Mideast War Of Words Replaces Fighting
The fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon may be over, but the war of words is continuing.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday jeered Hassan Nasrallah, saying the Hezbollah chief can't be claiming victory while still in hiding.
"Someone who doesn't come out of his bunker is not a person who thinks that he's won," Olmert said.
Meanwhile, during a visit to Denmark on Tuesday, Israel's foreign minister said Hezbollah was weakened by the month-long fighting in Lebanon and blamed the group for the suffering of the Lebanese people.
Tzipi Livni said Hezbollah was "in a losing process" following the fighting that ended Aug. 14, and that "time will tell who is the winner" of the 34-day conflict.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived for talks with Israeli leaders Tuesday, as part of a Mideast tour aimed at shoring up the U.N.-brokered cease-fire. After meeting with Defense Minister Amir Peretz, he said Israel was responsible for most of the cease-fire violations.
Israel and Annan also are at odds over a key issue — Israel's continued sea and air blockade of Lebanon. During a visit to Lebanon, Annan demanded that Israel lift the blockade.
However, Israel has said it will only reopen access to Lebanon once it is assured forces deployed on Lebanon's borders can stop the weapons flow to Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel wants to see international forces patrolling the Lebanon-Syria border, along with Lebanese troops, arguing that Syria is one of Hezbollah's main arms suppliers.
Lebanon has said only its own troops will be posted on that border.
In other developments:
After the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah, Nasrallah said in a taped TV speech that his group had achieved a "strategic, historic victory." However, the Hezbollah leader still takes great precautions concerning his personal safety, and has not appeared in public since the outbreak of the war July 12.
The war was widely seen in Israel as a failure, in part because the military didn't crush Hezbollah and was unable to stop Hezbollah rocket barrages on northern Israel during the fighting. Still, Olmert reiterated Tuesday that Israel achieved what it set out to do — force the Lebanese army to deploy along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Such a deployment is part of the U.N.-brokered cease-fire deal.
Livni said Nasrallah's recent statement that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war was a sign of weakness.
"This now shows that Hezbollah is more weak," Livni told reporters during a visit to Copenhagen. "Hezbollah has to give some explanation to the Lebanese people. They suffered for nothing."
Hezbollah guerrillas killed three Israeli soldiers and seized two more in a cross-border raid July 12, sparking the conflict.
Livni dismissed as rumor a report that Germany was mediating between Hezbollah and Israel regarding prisoner exchanges.
"Alas, there is no good news on the situation of the soldiers," she said after meeting Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller.
Livni reiterated that the soldiers should be released immediately.
In the Gaza City protest, the unemployed chanted "Oh, for shame, we are starving." They waved empty plates and pita bread outside the parliament building. Some of the protesters scuffled with police, trying to break a cordon and enter the building, while others threw rocks, lightly injuring a cameraman.
The Hamas-led government is broke because of an international aid freeze that began in March. The Islamic militant Hamas has rebuffed international demands that it renounce violence and recognize Israel. During the standoff, the Hamas government has been unable to pay its 165,000 employees and distribute welfare payments.
On Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh promised one-time unemployment payments of $100 to 50,000 workers. Hamas has made occasional payments to workers, but has been unable to silence the growing dissatisfaction.
The public servants' union says it will launch an open-ended strike next week to protest the non-payment of salaries. The strike is expected to paralyze Palestinian schools and disrupt service in government hospitals.
Many union leaders are considered Fatah supporters, a rival Palestinian group that held power before Hamas was overwhelmingly voted in earlier this year.
Hamas won the election largely on the failure of the Fatah administrations to provide government services to Palestinians. Some Hamas officials have accused Fatah of trying to destabilize the government through the strikes. But strikers said they have given the Palestinian Authority enough time to try to resolve the international embargo on the Hamas-lead government.