The UN Security Council's resolution 1701 is put in place to end the Hezbollah-Israel war in Lebanon. It calls for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon behind the "blue line", Hezbollah to end all attacks and Israel to end all "offensive military operations."
The Lebanese government is to deploy 15,000 of its soldiers to southern Lebanon, which will be supported by a beefed-up Unifil force with a mandate to interfere militarily.
The timetable, which was much debated, is such that Israeli forces withdraws and the Lebanese army and Unifil then steps in.
Unifil will have authorisation to stop any aggressive action, and the resolution forbids the arming or training of Hezbollah and other militias, but as far as I can see Unifil has no intention or mandate to force a disarming of Hezbollah.
Knowing the history of Unifil in Lebanon, they will do nothing to stop Hezbollah from launching missile attacks on Israel. The question is whether the terrorists will stop once the force is in place (if it ever is).
Israel on its side says it will halt all operations Monday morning at 7 AM. In the meantime, Israel is sending more ground forces into southern Lebanon, undoubtedly to inflict as much damage as possible before the ceasefire. The Hezbollah rockets attacks continue.
This war has, in my opinion, been an unmitigated disaster for Israel, Ehud Olmert's government, the IDF, Israeli intelligence services and of course the civilian population of Lebanon. It is more debatable whether it has been a real victory for Hezbollah, considering that with an extended peacekeeping force on its territory it will have more limited options to act against Israel (that is at least the theory). It was a given at the start of the war that Hezbollah would win by surviving; by that standard the terrorists have surely won.
Donald Sensing is damning in his criticism of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Crystal ball on:
Ehud Olmert's days are numbered as prime minister. The slapdash, haphazard and wholly indecisive way he has handled the Hezbollah war has doomed his chances of remaining in office past the end of this year, probably before then and maybe very soon. Olmert entered office with no national-security credentials and clearly still has none. Israeli editorialists all around are already calling for him to go.
National security will replace the economy as the number one issue for Israeli voters. (Well, it already has.) Actually, the two issues are joined at the hip for Israel. The rocket threat in the north badly affected the economy there before the war. Now, with Hezbollah able to range south of Haifa, the potential economic effects are vastly greater.
Israel has lost billions of dollars in revenue from all sources because of the war. Israeli voters will quickly conclude that they cannot vote for guns or butter, they can only vote for both or neither.
Benjamin Natanyahu will succeed Olmert as prime minister.
This does not appear unlikely at all. A few months back, Likud looked dead in the water. Now, with the centrist option stripped of legitimacy on national security, it may do a comeback.
Somehow, I don't think this would have been the outcome with Ariel Sharon still in charge.
PS: It would be interesting if Hezbollah resisted the peacekeeping force with force. Hezbollah is unlikely to do such a strategic blunder, but if they did, you can be convinced the so-called international community would find a way to blame Israel.
10:50:23 PM 
|
