Granted, I am still severely jetlagged. But I’m willing to bet that this will still not make any sense to me after a good night’s sleep.
Israel said Saturday it was encouraging some Muslim countries to send peacekeepers to southern Lebanon, a contribution that would lend credibility to the heavily European force.
EU nations pledged 6,900 troops Friday, dispelling concerns that the peacekeeping force might not materialize because of reluctance to send troops without clear instructions or authorization to use their weapons.
But the force was still far short of the 15,000 troops envisioned under a resolution that stopped a month of fighting between Israel and the Islamic Hezbollah guerrillas.
The EU and U.N. agree the peacekeeping mission must have a strong Muslim component to give it credibility.
Credibility? With whom? Israel should not be concerning itself with the credibility of this international force vis-a-vis Muslim countries, but rather her own citizens. After all, Hizbullah are dedicated to our destruction, and were firing rockets at us. And color me alarmist, but a force with a large Muslim component would be less likely to help protect us.
Israel, however, objects to nations that do not recognize the Jewish
state, saying such troops would make it impossible for Jerusalem to
share intelligence with the U.N. force. That would exclude Indonesia,
Bangladesh and Malaysia, which have offered troops.
But Israel said it has been in touch with other Muslim countries to
encourage them to participate, particularly Turkey, which has
diplomatic relations with Israel.
“If Turkey decides to send a contingent, we would welcome that,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.
I think it would be a huge mistake for Israel to be sharing intelligence even with Muslim countries which grant us the courtesy of recognizing our existence (and not much more). For a start, you just can’t be sure that there are not members of their governments or military elite who would not abuse this information. Furthermore, friendly government today does not mean friendly government tomorrow.
So what is this force to do anyway?
The international force is to reinforce the Lebanese army, which is moving 15,000 soldiers of its own into the south. They are the first assertion of central authority in the region along the Israeli border in decades.
But 13 days after Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire, questions remained about how to enforce the vague truce and prevent the area from exploding again. It was unclear how the United Nations would meet Israel’s demand to prevent Hezbollah from rearming.
Kofi Annan stressed Friday it was not the peacekeepers’ task to strip the guerrillas of their weapons, saying that was an issue for Lebanon’s government and “cannot be done by force.”
“The troops are not going there to disarm Hezbollah. Let’s be clear about that,” he said.
Regev reiterated Israel would not lift its air and sea embargo of Lebanon until peacekeepers take positions along the Syrian border to block arms shipments to Hezbollah from its two main supporters,Iran and Syria.
But Annan said peacekeepers would deploy on the Syrian border only at Lebanon’s request, which Beirut has yet to make. Such a move would aggravate tensions with Syria, which views the deployment of international troops along the border as a hostile act.
“The resolution does not require the deployment of U.N. troops to the border,” Annan said at a news conference after a three-hour meeting with the 25 EU ministers Friday.
Regev, however, argued that sending troops to Syrian border is key to enforcing an international arms embargo against Hezbollah imposed under the cease-fire resolution.
“The cease-fire calls for an international arms embargo against Hezbollah,” Regev said. “So Israel will be willing to allow for unfettered access in and out of Lebanon the minute those international and Lebanese forces are enforcing the arms embargo.”
The issue is unlikely to prevent the Israeli government, which is under domestic pressure to pull out of Lebanon quickly, from withdrawing its soldiers. However, Israel could use airstrikes on border crossings, roads and bridges to prevent arms smuggling if Lebanese troops and the U.N. force did not stop shipments themselves.
In other words – nothing. Israel has agreed to the presence of an international force in Lebanon, which are not to mandated to disarm Hizbullah, but rather reinforce the Lebanese army, under the direction of a Lebanese government which refuses to disarm Hizbullah. Furthermore, the international force are not required to prevent the flow of arms from Syria and Iran to Hizbullah, and will likely make it harder for Israel to prevent this arms flow via air strikes.
I just don’t understand why Israel would agree to this.
One guess is along the lines of the defeatist argument: to set it up for failure. Showing how an international force cannot possibly help may shore up support for Israel by the time round 2 of the war begins, within the next year or two. The problem is the rearming of Hizbullah is a huge price to pay just to receive more international support, support which will likely not come anyway, especially considering the likely backlash when the IAF are forced to strike Lebanese infrastructure being used for arms smuggling.
My other guess is that the Israeli government simply do not know what they are doing. They screwed up the management of this war, made criticial mistakes, and want to alleviate the pressure by having an outside force handle southern Lebanon.
I just hope I wake up tomorrow and find that this has all been just a bad dream.
