Bashing Israel Sells

 

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora is first and foremost a businessman, so he is all too familiar with the concept of selling.

And what is the most important issue for the PM in Stockholm today? Yeah, it's to convince Ministers from more than 60 countries to donate as much money to Lebanon as possible. So, all depends on Siniora's impassioned sales pitch, doesn't it; getting into the 'customer's shoes', as it were.

Which leads us to the question of what Prime Minister Siniora believes to be the key 'buying-trigger' for his pitch; what he believes will most effectively promote his needy cause so as to wheedle the most donations out of today's captive audience of over 60 nations plus the officials from the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Red Cross.

Well, we have the answer: Relentless, unequivocal Israel bashing. I just listened to the live coverage of Siniora's disgraceful speech and couldn't believe my ears. This was worse than what Assistant-Thug-In-Chief Nasrallah could have come up with -- as soon as I locate the transcript, I'll add the link [updated with link below]

His diatribe against Israel put Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitic tirades to shame. No mention of Hezbollah, no unprovoked murder of Israeli soldiers, no mention of the kidnappings, no Katushya rockets, no Israeli civilian deaths and displaced; nothing. As if it never occurred. 

Just Israel, who attacked on July 12 for the seventh time, killed over 1,000 innocent civilians, 1/3 of them children under the age of 12, destroyed homes, hospitals, mosques, churches, roads, bridges - all just civilian infrastructure to her promise to return Lebanon to the dark ages just when it had managed to show signs of recovery; repeatedly and deliberately violated international laws and human rights conventions; displaces over a million people, many of whom returned homeless; and on and on and on.

That, Siniora must have been certain, was what the international community wanted to hear; that is what the PM believes will yield the most sympathy and the most hard cash to be ferreted away.

Absolutely disgusting. However not disgusting enough for us not to pledge $230 mil.... despite Siniora categorically snubbing Israel, whilst the original disgracefully transparent blackmail design of a prisoner swap is back on the cards.

But then you know what, I think I must belong to a breed that is about to become extinct, because I think this is equally disgusting. Heh.

UPDATE: John @ @ Old War Dogs sends us a link to "a 44-page White Paper, in .pdf form, submitted to the conference by the Lebanese government." I have not had a chance to have a look at it yet, but there are parts of the speech in the links within my text which give a partial picture of the content of the speech, that is until we are able to get hold of a transcript.

UPDATE II: Rich gives us the link for the Siniora speech. with a "check against delivery" warning as we do not at this stage know whether he deviated from the original text.

Comments

[Todd Cesere]

Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers and killed Israeli civilians, to which Israel responded by killing ten times as many civilians, and causing more than ten times as much damage, and you're expecting a politician in a country where Hezbollah has been increasing in popularity, and where other politicians have been regularly assasinated for their opinions, to discuss Hezbollah's actions? I don't like it either, and I'm not going to try to assert that his thoughts are better than his words, but an omission such as this pales in comparison to the actual destruction that occurred, which, if nothing else, has caused more Lebanese to side with Hezbollah.

The metaphor runs something like this: One man punches another man, who in response beats the first man to within inches of his life. You would be the one writing an article about how his friends are despicable for retelling the story without the the first punch. It is, as always, a question of proportion, and Siniora's words, though blatantly obtuse, could hardly be seen as an escalation. You're more likely to find people who think that Israel and Lebanon suffered equally in the conflict than you are to find people who think that Lebanon suffered alone. Considering the reality of the proportions, it is hard for me to say which is a bigger lie.

As an anticlimax for this comment: I ended up here when a search for Marc Chagall's The Revolution on Google Images turned up your image of a different Chagall (White Crucifixion). I like the format of the blog and the choice of images, despite the obvious fact that I'm not very fond of some of the written content.

[rich]

One last thing- The text is "check against delivery" so if Siniora deviated from the text it will not show up in this document.

[Alexandra]

Thanks Rich, I've updated in the main text.

[rich]

Here is the link for the Stockholm Conference:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/7018/a/68556

Here is the link for Sinora's speech:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/06/85/56/084eb060.pdf

liquid's link does not contain the speeches given in the link for the conference which is where I found the Sinora speech.

[Michael van der Galien]

Alexandra, Obsession the movie is up and running again.

YOu can download the movie through here (since it will undoubtedly disappear once again)

[Alexandra]

John @ @ Old War Dogs sends us a link to "a 44-page White Paper, in .pdf form, submitted to the conference by the Lebanese government." I have not had a chance to have a look at it yet, but there are parts of the speech in the links within my text which give a partial picture of the content of the speech. Certainly enough to get the feel of the direction in which he takes the issue, and to note the all too apparent omissions which he purposely choses to make.

[Michael van der Galien]

Great post.. like Liquid, awaiting transcrips before I start bashing Siniora tremendously. ;)

[Jeremayakovka]

I'm waiting for a world-governmment Democrat to call for a "Marshall Plan" for Lebanon....

[Barry Meislin]

It is a world of no causes, only effects.

(Reminds one of the Nakba.)

But Siniora does weep exceedingly well...

[Liquid]

Alexandra,
I don't know if anything will be released until this afternoon, but keep your eye open here for any govt released speeches or press releases out of Sweden

[Alexandra]

Liquid, I have not been able to get to the transcript, if you find it please let me know.

[Liquid]

Alexandra, I am gonna be busy today but will check here first thing when I get back to see if you got the transcript up yet. I am curious to read it too.

You are right, Israel bashing is like an epidemic and one must put it into perspective with terrorism on a whole because Terrorism is big business! It always has been.

I know that I have mentioned this before on your blog but I want to mention it again...

IMHO, Islam on it's political legs is ran like the mob! It uses and nurtures it's 'store fronts' (the peaceful charity type islam that we see in the west that hasn't yet understood or doesn't want to understand how it plays a part in the holy jihad business) which many indirectly raise money for terrorist organizations with or without knowledge of what it's actually doing. If terrorism is disguised as a religion it can ask it's followers to not ask questions just submit! But if it (the store front) cannot contribute it's laundry of monies, it still can help cover up the goals of 'the family' by decieving those, that are watching with scrutiny, with chants of peace-- peace-- and more peace at every turn! Say it long enough and maybe someone will believe it and not notice the actual deeds that are taking place. All this marches on while the radical Islam in the backroom and in the alley goes on about it's agenda of dominating the world mosque by mosque and city by city around the world; fighting what it percieves as Allah's enemies with are the Jews and every thing western!

In fact, I have thought of "the peaceful" Islam in the west as being used just like the womem in Iran and Saudi are used-- Keep it covered so no one sees the real substance underneath and if it doesn't produce the way 'the men' want it to....just get a second one or a third one to help with the domestic tasks!

[kerubin@]

Hello there! I decided to participate on Blog’s Day, including yours in my today’s post.

It is a pitty, but my blog is in Spanish :-(

Thanks, and have a nice day!

kerubin@