A fiery but mostly peaceful ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Biden ceasefire in Lebanon fell apart in four days, but officially it’s holding. In what seems like a Seinfeld routine come to life, administration officials and their media allies are propping up the dead ceasefire by arguing that you can have a ceasefire even if the fire doesn’t cease.
“There has been a dramatic reduction in the violence. The monitoring mechanism is in full force and is working,” White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby explained. “Largely speaking the ceasefire is holding… we’ve gone from dozens of strikes down to one a day, maybe two a day. We’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero.”
Biden had promised in his ceasefire announcement that “this is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” The permanent part of that cessation barely lasted that week.
The administration had achieved a ceasefire that lasted even less than its Gaza aid pier.
The media reacted to the ceasefire that isn’t by arguing that having a war during a ceasefire is a perfectly normal thing. “Why Israel and Hezbollah Are Still Firing Amid a Lebanon Cease-Fire,” the New York Times tried to explain. Multiple media headlines described the ongoing firefights as “testing” or “straining” the ceasefire rather than more sensibly nullifying the whole thing.
A ceasefire in which the fire does not cease is a fiery but mostly peaceful ceasefire.
Why did the firing not actually cease during the ceasefire?
Biden had promised that, “what is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed, I emphasize, will not be allowed, to threaten the security of Israel again.”
The emphasis proved to be as impotent as the rest of Biden’s “don’t” doctrine.
Rather than withdrawing from Israel’s borders under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah violated the ceasefire, began moving personnel and rocket launchers south of the Litani river, as well as smuggling weapons in preparation for a resumption of the fighting.
Israel quickly responded by enforcing the terms of the agreement and taking out terrorist forces. Hezbollah fired mortar rounds into Israel, and Israeli forces struck back as fighting across the border resumed. Within days the ceasefire wasn’t even one in name only.
And the Biden administration blamed Israel.
“The Israelis have been playing a dangerous game in recent days,” an anonymous Biden official fumed to the media. The “dangerous game” is refusing to let Hezbollah violate the ceasefire. But after Oct 7, Israelis believe ignoring terrorists preparing to attack is more dangerous than triggering the displeasure of the White House by taking them out.
Biden envoy Amos Hochstein blamed Israel for violating the ceasefire by flying surveillance drones over Lebanon. Those drones are one of the reasons that Israel knows the ceasefire is being violated by the terrorists. Hochstein complained that Israel was enforcing the terms of the ceasefire “too aggressively” and needed to let some Hezbollah violations go.
Ignoring terrorists violating the ceasefire is the only way to have a ceasefire with terrorists.
Ambassador Jack Lew described the ceasefire as holding but argued that “it’s going to take having days of going through the ups and downs” when the ceasefire isn’t holding. So that the ceasefire is holding except for all the times that there are firefights taking place.
Lew however claimed that the ceasefire however wouldn’t hold unless Israel stopped ignoring Hezbollah violations. “Israel has made clear that it has to be able to defend itself, but they also have to act in a way that doesn’t take small things and turn them into big things.”
How big does a Hezbollah violation need to be before Israel is allowed to fight back?
The “small things” included setting up mobile rocket launchers, smuggling RPGs into Lebanon, using border villages as bases of operations, including at least one mosque, and a firefight near a church. These “small things” however suggest that Hezbollah has no intention of following through with the ceasefire that is supposed to remove the terrorist forces from Israel’s border.
The ceasefire calls for dismantling “all existing unauthorized facilities involved in the production of arms and related materiel, and prevent the establishment of such facilities in the future” and the dismantling of “all infrastructure and military positions” and the confiscation of “all unauthorized arms inconsistent with these commitments.”
Hezbollah is instead preparing for a new round of fighting.
The Biden administration promised that this wouldn’t happen. It also assured Israel that if Hezbollah violated the ceasefire, it would have a free hand to respond to the terrorists.
Not one single part of that proved to be true.
The Biden administration used a cutoff of arms sales and threats of a UN weapons embargo to force Israel to sign on to a worthless ceasefire backed by another false promise of peace.
Israel abandoned its campaign to end the threat from Hezbollah on its border for a ceasefire that isn’t real. And whose only real purpose appears to be allowing Hezbollah to rearm.
The Hezbollah attacks on Israel since Oct 7 had turned some 65,000 Israelis into refugees in their own country. Despite the official ceasefire, during which the fire has not ceased, the majority of Israeli refugees still haven’t returned to their northern communities. Unless they believe that the fighting is finally over and that Hezbollah is gone from the border, they will not return home. And that means that Israel will still be full of refugees from the border fighting.
Did the Biden administration ever really believe in its own ceasefire? If it did, why did it use a 60 day period that dumps it right in the Trump administration’s lap rather than taking responsibility for its implementation?
The Biden administration may well have expected that Hezbollah would wait longer to violate the ceasefire. Instead, the terrorists proved unwilling to wait and the Israelis refused to be doormats. Nevertheless the administration and the media are still propping up the narrative of a ‘ceasefire’ in order to be able to blame the Trump administration for the ‘resumption’ of the war.
And if that doesn’t work, the Biden administration can always blame Israel.
The one thing that the administration will never do is acknowledge that Islamic terrorists can’t be negotiated with in good faith and that they will always break every deal. But if the Democrats admitted that, they would also have to admit that every one of their diplomatic initiatives to bring peace between Israel and the terrorists has not only failed for thirty years, but will always fail.
Every peace accord with the terrorists has been a ceasefire in which the firing never ceases.
Billy says
There is never peace with Islam and its Muslims because of their violence, terrorism, and hatred as taught by Allah. Moreover, Islam is a deceitful, totalitarian, terrorist, pedophilic Criminal Gang Enterprise against all Non-Muslims by using discrimination, deception, rape, hatred, and violence to gain ultimate power and control as taught in Islamic Law and in Islam’s Quran. Furthermore, Islam’s supremacist-genocidal Ideology, its tyrannical Muslims, its propaganda Schools, its foreign terrorist Organizations, and its ‘Convert-or-Die’ Mosques fund, teach, inspire, and promote ‘Threats and Incitement of Violence’ as well as never-ending terrorism, loathing, and segregation against women, children, and all Non-Muslims(eg. Quran 2:191-3; 4:65, 89, 100; 5:14,82; 8:65; 9:5,14-15,29,111; 33:26; 47:4; 65:4; 98:6-7 and more).
rick says
Israel usually demands that everything must be written down and signed because Israel knows that terrorists lie when they open their mouths. So I have questions.
1. Exactly how did promise did Biden promise Israel that “It ( the Biden Administration) also assured Israel that if Hezbollah violated the ceasefire, it would have a free hand to respond to the terrorists.” ?
2. Can the Biden Admin. direct me to the exact language in whatever document that “promise” is made?
3. Does Hezbollah’s “moving” equipment constitute a break or violation of the ceasefire? Is a Biden spokesperson like Kirby able to answer that with a “YES”?
4. Does the Biden Admin. consider Israel’s destruction of military material in Syria, especially rocket, missiles and missile launchers a violation of the ceasefire, Mr. Kirby?
5. Is aerial monitoring by Israel, either drone or otherwise, considered a violation of the ceasefire? If the Biden Admin. answer is “yes” than how does that coincide with President Reagan’s famous “Trust but Verify” philosophy. Especially with a terrorist outfit like Hezbollah.
6. If the ceasefire is broken by Hezbollah would a full state of war in response by Israel be acceptable by Biden or a Trump administration? I omit everyone else such as the UN or any other International organization which are so biased against Israel their views do not count.
7. By the way, Since when does the word or signature ( Did Hezbollah physically sign the Ceasefire documents?) by a armed terrorist organization, which is essentially a crime group, equal to the word of an actual legal nation which is also a democracy, such as Israel?
Walter Sieruk says
The words of the heading of this article which is “Is it a ceasefire if a ceasefire doesn’t cease” are a very fitting title for this sham of a so called “ceasefire agreement.” It’s a fake truce because it was based of the lying false promises of the top dogs of Hezbollah , They are liars
Furthermore, that hoax of a “ceasefire” ,or what some people call a “truce” that Joe Biden is behind is deceptive ploy by Hezbollah because that entity jihad entity is losing this war in started with Israel
The jihadist chiefs of Hezbollah did l only keep their promises only as long as it fits into their Islamic goals, and no longer
In the meantime] while they are abiding by the “truce’ , before they break it , Hezbollah be restoring it’s weapons ,provide by Iran , to attack Israel again, attempting to murder her people.
Such false hopes for peace which are based on the foundation of lies are nothing new when it comes to Israel. For example, the Bible in Psalm 55:20, 21. Which reads “Such men do violence to those at peace with them and break their promised word; their speech is smoother the butter but their thoughts are of war.” [N.E.B.]
Walter Sieruk says
About that so called “truce” sponsored by Joe Biden , it’s a disingenuous farce. The reason why this is so because that despicable old Biden really doesn’t want Israel to defeat Hezbollah is because Biden is a stooge ,tool and useful idiot of those Muslim tyrants of Iran. For in power in that hostile and vicious Islamic regime backs and Hezbollah and supplies deadly weapons to that murderous jihad entity.
This exposes just how horrendously terribly treacherous Biden actually is.
Creepy old Joe Biden doesn’t anything at all about those three Americans who had been killed by rockets supplied to Iran’s proxy jihad terror/murder entities.
Likewise Biden doesn’t care, one little bit , that which it some down to that subject Iran is just a responsible for those dead Americans and those jihad stooge groups of that “mullah regime.”
All that despicable traitor Biden cares about is appeasing those Muslim despots of Iran by providing to them everything they demand.
Joe Biden is either an incompetent feeble -minded fool or a traitorous treasonous villain.
Which even the case with him, Biden by giving away everything to those tyrants of that Islamic regime of Iran who such spiteful enemies of the United States that they publicly refer to her as “the Great Satan” and likewise brainwash and then incite the Iranian people to chant, over and over again “Death to America” reveals much about the sinister and insidious character of subversive creepy old Joe.
Therefore, to the very end of his term in office Biden continues appeasing supporting and further upholding that anti-American, anti-Israel vicious and hostile tyrannical Islamic regime.
Therefore, he has to be a very evil, un-American very despicable and dangerous man.
Walter Sieruk says
Since Hezbollah broke the “ceasefire” it should be dealt with defeated and even destroyed by hitting it hard, hit it long and keep on hitting it with strong powerful forceful military strikes until it’s unable to raise up again with its ugly, vicious and deadly jihad Islamic head.
Therefore, the government authorities and officials of the State of Israel have a duty and responsibility to use sarong military force against Hezbollah to ensure the safety security and lives of the people who are citizens of that nation. It’s basic matter of self-defense.
As the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, rightly and wisely, in a speech had declared, “The right to self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.”
Walter Sieruk says
The State of Israel should come down hard on that murderous jihad entity ,Hezbollah since it violated the “ truce” by , once again launching deadly missile attacks into Israel.
For the use of the armed might is the way to defeat the murderous jihadists of Hezbollah. This is because the Muslim terrorists of Hezbollah will not reason to reason or logic. The only language that they are able to understand is the language of the strong of might of the power of the Israel Defense Force.
As Thomas Jefferson had , so rightly and wisely ,written “With every barbarous people…force is law.”
In addition, there is much good solid valid sense in the wisdom of the statement apply to the Israel Defense Force pounding down with much military might of Hezbollah. The statement is “Half-measures in war is both folly and madness.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Isn’t Israel done wiping out Hizbullah? What’s left?
tgusa says
My advice to them is in a song. Yes, Mike & The Mechanics called it way back in 1985.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep7W89I_V_g
Skeptiker says
Ist Herr Biden nicht unter anderem an Demenz erkrankt und in seinem Denken und Handeln derart eingeschränkt, selbständige, rationale Entscheidungen zu treffen ? Warum wird immer noch geschrieben, Herr Biden hätte dieses oder jenes verfügt, beschlossen, gesagt ? Sagt doch einfach, die Strippenzieher hinter Biden haben diesem verwirrten, alten Präsidentendarsteller folgendes verlautbaren lassen. Fertig.
Dieses Schauspiel ist so ermüdend und langweilig.