Elsewhere, on the Arab street:
Arabs hit streets to protest Israeli offensive CAIRO, July 21 (AFP) - Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in the Arab world Friday to rally against the Israeli offensive in
Lebanon and Gaza, which one regional leader branded a "genocidal war". Clashes broke out in Cairo between police and protesters who had gathered after prayers at the Al-Azhar mosque.
Some police officers and demonstrators were injured. In Jordan, some 2,000 people marched through the streets of Amman while more than 100,000 people in Yemen turned out for a rally.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir accused Israel of targeting the Lebanese population, and Syria's information minister accused Israel of "state terrorism" and "war crimes". Iranian cleric
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani hailed Hezbollah fighters as "heroes", but rejected mounting allegations that Iran and Syria were behind the movement's conflict with Israel. (Posted @ 20:54
PST)
Rice to announce international Mideast crisis plan WASHINGTON, July 21 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will Friday announce first details of an international
diplomatic plan to tackle Middle East violence, a senior State Department official told AFP. She would speak about an emerging "international effort" working in partnership with Arab and
European governments, the official said. At the heart of the initiative was a "diplomatic plan that would help address the violence we are seeing and the root causes of that violence," the
official said. (Posted @ 20:32 PST)
http://www.dawn.com/2006/07/21/welcome.htm
From the ivory towers in Tehran (comments from Sunday, reposted Monday as Tehran Times' headline, site not updated since):
TEHRAN -- “Israel’s dream to dominate Lebanon will never be
realized,” Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei
said here on Sunday during a ceremony held to celebrate the
birth anniversaries of the daughter of Prophet Muhammad (S),
Hazrat Fatima (SA), and the Founder of the Islamic Republic,
the late Imam Khomeini.
Ayatollah Khamenei condemned the Zionists’ recent atrocities in
Palestine and Lebanon and denounced the United States and
some Western countries for their support for Israel, saying that
the progressive and open-minded people of the world judge and
condemn the atrocities of the Zionists, and this will definitely be
effective.
He also denounced some Islamic and Arab countries for their
silence about the recent crimes of the Zionists, and said that the
human rights violations in Palestine and Lebanon over the past
few days have once again proven that the Zionists’ presence in
the region is a satanic and cancerous phenomenon that
threatens the Islamic world.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=7/17/2006&Cat=2&Num=008
I suspect that Dr. Rice is in no hurry to put a peace plan on the table.
The rhetoric out of Tehran has gone mostly silent, could be they are retreating from claims they will not permit Hezbollah to be disarmed, to avoid losing face, could be they have decided that talk alone will not achieve their objectives.
http://hotair.com/archives/vent/2006/07/21/the-jihadis-that-you-meet-each-day/#comments
Michelle Malkin's current vent.