Re: Not Good News From Israel
Aug. 14, 2006, 8:36PM
Annan details Mideast cease-fire terms
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4116883.html
By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent letters to Israel and Lebanon spelling out terms for the cease-fire that warn both sides against occupying additional territory or changing the number and location of troops.
A copy of the letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, set out the U.N.'s expectations of how both sides will fulfill their obligations under the Security Council resolution adopted Friday.
A similar letter was sent to Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The resolution called for an end to the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants, and authorized up to 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers to help 15,000 Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon, which was under Hezbollah's control, as Israel withdraws. The cessation of hostilities took effect early Monday, the 34th day of fighting that claimed more than 900 lives.
Annan told Israel and Lebanon in the letters sent Sunday that once the cessation of hostilities took effect there must be no firing from the ground, sea or air into the other side's territory or at its forces.
Lebanon and Israel must immediately inform the United Nations if they have been fired on, with as much detail as possible, "refraining from responding except where clearly required in immediate self-defense," Annan said.
Neither side can occupy _ or seek to occupy _ any additional territory from the other side, he said.
Under the U.N. resolution, Hezbollah is required to immediately stop all attacks but Israel is only required to immediately stop "all offensive military operations."
In the case of any firing, Annan said that "the U.N. undertakes to bring, in an impartial manner, such incidents to the attention of the Security Council as quickly as possible."
Annan also said each side must refrain "from any changes in the strength, composition or disposition of its forces ... unless it notified the U.N. in advance and the U.N. in turn is able to inform the other side."
He asked the two leaders to designate a general who would be accessible to the commander of the U.N. force, known as UNIFIL, French Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini. The three generals met Monday morning _ just hours after the cessation of hostilities began _ at the U.N. position on the border crossing on the Mediterranean coast at Ras Naqoura.
Little chance that truce will mark end of fighting
Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Tibnin, Lebanon
August 15, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/little-chance-that-truce-will-mark-end-of-fighting/2006/08/14/1155407739695.html
ANALYSIS
THE ceasefire resolution agreed to by all parties at the weekend is unlikely to bring peace, and perhaps not even a lasting ceasefire.
The Israeli Army has signalled that it will continue to occupy some areas of south Lebanon until a United Nations-Lebanese force is deployed there, and that it will attack what it deems Hezbollah targets in those areas until it withdraws.
Hezbollah would be unlikely to remain passive under those circumstances, and it has also said that it reserves the right to attack any Israeli soldiers in Lebanon after the ceasefire.
Significant numbers of Hezbollah fighters were still operating well inside Israel's self-declared buffer zone when the truce officially came into effect at 8am (3pm in Sydney) yesterday, defying Israel's massive superiority by attacking tanks and infantry positions with mortars and missiles.
The 48 hours leading up to the truce were the most bloody in the war for the Israeli Defence Force, which lost at least 29 men in a major offensive launched after its government agreed to the UN's ceasefire resolution.
More than 20 Lebanese civilians were also reported to have died as Israeli aircraft continued to attack homes and cars before the truce.
With local clashes likely to continue, realistic hopes for a reduction in violence are pinned on a return to the situation which existed between Israel's last major assault on Lebanon - Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996 - and its withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 after 22 years of occupation.
In 1996, having failed to eliminate Hezbollah with an aerial onslaught remarkably similar to the opening stages of the present war - though costing fewer civilian lives - Israel agreed to cease attacking civilian targets in Lebanon if Hezbollah would in turn stop firing rockets at civilian towns in Israel.
But the de facto agreement allowed both parties to continue their war in the areas of south Lebanon that Israel then controlled. Four years later the then prime minister, Ehud Barak, finally withdrew all Israeli forces in the face of mounting losses to Hezbollah guerillas.
Even should Hezbollah and the Israeli military manage to disentangle themselves from their current tactical situation, the terms of the UN-mandated ceasefire leave all the main issues in the war unresolved.
Hezbollah is still believed to hold the two Israeli soldiers whose capture in a border raid precipitated the war on July 12. It says it will only exchange them for several long-term Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.
This would require a humiliating reversal by Ehud Olmert's Government, which vowed not to negotiate with "terrorists" and which sold the war to the Israeli public as a means of forcing their unconditional release.
The UN resolution also has gaping holes concerning another of Israel's demands, disarming Hezbollah, which is unlikely to be deterred from re-establishing itself in its southern Lebanon heartland by the proposed mixed force of Lebanese soldiers and UN peacekeepers.
The Israeli Government has said that it reserves the right to attack the area again should Hezbollah rearm itself. And Hezbollah's chief remaining grievance - the Israeli occupation of a small disputed border area known as Shabaa Farms, seems no closer to resolution than when the fighting broke out.
The Shabaa Farms are in turn linked to the broader issue of the Israeli-occupied Syrian territory in the Golan Heights, which they border, and Israel's relations with Syria, in deep-freeze since the 1967 war.
But the prospect of Israel resuming talks with Syria for the return of the Golan Heights seems remote when Israel is battling to overcome perceptions that its forces have taken a beating.
Personally, my knowledge of human history tells me that these are not the circumstances of a lasting peace. Hopefully I'm wrong.
