The Guardian on Lebanon-Israel Border Clash

Nearly six hours after UNIFIL acknowledged that IDF troops were removing trees on the Israeli side of the border, the Guardian still has a video on its web site in which the newspaper's caption claims that

the fighting broke out after Israeli soldiers tried to uproot a tree on the Lebanese side of the border.

Northern Front Erupts

The katyusha rockets fired at the northern Israeli town of Nahariya today from southern Lebanon have raised the stakes of the current conflict significantly. They raise the specter of wide-scale bombardment of the north of the sort we saw in the summer of 2006.

 On December 25, 2008, a number of katyusha rockets, apparently all aimed at Nahariya, were discovered by Lebanese security forces in southern Lebanon. They were disarmed shortly before their launch times. 

This time around, the Lebanese army did not reach the rockets in time, and UNIFIL has been shown to be incapable of stopping such attacks. As Lebanese sources rushed to declare, the rockets were most likely not fired by Hizbullah, but rather by one of the Palestinian factions allied with it. Nevertheless, it would be hard to imagine that Hizbullah did not know about the firing of these rockets. Nasrallah so far has stayed away from involving Lebanon in the Gaza conflict; he may have gotten a soft go-ahead from the Iranians or Syrians, to give a green light to Palestinian proxies. 

It remains to be seen whether this will lead to a major escalation. Israel will have to weigh its response carefully. Reservists are available to operate in the north, but Israel cannot afford to see Haifa, Nahirya, and who knows what other cities engulfed by Hizbullah fire. For now, it must attempt to curtail any escalation. 

The Syrian Front

Some very brief, related and unrelated thoughts on the news from today about peace talks with Syria.

1. Contrary to the claims of Shelly Yachimovich this is not a diversion. Neither the talks nor their acknowledgment have been orchestrated to save Olmert's political career. If anything, these talks put Olmert in an even more precarious position domestically than he is now.

2. We do not know what the Americans think about all this, but the agreement goes entirely against the spirit of Bush's policy since 2003. Did the Turks keep the Americans apprised of developments in the process?

3. These negotiations cannot extract Syria from the Iranian embrace. They will not deliver Hizbullah or Hamas to Israel. All they can aim at is the formalization of the relative calm that has existed on the Syrian-Israeli border since 1973 - in itself hardly be an insignificant feat.

4. The recent Doha agreement, engineered by Qatar, formally delivered Lebanon into the hands of Hizbullah and the Iranian-Syrian-(Qatari?) axis. It diverges radically from the US-Saudi policy on Lebanon that has endured until now.

Hizbullah is not Hamas; Beirut is not Gaza

The reports from Beirut look eerily similar not only to scenes from the annals of Lebanese civil war but also to what we saw in Gaza before Hamas's takeover. Again, it looks like well-equipped but unmotivated US-backed militias are surrendering to their disciplined anti-American counterparts. At least this is the impression that one would get from the coverage in Ha'aretz and the Western media. The following description is rather typical:

Hezbollah took control of Muslim west Beirut on Friday, tightening its grip on the city in a major blow to the U.S.-backed government. Shi'ite opposition gunmen seized control of several Beirut neighborhoods from Sunni foes loyal to the United States-backed government, street battles that left 11 dead and 30 wounded, security officials said (Ha'aretz).

In reality, however, the situation in Beirut is quite unlike what transpired in Gaza; furthermore, various factions' pro- or anti-American orientations are less relevant than this kind of reporting assumes.

First, the military "victory" that Hizbullah and co. are now celebrating will not automatically give the party political power. Whereas in Gaza, one entity, Hamas, basically faced another, Fatah, the Lebanese political landscape is far more fractured. Hizbullah and its allies will not be able to impose their will on the Lebanese population. In fact, while Hamas could make claims about having public opinion behind it, the sectarian politics of Lebanon make this impossible for Hizbullah. The humiliations endured by Future Movement fighters and by Sunni civilians will only stiffen their resolve against Hizbullah. The latter's claims to representing all of Lebanon and its (quickly-forgotten) promises to use its weapons only against Lebanon's enemies have been unmasked once and for all.

What then can Hizbullah gain from its victories on the ground? No one doubted that Hizbullah had the most formidable military force in Lebanon, so a demonstration of its power is not a real gain. Did the party hope to showcase the impotence of the Lebanese Army and security forces? What purpose did forcing Hariri's TV station off the air serve? All of these actions look like bullying without a clear plan. Furthermore, the longer Hariri and Jumblatt as well as Beirut's pro-government Sunni, Christian, and Druze populations stay under siege, the more restive their coreligionists in northern Lebanon, Beqaa, and the Chouf will grow. These frustrations can hardly bode well for the Shiite population, which despite the patronage of Hizbullah and Iran, is hardly economically self-sufficient.

Seeing that it cannot gain much from a military victory, Hizbullah may, as Jeha writes, very well be "looking for surrender."

For coverage see Jeha's blog (with the usual awesome graphics), Blacksmiths of Lebanon, and Charles Malik.

Behind the UNIFIL Attack

(Click to enlarge. Go to the link for even more detail. Map: Perry-Castaneda)

Today, what appears to have been a suicide car bombing killed 3 Spanish and 3 Colombian UNIFIL soldiers traveling in an armored troop carrier, somewhere between the towns of Marj 'Ayoun and Khiyam (circled in blue on the modified map above). The area of the attack is a few kilometers north of the Israeli town of Metulla, and just west of the Hazbani River. Two other Spanish peacekeepers were injured.

In the wake of the katyusha attack that hit Qiryat Shmonah on June 17, Spanish UNIFIL officers in particular assured the Israelis that they would do their utmost to prevent further attacks. Around the same time, rumors circulated in the press to the effect that the Italians had reached some kind of deal with Syria that would protect their UNIFIL soldiers from being hurt in attacks. I remember wondering whether the Spaniards might not regret their energetic efforts to carry out the mandate of the UN force in Lebanon. I do not think that it is an accident that Spanish troops were targeted in today's bombing, which has so far claimed the lives of 5 soldiers.

To borrow a phrase from Jeha, Syria still has enough "plausible deniability" to make the useful idiots as well as the malicious cast doubt on that government's involvement. Others, however, will probably agree that Syria has decided to play its third card. After the failure of the Fath al-Islam uprising attempt in northern Lebanon, Syria has decided to cause trouble in the south - most likely through Palestinian proxies rather than Hizbullah, which went as far as to condemn the attack (Ha'aretz) - perhaps an indication of the declining approval for explicitly pro-Syrian actions inside Lebanon. The country's rallying behind the Lebanese army throughout the ongoing campaign at Nahr el-Bared seems to have constrained the flexibility of Hizbullah as well as Aoun's FPM.

I thought it was interesting also to see the response to this latest bombing. Israel may yet be provoked into a response against Hizbullah or Syrian-backed Palestinian groups in the south, but right now, it is hoping to use these provocations to bolster the UNIFIL mandate.

Southern Lebanon has posed a security challenge to Israel since the country's independence; indeed, attacks on Jewish settlements in the Galilee go back three decades earlier still ("Tel Hai," English, Hebrew). Over the past 60 years, Israel's strategic aims in the northern Galilee and southern Lebanon have been mostly uniform - but one can isolate two distinct strands. Early Zionist leaders and some Israeli policy-makers saw control of Lebanon's south as necessary (or at least desirable) in order to assure access to water (1). However, the far more important determining factor since the 1960s has been security (2). To counter the threats posed by irregulars operating in southern Lebanon, Israel has resorted to a variety of defensive and offensive measures. UNIFIL, too, has played a small role in this strategy before. Given last summer's failure in Lebanon, Israel now seems more willing than ever before to give UNIFIL a bigger share in countering the threats (to Israel as well as Lebanese security) emanating from Lebanon's south.

Dissolving Lebanon

As'ad AbuKhalil has been trying to explain his political theology to his mother:

Knowing of my views against the very existence of Lebanon as an entity, she would always ask me how that is possible. I would tell her that the dissolution of the entity (into a larger Arab entity) is the solution. [...] I said that imagine when Syria is run well, and the Asad regime is overthrown (and hopefully not by the Muslim Brotherhood or the Khaddam version of Ba`thism): Lebanon would be better served by dissolving into a larger Arab entity. Like the Zionist entity, Lebanon has posed a danger to, and inflicted harm on, its inhabitants and on the Palestinian cause.

You see, he really has the best interests of the Lebanese in mind. The "Zionist entity" can go to hell. Its primal sin, one apparently also committed by Lebanon, is causing harm to the Palestinian cause. I am curious how this dogma, which has turned Palestine into Jesus (guess who killed it), came to occupy such a big role in the religion of the angry Arabs.

Solidarity with the Palestinians

International media would have had a field day with this, if someone had found a similar quotation from an Israeli citizen (NYT):

Many residents of Tripoli welcomed the Lebanese Army into town, and onlookers clapped whenever tanks fired shells into the camp, bringing to surface longstanding tensions between Lebanese and Palestinians, who are blamed for setting off the civil war in 1975.

“This should have happened from the start,” said one man, who stood in a crowd of onlookers as the tanks fired into the camp. The crowd shouted, “God is great, and God Protect the army,” with each shell fired.

“We wish the government would destroy the whole camp and the rest of the camps,” said Ahmad al-Marooq, who stood with the crowd. “Nothing good comes out of the Palestinians.”

Talking to Syria

Sunset in the north (January 2006)

One of the obstacles to negotiations with Syria frequently cited by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is American opposition to talks with Assad. Olmert did not conjure these objections out of thin air. But it is fairly obvious that invoking American opposition as the determining factor in Israel's decision not to engage the Syrians was a convenient charade (perhaps for both parties). Now, the Americans are sending signals that the Israelis are going to have to supply their own alibi.

At a closed meeting with academics at Hebrew University on Monday, U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones said that the U.S. is not blocking Israel from conducting talks with Syria. Asked to comment on Ambassador Jones's statement, the deputy press attache of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Geoffrey Anisman, told Ha'aretz that

we are unaware that any U.S. official has ever expressed an opinion on what Israel should or should not do with regard to Syria.

It is hard not to chuckle at this pithy response; the Anismanian delivery came through even in print.

I had the pleasure of meeting Anisman last summer in Tel Aviv, and he stuck out as one of the young, bright stars in the American diplomatic corps. He also has a great sense of humor, no doubt acquired after years of watching Mel Brooks and Woody Allen films and absorbing Yiddish witticisms told by Anisman Senior.

In all seriousness, the writing is definitely on the wall. Those voices from the State Department long clamoring for a kind of diplomacy that consists of more than threats and refusals to talk to certain states must be feeling emboldened. The turning point was certainly the agreement with North Korea, which, strange as it may seem, could even earn Bush a Nobel Peace Prize. Bitterly opposed by John Bolton, the North Korea deal basically marked a return to the Korea policy of Bill Clinton. America's quiet backing of the Saudi peace initiative, and the March 10 meeting with Iranian and Syrian diplomats in Baghdad are further evidence of a shift in policy.

There are of course valid grounds on which one might continue to object to dialogue with Syria, as our Lebanese friends do not tire of pointing out. I have to confess that I am still sympathetic to some of their warnings. For one, I do not know how long the Assads will stay in power, and what might happen to a peace agreement once they fall. Secondly, I worry about the effects that bolstering the Syrians now will have on Lebanon's future.

On the other hand, the draft framework for a Syrian-Israeli agreement that was leaked in January is an offer that Israel simply cannot refuse.

Lebanese National News Agency: Israel Using Toxic Balloons

The "toxic" balloons

Jeha has already reported on this, but the story seems to be spinning out of a control, with even Bad Vilbel asking, "What the hell? And then Israelis wonder why there is so much fear and paranoia about the IDF and Israel's intentions in Lebanon." I'm quoting the article from Naharnet in full:

Eight people were hospitalized Saturday after inhaling toxic gases from poisonous balloons dropped by Israeli warplanes over Upper Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said among those who were rushed to hospital suffering from nausea and fatigue were a Lebanese staff sergeant, a recruit and An Nahar reporter Rana Jouni.

The agency said Israeli warplanes dropped at least 10 poisonous balloons with Hebrew markings over Upper Nabatiyeh at about 9 am Saturday.

NNA said contacts have been made between the Lebanese army command and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, which has instructed an Italian peacekeeping unit to take samples from the balloons for examination. The agency said the results are likely to come out on Sunday.

NNA had earlier said that the Lebanese army's engineering unit headed to the area and destroyed the balloons by explosives.

The army, in a communiqué issued Friday, warned civilians against messing with the balloons and urged them to report finding them to the closest army unit.

I'm not sure what the origins of the balloons are - העיר [Ha'ir, "The City"] is the name of a local sort of newspaper with branches in different cities that features classifieds. I'm assuming this was some sort of promotion in the north and that the balloons simply drifted across the border. I have a hard time understanding how this story made the headlines, given the many questions it immediately raises.

How exactly did this reporter and the 7 other people get sick? Did they inhale the helium in the balloons? And how do warplanes drop balloons? Maybe these were more like beach balls? Well, I'm glad the Lebanese Army made sure to send its engineering units over to blow them up.

In conclusion, if you see any other objects with "Hebrew markings" on them, please stay away. And make sure the Jews don't come near the wells again.

April Fool's is more than 2 months away, guys!

Hizbullah Stumbles, for Now

From the FPM website: apparently the guy on the groundis a 65-year-old (Aoun supporter?)
being kicked by a Lebanese Forces member (tayyar.org)

The latest attempt by Hizbullah and company to bring down the Siniora government in Lebanon has failed - at least for now. On the streets, Christian pro-government forces held their own against the anti-government Christian backers of Michel Aoun's FMP, while Sunni activists flexed enough muscle to thwart Hizbullah and Amal. But the key was outside intervention, including perhaps a restraining order by the Iranians, after pressure from the Saudis (see Ha'aretz). Or maybe it was the overt backing of King Abdullah as well as the U.S. (which is intent on preventing the victory of the Syrian-Iranian proxies) and France for the government. In any case, Siniora et al. seem to have acquired a new lease on life.

Meanwhile, most of the Sunni Arab world viewed the latest showdown in Lebanon as a must-win confrontation in the regional Sunni-Shi'a showdown. With Iraq in Shi'a hands and Syria in Iran's pockets, the Saudis can capitalize on widespread support from Sunnis who are still fuming about the execution of Saddam Hussein. This, in turn, has emboldened the Sunni supporters of the Lebanese government. Nasrallah has taken notice and trying to tread carefully.

On a related note, the Jordanian Mohammed al-Masri has an op-ed in the Daily Star about Jordan's position on the Sunni-Shi'a rift. The article is about Jordanian encounters with Shi'a Iraqi expatriates in their midst. Apparently, the Jordanian state is following a "zero-tolerance policy toward the public practice of Shiism." However, al-Masri concludes that the real threat to Jordan is not the practice of Shiism in the country or the specter of mass conversions by its Sunni population; rather, the real danger is

political Shiism: support for Shiite political organizations and acceptance of their political paradigms

Al-Masri goes on to say that

the sweeping support for Hizbullah during the war in Lebanon last summer was a clear manifestation of political Shiism,

which is a sneaky way of criticizing the wide-scale support for Hizbullah in the Arab world during the war. Ultimately, he blames Israel for the rise of "political Shiism" - i.e., for the increasing threat to regimes like Jordan by Iran and its proxies:

As much as events in Iraq and interaction with Iraqi communities within Jordan lead to Jordanian antipathy toward Iraqi Shiites and Iran, the Israeli factor and potential conflict between Israel and Hizbullah still encourage support for Hizbullah-style Shiite organizations. Therefore it might be misleading to assume that new anti-Iranian feelings in Jordan are sustainable, when the Israel factor in regional developments could undermine them

Michael Totten on Lebanon's Michel 'Aoun

Michel Aoun at a meeting with Condoleeza Rice
in July 2005 (Source: Dept. of State)

Michael Totten recently published an excellent piece examining the tactical alliance between Michel 'Aoun and Hizbullah in Lebanon. It is definitely worth reading to understand some of the socio-economic frustrations that account for the attraction felt by a segment of the Lebanese Maronite Christian population - and other Lebanese - to this populist leader.

Totten's piece reminds us not to fall into the trap of reducing Lebanese politics to a conflict between Iranian and Syrian-backed Hizbullah, on one side, and the western-leaning Seniora government on the other. There are other elements in the opposition that do not share most or any of Hizbullah's values, especially not the foreign policy of the movement.

In his latest post, Totten reconstructs a meeting with two 'Aoun supporters at a coffee house, which reveals that his supporters are not simply blindly following a charismatic leader. Totten's Christian informants in fact identify corruption and monopolistic tendencies in Lebanon - which they associate with the Hariri family - as being at the root of their support of 'Aoun and his Free Patriotic Movement (al-Tayyār al-Watani al-Hurr).

Throughout the conversation with his Lebanese interlocutors, Jack and Antonios, Totten confronts them with his critical views of 'Aouns political manoeuvres and challenges them to explain an alliance that seems destined to fail to the detriment of the former Maronite militia leader. Notwithstanding their tendency to think in more conspiratorial terms (something that is understandable in Lebanon, as Totten explains), the pair reveal themselves to be quite level-headed. Their only flaw - and it is a big one - seems to be that they have wholeheartedly accepted the notion that the alliance with Nasrallah can be treated as a means to an end: to secure enough votes from Lebanese Shi'a to allow 'Aoun to become elected as Lebanese president and to give the Free Patriotic Movement a greater voice in the Lebanese cabinet. In other words, they think that Hizbullah can be restrained once it is given even more power in cabinet and parliament.

A screenshot from the website of the Lebanese "Free Patriotic Movement"

I have no idea how many non-Shi'i Lebanese back the Free Patriotic Movement at this stage. The FPM's website has a detailed break-down of a poll it conducted recently and claims that 66.2% of poll respondents (of all confessions) said they would back an FPM candidate for the Presidential Office reserved to Maronites according to the Lebanese constitution. The website also asserts that 69.7% of those polled said they would back the FPM "and its allies" (i.e. Hizbullah). I might take a closer look at the poll in a future post.

Nasrallah's Mea Culpa

"Sorry guys, I screwed up."

As you have probably all heard by now, Nasrallah recently apologized for being an idiot and having his organization kidnap two IDF reservists in a cross-border raid. This is Nasrallah sounding contrite instead of smug and self-righteous:

I want to be clear in my response, and I hope that people are listening to me now. We did not think even one per cent that the capture of the two Israelis would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude, and if someone asked me why we didn't consider this one per cent, I would say that since 1982 and our relationships with the Israelis and the experience of our resistance with Israel, the operation wouldn't lead to such a result (ABC).

Who knows what kind of game the Hizbullah head is playing here. It looks like he has realized that it is important to at least pay lip service to the idea that he has some kind of responsibility for all of Lebanon's citizens. Furthermore, he seems to be acknowledging some culpability in what transpired. Of course, he pleads ignorance, but like it or not, Nasrallah has admitted that if it hadn't been for Hizbullah's wonderful kidnapping mission, all those Lebanese houses would still be standing today.

Given this admission by Nasrallah, it seems that a "disproportionate" response really was needed to deter Hizbullah.

Arab Hypocrisy vis-à-vis the Palestinians

I was looking for some Lebanese coverage of recent events and came across this unrelated article in the Lebanese Daily Star:

Palestinians march for right to work in all professions

By Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, July 12, 2006

SIDON: More than 500 Palestinians demonstrated Tuesday at the Ain-al Hilweh refugee camp, calling on the Lebanese government and international community to allow refugees the right to work in any profession they choose. While praising Labor Minister Tarrad Hamade's partial lifting of a ban on some 70 specific professions for Palestinians born in Lebanon, protesters urged the minister to allow Palestinians to work in all fields, specifically pharmacy, engineering, law and medicine.

The government prohibits Palestinians from working in dozens of professions, most of which are in traditionally well-paying fields such as medicine, law, engineering, academia, etc.

[...]

The official reason? To prevent the permanent settlement of Palestinians in Lebanon.

This is starting to get a little scary

Picture taken at from an anti-American demonstration held by Lebanese supporters of Hizbullah and Syria in January 2006.
Courtesty of "From Beirut to the Beltway" - a Lebanese-American blog
Lebanon has to begin exercising its power as a sovereign country. If the reports of Ze'ev Schiff, Ha'aretz's well-connected military correspondent, are true, then south Lebanon may now be regarded as a strategic Iranian base. Is Lebanon willing to accept that the risks that this entails? Many Lebanese certainly aren't, although the expatriates among them are most vocal. Lebanon's leaders are going to have to get their acts together fast. Iran's decision to put long-range missiles in the hands of a militia is no joke. Here is what Schiff had to say:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/720681.html

29/05/2006

Tel Aviv within range of new Iran-supplied Hezbollah rocket

By Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz Correspondent

Iran has equipped the Lebanese-based radical Islamic group Hezbollah with long-range rockets capable of hitting targets up to 200 kilometers away, putting all of Israel's major urban centers - including the southern city of Be'er Sheva - within striking distance.

[...]

The rockets delivered to the Hezbollah have appeared under different names. One is Zelzal-2, and its earlier model is the Zelzal-1. Another Iranian name for the rocket is Nazeat.

The rocket was first seen in a military parade in Tehran in September 2005, the first such event following the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Six Shehab-3 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles were also on display.

In response to slogans written on the Shehab-3 rockets, calling for "Death to Israel" and "Death to the U.S.," the military attaches of France, Italy, Greece and Poland, invited to the event, left the VIP platform.

[...]

Iran later provided Hezbollah with Fajr-5 rockets with a range of 75 kilometers; it is capable of striking the Haifa bay and its strategic industrial installations.

[...]

Ze'ev Schiff's article got a lot of coverage on Radio Sawa, the American Arabic language radio station which broadcasts throughout the Middle East and can also be listened to online. In the station's short newscasts (most of its content is actually American and Arab pop music), he was introduced as "al-khabiir al-'askari al-Isra'iili Ze'ev Schiff" (the Israeli military expert Ze'ev Schiff). Another appropriate job description might be "Septuagenarian journalist commissioned to 'leak' military 'secrets'".

The Chomsky-Nasrallah Axis

(Photo: Nasrallah and his buddy Noam from MIT - www.danielpipes.org)

I've become quite a fan of some of the critical pieces that have begun appearing in the Lebanese Daily Star in the past months. Of course, there are the obligatory condemnations of Israel, but I sense an openess among its editors, including a willingness to publish articles by Israelis. One of the paper's real stars is Michael Young, who serves as the paper's opinion editor but is widely published and also blogs actively.

Young really made my day, with his latest piece on Hizbullah and its refusal to disarm or to dissolve into the Lebanese military and to respect Lebanese sovereignty. In his op-ed piece ("What's Hizbullah's problem with the army?" - May 25, 2006) he shows how Hizbullah's position is endangering Lebanese stability and he also takes a shoot at poor old Noam Chomsky, who, during his visit to Lebanon on May 13, really seems to have put his foot in his mouth. Apparently,

The visiting Noam Chomsky [...] declared it a "reasonable position" that Hizbullah retain its weapons "until there is a general political settlement in the region and the threat of aggression and violence is reduced or eliminated.

As Young notes,

That could be a long time, certainly longer than most Lebanese groups are willing to give the party without themselves beginning to arm.

Seems like Chomsky's revolutionary fervour just got the best of him. I'm struck as usual by Chomsky's arrogance and righteousness. What gives an MIT linguist the right to jeopardize the average Lebanese person's prospects of living in a stable society governed by the rule of law and not by armed militias?

More details on Chomsky's ass-kissing in southern Lebanon can be found in the partial transcript of the al-Manar (Hizbullah TV-Station) coverage of his visit published in MEMRI's Special Dispatch - No. 1165.

Hizbullah and other Militias Obstinate in Face of Domestic Pressure

"Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah repeated on Tuesday his warning
that the resistance had 'thousands' of rockets capable of hitting Israel at any time"

Lebanon is in the midst of a lot of political change. The withdrawal of Syrian troops and the increased confidence of anti-Syrian forces are finally allowing for open debate on Hizbullah's continued existence as an armed militia. Sayyed Nasrallah, leader of the "resistance" movement, is of course feeling the heat and is busy dodging accusations of being an Iranian and Syrian stooge. For now, however, he is still firmly rejecting calls for the dismantlement of Hizbullah or its "absorption" into the regular Lebanese military forces. His argument for maintaining the "resistance" (i.e. Hizbullah) as an armed militia is that, contrary to

Some political leaders [who] do not agree that Israel is the enemy [and] others [who] believe we can rely on international protection [...] We believe Israel is still the enemy and our resistance proved that Israel can be defeated, while all other options have proven wrong for as long as Israel has existed.

Nasrallah makes it clear that he believes that the only way to deter Israel is by preserving his terrorist organization as a militia that is not controlled by the conventional Lebanese army or by the Lebanese state. This way, Hizbullah can continue attacking Israel while the Lebanese government and army will be able to cry foul if Israel tries to hold them accountable through retaliation. Nasrallah wants to continue maintaining a terrorist militia in a sovereign country that finally wants to become a normal player in world stage. Speaking at a recent "Resistance Culture" Conference in Beirut, Nasrallah responded to calls in Lebanon for absorbing Hizbullah with the following argument:

To merge the resistance into the classical Lebanese Army is not a realistic option because this will weaken the Lebanese position in facing the much superior Israeli Army. Our army can never match the Israeli Army equipment or its experience.

So basically, Nasrallah is saying that he wants to continue operating independently so as to "resist" Israel for Lebanon even though Lebanon doesn't want him to "resist" and in order to protect Lebanon from the Israeli reactions to the "resistance" that Lebanon doesn't want.

Well, maybe I'm a little too optimistic about Lebanon not wanting Hizbullah. After all, there are probably many Shi'is that are still behind it. But if one looks at statements made by other Lebanese politicians in the wake of the Syrian withdrawal, it is clear that they are carefully upping the pressure on Nasrallah, probably in response to public opinion.

Other militias which in my view would not stand a chance in Lebanon if it weren't for continued veiled Syrian threats are all the Palestinian militias operating there from their autonomous camps. Recently, a Lebanese army soldier was actually killed during a clash between a Lebanese unit and a convoy of Palestinians bringing weapons to their terrorist base from Syria. Of course, the Lebanese tried to cover it up at first, because, dammit, it's embarassing for groups to operate with such impunity on your sovereign territory, but in the end they had to speak frankly about who was carrying weapons and where they were coming from.

Source:
Adnan el-Ghoul, "Nasrallah: 'thousands' of rockets still at the ready," Lebanon Daily Star (May 24, 2006), Online Edition

Fuad Siniora Moving in the Right Direction

See my earlier post on this below. Reuters reports that Lebanese PM Siniora is asking Secretary General Kofi Annan to "confirm the specific steps required by the UN to recognize Lebanese sovereignty over the territory of the Shaba Farms." The farms are currently occupied by Israel, which, like the rest of the world, recognizes their status as SYRIAN territory. Syria has (not surprisingly) declared that negotiations over the territory should be conducted only after an Israeli withdrawal. Typical prevarication on their part. How should Israel react? I think it would be a good move to announce Israel's willingness to return the territory to Lebanon as part of a peace settlement. By the way, I read an article in Ha'aretz a long time ago by someone who studied all the old maps, and it appears as if the farms should actually be Lebanese territory.

Fuad Siniora on Hezbollah

Just saw Lebanese PM Siniora on CSPAN. A lot of waffling. Obviously he couldn't really say anything substantive about questions like Iranian and Syrian influence. But one thing I found interesting. Someone asked a question about Hezbollah. At first, he gave the usual garbage about Hezbollah's important contributions to Lebanon, ending the occupation by the Izraeeli army. But then he said: Hezbollah is a Lebanese party, and all its objectives are to further the interests of Lebanon. Then, later, the Sheba farms issue came up, and he said that he'd talked to American officials and there had been progress. So: this stuff about Hezbollah could be interpreted as praise for the organization, but at the same time, it is also an effort to limit its activities. I interpret this as follows: as long as Hezbollah fights for the "liberation" of the farms, its operations will be deemed legitimate. But after that, it's raison d'etre is up. By focusing on LEBANESE interests, Siniora is denying Hezbollah the right to link their cause with the Palestinians. It might be worth it for Israel to show some openness toward a deal, a real settlement that would involve the farms. Of course, Lebanon and Syria have to make the first moves (according to int'l law, the farms are Syrian not Lebanese territory). This could be a very good opportunity to force Syria into doing something that it doesn't really want to do.