The AP spins, Israel loses

The IDF has begun handing over border zones to, uh, somebody. The AP manages to minimize the act as much as is humanly possible.

The Israeli army turned over a small border area in south Lebanon to Lebanese and foreign troops Thursday, a symbolic move paving the way for U.N. peacekeepers to go into the volatile area.

The pullback came as an international donors conference in Sweden pledged nearly $1 billion to help Lebanon rebuild, after the country’s prime minister told the gathering that Israel’s war with Hezbollah wiped out “15 years of postwar development.”

[…] Since the U.N.-brokered cease-fire took effect Aug. 14, Israel has been slowly transferring control of the area to Lebanese troops, who will be bolstered by U.N. troops equipped with tanks, howitzers and other heavy weapons not usually seen with a peacekeeping force.

Okay, I didn’t know they were bringing in the heavy equpiment to stop Hezbullah. Things may get very, very interesting when Hezbullah pumps itself up for Round Two. Actually, this is going to make things very interesting in light of events in Iran.

In other words, Israel is doing exactly what the cease-fire requires them to do, yet Hezbullah has yet to be disarmed. If you look really, really, hard, towards the end of the article, you find this:

Annan, who is on an 11-day Mideast trip to shore up the cease-fire, arrived in Syria to press the Damascus regime to join efforts to stop the flow of arms to Hezbollah and win the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by the guerrillas July 12. That raid sparked the fighting.

There was no immediate comment from Syria, which along with Iran is a major backer of Hezbollah.

Addressing Syria without naming it, Annan said he “would want to see the neighboring states extend their full cooperation to resolve all outstanding issues related to the border.”

Don’t you love how quick Kofi Annan is to condemn Israel, yet he won’t even name Syria, a nation that he knows is supplying Hezbullah with weapons? It’s the same way that the UN is condemning Israel for using cluster bombs, yet haven’t said a word about Hezbullah using missiles packed with ball-bearings, whose only purpose is to kill as many people as possible. (More on that later, I promise.)

And in the very last paragraph, you find this:

Tens of thousands of Israelis thronged a central square in Tel Aviv late Thursday in support of the two soldiers held in Lebanon as well as a third soldier captured June 25 by Gaza militants.

What biased media?