Posted on 08/10/2003 5:15:35 PM PDT by IsraelBeach
Gold blames Lebanon, Syria, Iran for Hizbullah's offensive By JOEL LEYDEN
Israel holds Lebanon, Syria, and Iran directly responsible for Hizbullah's new wave of terror, Dore Gold, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Sunday in response to Hizbullah's fourth cross-border attack in three days, which killed Haviv Dadon, 16, and wounded four others.
"Both Lebanon and Syria are acting in defiance of United Nations resolutions," the former ambassador to the UN, told The Jerusalem Post.
"In May 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Resolution 425 to a physical line that was recognized by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the UN Security Council as a fulfillment of Israel's obligations," Gold said.
"Resolution 425 additionally called for the restoration of international security along the Israeli-Lebanese border, a condition which is continually being undermined by Lebanon, Syria, and Iran."
Gold said that Israel finds itself in an "Orwellian paradox," in which the current president of the UN Security Council is a Syria, a country which "harbors and sponsors" international terrorism.
He said Syria as a state does not communicate with Israel, but in its capacity as president of the Security Council, it is now forced to talk to UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman and will be confronted directly over the present Hizbullah terror attacks.
"Mikhail Wehbe, the Syrian ambassador to the UN, who serves as the rotating president of the UN Security Council this month, will have to contend with the inherent contradictions that emanate from Syria's current UN Security Council presidency," Gold said.
He believes that future developments on the northern border will be very much effected by the extent to which leading players in the international community, such as Russia, the European Union, and Japan, pressure Syria to desist from its extremely risky behavior.
Ra'anan Gissin, Sharon's spokesman, said Israel would choose "the time, the place, and the method of our response."
"Israel has no intention of escalation," he said, but "will not tolerate any escalation of this sort that causes the death of its citizens along the border."
Hizbullah deputy secretary-general Sheik Naeem Qassem said Sunday that the organization "is fully prepared and ready to respond in the proper manner to any Israel aggression or threat." Syria's state-run Tishrin newspaper charged in an editorial Sunday that Israel is trying "to expand the circle of its aggression and deliberately provoke and threaten more than one Arab country," in hopes of slowing progress on the road map.
AP contributed to this report.
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