The Security Council's 'solution' can only create more problems

[spindrifter]

Lebanon Daily Star
Monday, August 07, 2006


Editorial


The draft UN resolution put forth by the United States and France to end the war in Lebanon is so open-ended and so inequitable that even the top diplomat of one of its sponsors, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has freely acknowledged that after it is passed, violence in the Middle East will continue "for some time to come." Rice naively insists that the resolution provides a way forward. But in reality, the resolution creates conditions that resemble those of a troubled past in which Hizbullah originated.

We must not forget that Hizbullah's armed resistance was spawned by Israel's invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. During 18 years of Israeli occupation, Hizbullah grew under the very noses of its occupiers into a formidable force that now poses a serious challenge to its oppressors. Any UN resolution that fails to demand the withdrawal of Israel's 10,000 troops from South Lebanon will invite further armed resistance. Sanctioning Israel's occupation of South Lebanon also ensures that thousands of refugees, whose humanitarian plight ought to be an utmost concern in any UN resolution, will not be able to return to their homes in the South.

Furthermore, instead of calling for a cease-fire, the resolution calls upon Hizbullah to cease all of its attacks, while implicitly giving Israel the right to continue its "defensive" operations. Where does that leave Lebanese civilians? Israel has argued that all of its military activities in Lebanon since July 12, including the killing of over 900 civilians, have been justified in the name of self-defense. Are the Lebanese now expected to freely allow themselves to be slaughtered in their hundreds by an occupying army?

This is hardly the kind of freedom that the Lebanese people had in mind last year when US President George W. Bush held up their newly sovereign democracy as a bright and shining example in the Arab world. The US administration welcomed the credit for Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution," which occurred after Bush rescinded the diplomatic cover given to Syria's occupation by his father, George H.W. Bush. Since Syria's withdrawal in 2005, Bush has vowed many times to protect Lebanon's fledgling sovereignty and assist the efforts of the Lebanese to strengthen and consolidate their state.

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