European Press Review: "Speed is of the Essence"

Britain's The Guardian wrote Wednesday that Israeli President Ehud Olmert and his coalition partner, the Labor leader Amir Peretz, are "military novices," adding that "both have something to prove." Ariel Sharon, added the paper, "could negotiate a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah in 2004, rather than bombing them from the sky, because he had no fear of being branded weak." The current crisis, continued the paper, has eroded the logic of the Israeli president's primary goal -- unilateralism -- "which could leave Olmert and his Kadima party on ever-shrinking ground in the middle."

"Speed is of the essence, in order to weaken the war between Israel and Hezbollah before it's too late," wrote the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero. However, "Israel is not interested in ending its offensive and responds to a series of attacks that are underestimated by too many people. Hezbollah, on the other hand, "is fighting to prove that it is the only power that can oppose the hostile forces -- just like in 2000, when Israel pulled out of Lebanon under pressure from Hezbollah."

No one is prepared to carry out the "consequential political demolition work that is necessary to achieve stabile governmental structures and an equally stabile peace," commented Austria's Kurier. For decades, Arabic regimes have only pretended to conduct social development in their countries, opined the paper. These developments must "finally be furthered and supported by the West" -- "only then can extremist Islam…be stopped." Otherwise, concluded the paper, the extremists will "write the next chapter in the history of the Middle East -- and it will be another bloody one."

The French paper Le Monde looked at the French president's mediation efforts so far. Jacques Chirac is a traditional ally of the Arab countries, the paper pointed out. His appeal for Israel to hold back, on the one hand, and his determination to find an end to the Hezbollah problem, on the other, "is without a doubt the most legitimate policy." This stance "is the only way to preserve a common line with the United States and a kernel of international consensus," asserted the French paper. Israel has only Hezbollah in mind right now, it continued, but if Israel's military operation "serves, as the most optimistic believe, to do away with Hezbollah, it must not destroy Lebanon's efforts to reconstruct its country."

"Sending UN troops to southern Lebanon will remain an illusion," wrote Germany's Franfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "as long as Hezbollah doesn't surrender there and the missiles into Haifa are celebrated as a victory, or as long as Israel doesn't reach its military goal -- these are two sides of the same coin." Until this matter is cleared up, however, "the risk that things will escalate still exists," the paper wrote.