Reactions To Seniora’s OP-ed

The letter writers, the bloggers and Hezbollah’s leader all react to P.M. Seniora’s opinion piece in the New York Times.
 
In the Letters section of the Times, some readers were impressed by Seniora’s ideas. Lee from Albany writes:

I am awed by the fact that the leader of a country recently ravaged by war has the clarity of thought to call for diplomacy rather than retaliation.

But not everyone agrees. In fact, the international reaction was in general pretty harsh, some even called the piece “nonsensical”. The main objection seems to be Seniora’s perceived omitting of the Elephant in the room: Hezbollah. Justin from Brooklyn writes:

The glaring omission of any reference to Hezbollah in Prime Minister Fuad Siniora’s article is quite reflective of the Lebanese government’s position toward the group: pretend it doesn’t exist.

On the blog front, Andrew Lee Butters, from the TIME blog, is generally impressed by Seniora’s piece and wants us to “Give Seniora A Chance”. but

One striking thing about the piece [..] is that it never mentions the “H” word. Hizballah, Lebanon’s anti-Israeli militia, started last summer’s mess by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers, and is now holding Siniora’s government hostage with a protest campaign that’s been going on for more than five months. The reason that Arab moderates like Siniora want peace so badly is that war threatens their countries on two fronts — with Israel and with militants at home.
 
Israelis and pro-Israeli Americans often don’t seem to realize that groups like Hizballah continue to be a potent force because many people in the Arab world see Israel as a real threat to their security.

Ra’ees Al Jumhuriyya, a Lebanese who writes anonymously in Good Neighbors, a blog that promotes Arab-Israeli dialog, attempts to unearth Seniora’s hidden messages in the piece:

what Siniora implied was, “The only way to disarm Hezbollah, stop Syria from arming Hezbollah, stop Iran from arming Hezbollah, and to disarm the Palestinian camps in Lebanon is to go along with the Arab Peace Initiative. If you do this, you’ll completely undermine your enemies (ie, Hezbollah and Syria). Simultaneously, you’ll allow the Lebanese government to assert control over the entire country, which is what you claim you want. There’s no way we can disarm Hezbollah and stabilize Lebanon without you ceding ground. Iran will then stand alone as your only enemy in the region.”

Hassan Nassralah, Hezbollah’s leader was quick to dismiss the Arab peace proposal, portrayed by Seniora as a panacea, as a diabolical plan to shore up Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.
 
 A statement which was picked up by a blogger to claim that Seniora was not being truthful:

The same day that Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora lies in the op-ed pages of the New York Times about how the Arabs don’t want to destroy Israel, Hassan Nasrallah comes out and says the Arabs shouldn’t make peace with Israel.