Will the Lebanese Army Sent to the South Include Hezbollah Fighters in Disguise?

Anti-Mullah Blog ^ | August 12, 2006 | Alan Peters

[GeronL]

I hope it spreads. I want everyone to call them something besides "Army of God" maybe Hez-Ebola translates to "Army of the Virus" =o)

[odds]

bump.

Thanks for the ping and I will read more thoroughly later.

[PsyOp]

Will the Lebanese Army Sent to the South Include Hezbollah Fighters in Disguise?

Do bears shiite in the woods?

[griswold3]

Why does no one want to talk about the REAL issue? Further evidence of the "squeeze" of Israel. --

Dore Gold-
The Shebaa Farms
When Israel withdrew its forces unilaterally from Lebanon on March 20, 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan certified that by withdrawing to the "blue line," Israel had indeed left all Lebanese territory. His determination was enshrined by UN Security Council Resolution 1310.

Nonetheless, Hizballah argued that Israel was still retaining Lebanese territory, because it continued to hold the Shebaa Farms, which were in the Golan Heights. Lebanese officials backed Hizballah's claim. Historically, the Shebaa Farms were captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War along with the rest of the Golan Heights; their future disposition, it has been assumed, is part of the Israeli-Syrian territorial dispute. Lebanon claimed that in 1951, Syria transferred the Shebaa Farms to Lebanon. However, no such agreement was ever deposited at the UN and Lebanese Army maps from 1961 and 1966 shows the Shebaa Farms to be inside Syria.2

Thus, while Hizballah's claim, in the name of the Lebanese state, to the Shebaa Farms has no basis in either UN resolutions or in past diplomatic documentation, the U.S.-French draft resolution envisions a long-term security plan that includes: "delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including in the Shebaa Farms area." The status of the Shebaa Farms was certain, until the draft resolution: it was Syrian territory that Israel captured in a war of self-defense and hence was disputed territory in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242.

This is not just a legal issue, for the draft resolution clearly traces the current crisis in Lebanon to Hizballah's attack on Israel on July 12, 2006, describing the abduction of Israeli solders as one of the "causes" of the conflict. Yet, by granting that the Shebaa Farms issue is a genuine dispute, the draft resolution rewards Hizballah by recognizing one of its main claims over the last six years. Moreover, there is no internationally agreed understanding of how much territory is involved. One estimate of the size of the Shebaa Farms is that it covers as much as 25 square kilometers.3 The point is that this international discussion over the Shebaa Farms is being raised with regard to a geographically undefined quantity of territory, which could open up a bottomless pit of demands against the State of Israel.

The U.S.-French draft resolution is only a preliminary effort to bring the current conflict in Lebanon to an end. The Lebanese government has many reservations itself about the current efforts underway in the UN, but this should not stop Israelis from raising questions about the underlying assumptions of the draft resolution in preparation. For example, its language presupposes that there are two parties to the conflict - Israel and Hizballah - along with its Lebanese hosts. This neat symmetry is false, however. In reality, this war would be impossible without the active involvement and support of Syria and Iran, in particular. Hizballah will have no incentive to comply with any UN resolution if its Iranian patrons seek to undermine the Israeli-Lebanese border. If UN peacemaking efforts produce only undertakings by Israel and Lebanon, without actively constraining Iran, then the principal actor behind the current crisis will likely continue to destabilize the entire region and any cease-fire will not last long.