Jerusalem Post, Israel
U.N. Ceasefire 'An Unmitigated Disaster' for Israel and America

By Caroline Glick   


August 13, 2006
Israel - Original Article (English)    

There is a good reason that Hezbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has accepted U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which sets the terms for a cease-fire between his jihad army and the State of Israel.

The resolution represents a near-total victory for Hezbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria, and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. This fact is evident both in the text of the resolution and in the very fact that the US decided to sponsor a cease-fire resolution before Israel had dismantled or seriously degraded Hezbullah's military capabilities.

While the resolution was not passed under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter and so does not have the authority of law, in practice it makes it all but impossible for Israel to defend itself against Hezbullah aggression without being exposed to international condemnation on an unprecedented scale.

This is the case first of all because the resolution places responsibility for determining compliance in the hands of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan has distinguished himself as a man capable only of condemning Israel for its acts of self-defense while ignoring the fact that in attacking Israel, its enemies are guilty of war crimes. By empowering Annan to evaluate compliance, the resolution all but ensures that Hezbullah will not be forced to disarm and that Israel will be forced to give up the right to defend itself.

The resolution makes absolutely no mention of either Syria or Iran, without whose support Hezbullah could neither exist nor wage an illegal war against Israel. In so ignoring Hezbullah's sponsors, it ignores the regional aspect of the current war and sends the message to these two states that they may continue to equip terrorist armies in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq with the latest weaponry without paying a price for their aggression.

The resolution presents Hezbullah with a clear diplomatic victory by placing their erroneous claim of Lebanese sovereignty over the Shebaa Farms, or Mount Dov - a vast area on the Golan Heights that separates the Syrian Golan from the Upper Galilee and which is disputed between Israel and Syria - on the negotiating table. In doing so, the resolution rewards Hezbullah's aggression by giving international legitimacy to its demand for territorial aggrandizement via acts of aggression, in contravention of the laws of nations.

Moreover, by allowing Lebanon to make territorial claims on Israel despite the fact that in 2000 the U.N. determined that Israel had withdrawn to the international border, the resolution sets a catastrophic precedent for the future. Because Lebanon is receiving international support for legally unsupportable territorial demands on Israel, in the future, the Palestinians, Syrians and indeed the Jordanians and Egyptians will feel empowered to employ aggression to gain territorial concessions from the Jewish state even if they previously signed treaties of peace with Israel. The message of the resolution's stand on Shebaa Farms, is that Israel can never expect for the world to recognize any of its borders as final.

By calling in the same paragraph for the "immediate cessation by Hezbullah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations," the resolution treats as equivalent Hezbullah's illegal aggression against Israel and Israel's legitimate military action taken in defense of its sovereign territory.

Operational Paragraph 7, which "affirms that all parties are responsible for ensuring that no action is taken contrary to paragraph 1 [which calls for a cessation of hostilities] that might adversely affect the search for a long-term solution, humanitarian access to civilian populations, including safe passage for humanitarian convoys, or the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons," all but bars Israel from taking military action to defend itself in the future. Any steps Israel takes will open it to accusations - by Annan - of breaching this paragraph.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had let it be known that Israel's conditions for a cease-fire included the institution of an arms embargo against Hezbullah. The government also insisted that the international force it wished to have deployed along the border would work to dismantle Hezbullah.

However, paragraph 8 puts both the question of an arms embargo and Hezbullah's dismantlement off to some future date when Israel and Lebanon agree to the terms of a "permanent cease-fire." In addition, it places the power to oversee an arms embargo against Hezbullah in the hands of the Lebanese government, of which Hezbullah is a member.

While the resolution bars Israel from taking measures necessary to defend its territory and citizens, by keeping UNIFIL in Lebanon it ensures that no other force will be empowered to take these necessary actions. Furthermore, paragraph 2 "calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment [of the Lebanese military and UNIFIL] begins, to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon in parallel. This means that Israel is expected to withdraw before a full deployment of Lebanese and UNIFIL forces is carried out. As a result, a vacuum will be created that will allow Hezbullah to reinforce its positions in south Lebanon.

Finally, the resolution makes no operative call for the release of IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev now being held hostage by Hezbullah. By relegating their fate to a paragraph in the preamble, which then immediately turns to Hezbullah's demand for the release of Lebanese terrorists held in Israeli jails, the resolution all but eliminates any possibility of their returning home.

Aside from the resolution's egregious language, the very fact that the U.S. has sponsored a resolution that leaves Hezbullah intact as a fighting force constitutes a devastating blow to the national security of both Israel and the U.S., for the following reasons:

-- It grants the Lebanese government and military unwarranted legitimacy. The resolution treats the Lebanese government and military as credible bodies. However, the Lebanese government is currently under the de facto control of Hezbullah and Syria.

Moreover, the Lebanese army is paying pensions to the families of Hezbullah fighters killed in battle, and its forces have actively assisted Hezbullah in attacking Israel and Israeli military targets.

Indeed, the seven-point declaration issued by the Lebanese government, which the U.N. resolution applauds, was dictated by Hezbullah, as admitted by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Nasrallah last week.

-- It incites Shiite violence in Iraq. From a U.S. perspective, the resolution drastically increases the threat of a radical Shiite revolt in Iraq. Hezbullah is intimately tied to Iraqi Shiite terrorist Muqtada al-Sadr.

In April 2003, Hezbullah opened offices in southern Iraq and was instrumental in training the Mahdi Army, which Sadr leads. During a demonstration in Baghdad last week, Sadr's followers demanded that he consider them an extension of Hezbullah, and expressed a genuine desire to participate in Hezbullah's war against the US and Israel.

It should be assumed that Hezbullah's presumptive victory in its war against Israel will act as a catalyst for violence by Sadr and his followers against the Iraqi government and coalition forces in the weeks to come. Indeed, the Hezbullah victory will severely weaken moderate Shiites in the Maliki government and among the followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

-- It empowers Iran. Iran emerges as the main victor in the current war. Not only was it not condemned for its sponsorship of Hezbullah, it is being rewarded for that sponsorship because it is clear to all parties that Iran was the engine behind this war, and that its side has won.

The U.N. resolution does not strengthen America's hand in future Security Council deliberations regarding Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program, because the states that object to any action against Iran - Russia and China - will continue with their refusal to sign on to any substantive action.

Indeed, Russia's behavior regarding the situation in Lebanon, including the fact that a large percentage of Hezbullah's arsenal of advanced anti-tank missiles was sold by Russia to Syria and Iran, exposes that Moscow's role in the current conflict has been similar to the position taken by the Soviet Union in earlier Middle East wars.

Furthermore, because the resolution strengthens the U.N. as the arbiter of peace and security in the region, the diplomatic price the US will be forced to pay if it decides to go outside the U.N. to contend with the Iranian threat has been vastly increased.

Many sources in Washington told this writer over the weekend that the U.S. decision to seek a cease-fire was the result of Israel's amateurish bungling of the first three weeks of the war. The Bush administration, they argued, was being blamed for the Olmert government's incompetence and so preferred to cut its losses and sue for a cease-fire.

There is no doubt much truth to this assertion. The government's prosecution of this war has been unforgivably inept. At the same time it should be noted that the short-term political gain accrued by the U.S. by forging the cease-fire agreement will come back to haunt the U.S., Israel and all forces fighting the forces of global jihad in the coming weeks and months.

By handing a victory to Hezbullah, the resolution strengthens the belief of millions of supporters of jihad throughout the world that their side is winning and that they should redouble efforts to achieve their objectives of destroying Israel and running the U.S. out of the Middle East.

International legal scholar Prof. Anne Bayefsky assisted the author in analyzing the text of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.

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AL-ARABIYA TV, Dubai: Excerpts from an interview with Muhammad Nazzal, member of the Hamas Political Bureau,' July 28, 00:01:16, MEMRI

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