1701 Crashing before it even started

As these lines are being written, UNSC 1701 resolution is slowly dying. No international force is looming; Lebanese army won't enforce things vis-a-vis Hezbollah and neither would the now smaller to non-existent UN force; and Hezbollah itself would only conceal its weapons south of the Litani river. Hezbollah-supporting Lebanese would see it as a victory for Hezbollah; however this shortsightedness ignores the long term reprocussions, ignored also by UN officials who will not enforce the agreement. Long term reprocussions measured in months perhaps a year tops.

It is obvious that Hezbollah will attack again once it allows Shia citizens in the South to recooperate their losses and catch their breath a bit. What is also clear is that when that happens, Israel will respond with full force as the UNSC 1701 resolution allows it and will not stop this time to wait for a ceasefire; but will rather be eager to end this once and for all. It will not wait for an international force noting this misearable example as a precedent.

In order to prevent this, the Lebanese government and the international community must wake up and quickly. They must enforce the resolution to its intent before the UN loses all credibility with Israel first; and following Israel's response to Hezbollah, with the Arab world. The international community must also shape up and provide the Lebanese government with enough funds to rebuild the country and assume the credit for that from Hezbollah. If none of these things is done, then we will be back in conflict within 6-10 months as Secretary of State Rice predicted in the early days of the war. This would make resolution 1701 as useless as the paper it is written on; and will be one more nail in the coughin of the UN.

The Real Damage Caused by Hezbollah

Sheikh Hassan Nasserallah has wracked the entire prospects for a settlement in the Middle East if you look at the direction winds are now blowing in Israel. Most notably, he has wracked everything for Palestinians.

It took years to move the Israeli public opinion to where it was in Camp David 2000 (Arafat's costly missed opportunity). That shift was evident with the start of the Oslo process back in 1993, continued through Camp David 2000; and culminated with Sharon's disengagment plan. What years of violence could not achieve, diplomacy did. Winds were also blowing favorably in the direction of Prime Minister Olmert's version of the disengagment from the West Bank; yet then came Nasrallah and shuffled the cards.

Right Wing critiques of the various disengagment plans always played on Israel's biggest fear: security. They noted that every disengagment would be interpreted as a victory by the other side leading to more attacks. And they were right. So much right that whenever Hamas or Hezbollah presented it as such, Israel immediately retranched to the Right. So it was when Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Peres and Rabin; and so it was when Sharon replaced Barak. Instaed of capitalizing on the enormuos opportunity, Palestinains shot themselves in the foot with the help of Mr. Nasrallah. The pull out from Gaza brought the Qasam rockets; the pullout from Lebanon brought this recent catastrophy. Instead of proving Israel's hard right wrong, Hamas and Hezbollah have proven them right every time to the dismay of the people truly paying the price for this "bravado", ordinary Palestinians and Lebanese eager to make a living.

This is different from the situation regarding Israel's response. Many say that Israel's response brought much hatred on it; but no one can truy claim that the July 12 attck or the Qassam rockets were made out of extra love. For them there was no risk. Losing farvor with people who won't compromise is no threat. On the other hand losing farvor with people who will the way Hezbollah and Hamas did, is a huge loss that will send this region back quite a bit.