JERUSALEM (EJP)--- As the Hizbollah rockets continue to rain down on northern Israel and Israel carries its bombardment of Beirut, a war of words has broken out over the Israeli Lebanese conflict.
Leaders of the G-8 nations — the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada – began discussing the issue at a summit in St Petersburg, Russia on Sunday.
On Sunday morning British prime minister Tony Blair went against the opinion of many European leaders by blaming Syria and Iran for escalating the conflict in the Middle East.
“There are those in the region, notably Iran and Syria, who do not want this process of democratization and negotiation to succeed,’’ Blair said today after a meeting with US president George Bush in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the G8 summit. “Sometimes there’s been a hesitation in putting the real truth of the situation up there in front of people,” he added.
Appealing for calm, Blair said: “"The question is, how do we calm it down - the only way we are going to get this situation calmed is if we address the reasons why the situation has arisen and the basic reasons are that there are extremists who want to end the process that could lead to the two-state solution.”
Lebanese aggression
The fighting in northern Israel and southern Lebanon began on Wednesday when Lebanese Hizbollah terrorists attacked and Israeli army base, killing seven soldiers and kidnapping two.
Since then Hizbollah has fired hundreds of Katyusha rockets at Israeli cities including Haifa, Tsfat and Tiberias, and Israelis has heavily bombarded Beirut in air strikes.
But despite the Lebanese group’s clear intentions of simply harming the Israeli civilian population and Israel’s aims of stopping Hizbollah and avoiding, where possible, Lebanese civilians, international leaders have been quick to condemn Israel’s “disproportinate use of force”
Earlier Sunday Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed Israel’s assault on Beirut has aims further than deterring and stopping Hizbollah attacks.
"It is our impression that aside from seeking to return the abducted soldiers, Israel is pursuing wider goals," he told a midnight news conference at the G8 summit.
On Thursday Putin had made his position clear, saying that “No hostage-takings are acceptable, but neither is the use of full-scale force in response to these, even if unlawful, actions.”
Spanish, French condemnation
Spanish president, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has demanded that the EU and United Nations take an active role in the conflict so that an “immediate cessation of the hostilities” can occur.
Blaming Israel, for taking unacceptable action, Zapatero told the Spanish Point Radio: “One thing is the defence, which is legitimate, and another thing is a counter-offensive of generalized attack”.
He added that the Israeli action “is not going to bring anything more than an intensification of the conflict”.
French foreign minister Phillipe Douste Blazy has also echoed these views. “Obviously we condemn this disproportionate act of war,” he said, in referrence to the Israeli raids.
The minister declared that France supported the “Lebanese request to refer the matter to the security council as quickly as possible.”
He added that: “France requests that the territorial integrity of Lebanon would be respected,”
German chancellor Angela Merkel, however, stressed the importance of recognising the responsibility of Hizbollah for starting and continuing the conflict.
“We call on the powers in the region to seek to bring about a de-escalation of the situation. We cannot confuse cause and effect. The starting point is the capture of the Israeli soldiers,” Merkel said.
“It is important that the government in Lebanon, which is on a peaceful path, should be strengthened, but it must be made clear that the capture [of the soldiers] cannot be tolerated. The attacks did not start from the Israeli side, but from Hezbollah’s side.”