Beggars ride...

[thisficklemob]

... at least for two days.

Israel has called a temporary ceasefire in southern Lebanon to investigate the deaths of over fifty civilians.

Israel has agreed an immediate 48-hour suspension of air strikes over southern Lebanon to allow an investigation into the death of more than 50 civilians

Comments

[scaryveinybb]

Merkel is a Christian Democrat and undoubtedly right-wing, but a German Christian Democrat really isn't the same as Bush's ilk. Bush's brand of evangelical Christianity is really almost worlds apart from the weak Roman Catholicism to which the CDU is tied. The CDU is basically just a conservative party which happens to have Christian roots; its main emphasis (and particularly Merkel's) is on free market ideology and the usual sort of neo-liberal stuff preached by conservative parties in the West these days. And supposedly left-wing parties, too (see: Tony Blair, New Labour). Like many in former Communist countries, Merkel, an East German, has basically switched to the other extreme end of the spectrum.

Not that I don't agree with you that it's significant, though. Hell, it's significant that anyone (besides, like, France) is standing up to Israel in this way.

[thisficklemob]

Thanks for the background! I was going mainly by how BBC World News described her when she was elected, and they made it sound like the CDU was analogous to the religious conservative part of the GOP. I suppose, with Europe being so much more secular than the U.S. generally, that even a weak Roman Catholic flavor to a party seems unusual? They also made her sound like she was more Bush-friendly in general, but... similiar contextualization probably applies, and that's before he got all up in her personal space. ;-)

Hell, it's significant that anyone (besides, like, France) is standing up to Israel in this way.What I find remarkable about France's response is that Chirac said he'd be open to sending French peacekeeping troops, but not under the rubric of NATO, since that might antagonize Arab opinion against them

[asaresquares]

Condi did something right?! What bizzare-o world is this?!

[thisficklemob]

There there. *pats*

If it makes you feel better, maybe she didn't, maybe she was the one arguing against this step. Or maybe she had a fever or something.

Ooh! Or maybe she told Israel, "Look, when Lebanon's PM refuses to meet with me, it makes me look like an ineffective, irrelevant ass. And I don't like looking like an ineffective, irrelevant ass. You have to do something tha makes me look relevant again, or I'll never get elected president."

[asaresquares]

I'm going with that one. Thinking that she may have done something right is just TOO painful. =[