From the WaPo's SLATE, 7/31/06: > Qana is a remote village seven miles
from the Israeli border that Lebanese Christians believe was the site of the biblical Wedding at Cana, where it is said that Jesus turned water into wine. Everyone notes the symbolic significance of Qana in the history of enmity between Israel and Lebanon: Ten years ago, during Israel's "Grapes of Wrath" offensive, more than 100 people who had taken shelter at a U.N. compound there were killed when the Israeli army shelled it, purportedly in response to Hezbollah mortar fire....
Numerous news analyses say President Bush has made a diplomatic hash
of the crisis. The NYT has the most optimistic take, saying Rice "wrung the first significant concession from Israel" in securing the aerial bombing moratorium. (Significantly, it was a State Department official, not the Israelis, who first announced it.) Bush, in his weekly radio address, suggested that the war represents a "moment of opportunity." That statement elicits the quote of the day, in the WP's far less sanguine take, from former Bush administration State Department official Richard Haass: "An opportunity? … Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"< W. turned wine into water? of course, it's a "moment of opportunity" for US-Israel to smash Hizbullah. But that moment seems to have passed. -- Jim Devine / "These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people." -- Abraham Lincoln
