don't negotiate with terrorists"? Does Olmert not share the disgust that the UN "agreement" confers legitimacy on Hezbollah as if it were a state instead of a terrorist organization? I suppose not, since by accepting this "agreement", Olmert implicitly concurs with that assessment.

Get this straight, people: The terrorists do not feel compelled to stick to terms of an "agreement", OK? If they gave a damn about "agreements" and "treaties" and "laws", then they wouldn't be freakin' terrorists, now would they?!?

The following observation is correct:

Meretz and Peace Now began demonstrating against the war on Thursday and a columnist in the left-leaning Ha'aretz joined Hendel in calling for Olmert to quit in a column under the headline, "Olmert must go."

"If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able to remain prime minister for even one more day," wrote Ari Shavit. "Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close and then say - 'Oops, I made a mistake. That was not the intention. Pass me a cigar, please.'"

By being legitimized nad not decimated, and by Israel being the first to blink, and by Hezbo chief weirdbeard Nasrallah being satisfied with the UN "agreement", the Hezbos have won...and are now more emboldened than ever.

Post columnist Caroline Glick concurs:

The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. This fact is evident both in the text of the resolution and in the very fact that the US decided to sponsor a cease-fire resolution before Israel had dismantled or seriously degraded Hizbullah's military capabilities.
...
The resolution makes absolutely no mention of either Syria or Iran, without whose support Hizbullah could neither exist nor wage an illegal war against Israel. In so ignoring Hizbullah's sponsors, it ignores the regional aspect of the current war and sends the message to these two states that they may continue to equip terrorist armies in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq with the latest weaponry without paying a price for their aggression.
...
The resolution presents Hizbullah with a clear diplomatic victory by placing their erroneous claim of Lebanese sovereignty over the Shaba Farms, or Mount Dov - a vast area on the Golan Heights that separates the Syrian Golan from the Upper Galilee and is disputed between Israel and Syria - on the negotiating table. In doing so, the resolution rewards Hizbullah's aggression by giving international legitimacy to its demand for territorial aggrandizement via acts of aggression, in contravention of the laws of nations.
...
By handing a victory to Hizbullah, the resolution strengthens the belief of millions of supporters of jihad throughout the world that their side is winning and that they should redouble efforts to achieve their objectives of destroying Israel and running the US out of the Middle East.

Just damned depressing, isn't it?