Give War a Chance: Israel Continues Blockade of Lebanon

As I mentioned in my last post on the Israeli/Lebanon conflict, impossible standards are being imposed as preconditions to full compliance with the UN's ceasefire via the withdrawal Israeli forces. But perhaps I shouldn't use the word "impossible" to describe Israel's' terms. It may be better to describe them as so unlikely to be met that one must as to call into question Israel's desire to resolve the matter amicably at all. But that's a little wordy, ergo my choice of the word "impossible". This news item from the Associated Press presents another opportunity to observe this tactic in real time:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel has no plans to lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon until an international peacekeeping force takes up positions along the Syrian border and at Beirut's airport.

Israeli officials said Olmert wasn't issuing an ultimatum. But the tough stance appeared to be an attempt to put pressure on the international community to send a powerful force willing to disarm Hezbollah, which fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel during 34 days of fighting.

[Snip]

Olmert laid down his position in a meeting with U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, who is in the region to discuss implementation of a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Diplomats are still trying to hammer out final details, including the peacekeeping force's precise responsibilities.

"Olmert said deploying the force at border crossings to Syria and at the airport will allow the lifting of Israel's sea and air closure and contribute to the implementation" of the cease-fire, the prime minister's office said.

[Snip]

Israel says Syria is a main supplier of weapons to Hezbollah, and officials said Israel was seeking assurances that arms do not reach the group again. The cease-fire resolution calls for a halt in arms transfers to the guerrillas, and a 2004 resolution requires the group to disarm.

"The disarmament of Hezbollah is our main objective. As long as it is not disarmed, we will defend ourselves against their being rearmed," said Miri Eisin, a senior Israeli government official. "To do so, we're going to stop all of the routes that allow the supplies to arrive to Hezbollah — sea, air and land."

There is some contradiction in Olmert's statements as they're presented here. On the one hand he says that simply deploying an international force to the Syrian border would allow them to withdraw -- which even on its own merits must be viewed in the context of their pickiness with regard to what constitutes an acceptable international force. But then he goes on to say that they wont end the blockade until Hezbollah is disarmed. That's a noteable departure. As highlighted above, the UN-brokered ceasefire calls for the halt of new arms transfers to Hezbollah. But Israel is unilaterally augmenting that requirement to include the disarmament of Hezbollah. This, once again, is a case of one side asking that all their demands be met before any talks can take place. The precondition for a ceasefire is total surrender by the other side. In a war where they clearly did not achieve their objectives nor weaken their enemy, this is ridiculous requirement for Israel to impose, seemingly designed to fail.

The full disarmament of Hezbollah was the stated goal of Israel's military campaign to begin with. Their inability to achieve this goal by force is the reason we have the ceasefire. Hezbollah, by their armed resistance to the campaign, has already demonstrated its unwillingness to disarm. Furthermore, after being attacked it has no logical reason to want to disarm. Tat is where the issue stands. That's the heart of the disagreement. For Israel to now argue that it cannot abide fully with the ceasefire until all it is given the victory it could not acheive by force is a non-starter, again, analogous to "Buy the car first, then we'll negotiate the price."

It should be noted, as it is noted in the above-referenced story, that a previous UN resolution in 2004 required did Hezbollah to disarm. Israel could argue that it is justified in demanding such a precondition on that basis. But that argument is diminished by two facts. First, that resolution was drafted after Israel had largely withdrawn from Lebanon, a condition that no longer holds. Second are the dozens of UN resolutions with which Israel has failed to comply itself. Couldn't Hezbollah insist on the enforcement of those? Well, ask yourself how the world would react if Hezbollah insisted, for example, that Israel must withdraw from all the lands it has occupied since 1967 (as required by UN Resolution 242) before it would honor the ceasefire? I can only imagine the noteable difference we see.

Finally, at the risk of seeming tedious and redundant, I must make mention again of the fact that continually making an issue of Syria and Iran in this conflict keeps fresh the pre-packaged pretext for the larger war this whole affair is designed to spark.