JINSA Report #584 From Tony Snow's Press Briefing Today

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July 14, 2006

JINSA Report #584

From Tony Snow's Press Briefing Today

Presidential Press Secretary Tony Snow held a press briefing in St.
Petersburg, Russia today as President Bush prepares for the G-8 summit.
There was a range of questions, but these should be of particular interest.

Q: Now, [Lebanese PM Fuad] Siniora is describing the President's
comments as promising to get Israeli to rein in its attacks. Did the
President say anything like that?

MR. SNOW: No. The President reiterated his position. Prime Minister
Siniora at one point - I think he’s been public about this - has wanted
a ceasefire. It is unlikely that either or both parties are going to
agree to that at this juncture, although we certainly hope that we get
to a ceasefire soon and we hope that all parties work toward it.

But, again, as the President said, this began because Hezbollah crossed
into Israeli territory, kidnapped two soldiers and, furthermore, has
been engaged in a long series of rocket attacks on people in Northern
Israel, although we have been focusing on it - that is, "we"
collectively, and especially the American press in the last couple of
days - this has been going on for a long time, it just hasn't reported.
It's been a much keener and sustained interest in Israel.

The Israelis have decided to try to have targeted attacks against
rocket launch sites, many of which are deliberately placed in civilian
neighborhoods. And they regret the loss - or they've expressed regret
for the loss of innocent life, but they also pointed out that military
necessity compels them to hit where the launchers are, but I will let
the Israelis speak for themselves on this.

[Interim questions]

Q: The President didn't make any promises or anything to the Lebanese
Prime Minister? Did he give him any idea of what he might try to do with
Israel, as far as making them hold back a little bit on attacks?

MR. SNOW: The President is not going to make military decisions for
Israel.

[Interim questions]

MR. SNOW: Let me re-emphasize something that's important about what's
going on. What Hezbollah has done is to force people to make
choices. And quite often in protracted situations like this you have
forcing event, and in many ways this is a forcing event. And what you're
beginning to see is Arab nations coming to the realization that
independent actors and terrorist organizations like Hezbollah are an
active threat to everybody, because they can - a small number of people
can work to destabilize not only a nation, but to aim at destabilizing a
region. And that has been a focus of a lot of the talks.

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