Pierre Gemayel, the Lebanese industry minister and critic of Syrian involvement in their affairs was assassinated yesterday.
Obsolete has done an excellent job of pointing out the hypocrisy of Blairs statement, here, much better that I could ever put together.
The murder of Pierre Gemayel, Lebanese industry minister and a leading critic of Syria’s role in the country, as well as being the son of the former president, is a shocking crime that has rightly been condemned by all sides, including by Syria.
What a sharp contrast it makes though with the reactions of both Tony Blair and Margaret Beckett to the events this summer, when Israel launched air strikes across Lebanon in response to the Hizbullah abduction of two Israeli soldiers, which resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 Lebanese civilians, the destruction of 74 bridges and 94 roads and an environmental disaster after the bombing of Jiyeh power station, which leaked 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes of oil into the Med. The UN has put just the initial clean-up bill at $64 million.
It took 12 days for Tony Blair to even so much as say that he wanted the killing to stop. Before then, Beckett, when asked whether she thought Israel’s response was disproportionate, said that she “didn’t think it was helpful into that.” Only when it became apparent that Israel was not achieving its objectives, and that the whole international community apart from the United States, the UK and Israel wanted an immediate unconditional ceasefire, was a UN resolution finally passed, on August the 11th, nearly exactly a month after the beginning of the conflict.
Blair said:
We condemn this murder utterly. It is completely without any justification at all. We need to do everything we can, particularly at this moment, to protect democracy in Lebanon and the premiership of Prime Minister Siniora.
How strange that it’s only now that he wants to protect democracy and Siniora. The destruction of a large swath of southern Lebanon has been the catalyst for the current turmoil which Lebanon is experiencing. While Siniora appeared on TV screens daily, pleading for an end to the violence, questioning whether “an Israeli teardrop was worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood”, Blair and Beckett refused to stand up for Lebanese democracy.
Labels: Lebanon
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