With certain caveats, this was accomplished from the air. No, Israel didn’t get the two kidnapped soldiers back. But that aside, the glass is almost full. Under the cease-fire agreement, Hizbullah is no longer sitting on the fence where it can kidnap soldiers or fire into Israel. An international force is policing the border etween Lebanon and Syria with the mission of preventing weapons from reaching Hizbullah (and further loosening Damascus’s grip on the country).
Of course it remains to be seen how effective this force will be. But even if it fails completely, it will set the stage for a considerably harsher Israeli response down the road. Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema, a former Communist traditionally hostile to Israel, remarked recently that if Hizbullah fighters don’t disarm “they will find themselves not only in conflict with Israel they will find themselves in conflict with the entire world.”
Beirut will have none of this. Flatten my country once, shame on you; flatten it twice, shame on me. The Lebanese army has finally taken responsibility for security in the south. No, they aren’t actively disarming Hizbullah. But the compromise taking shape allows Hizbullah to hold its weapons only if it doesn’t use them.
Should Nasrallah choose to attack Israel, he will spark a civil war. The Lebanese defense minister has said as much. So has Walid Jumblatt, the head of Lebanon’s Druze community. Imagine Hizbullah, backed by Iran and Syria, lined up against Sunnis, Druze and probably Christians backed by Israel and the U.S. In geostrategic terms, that’s three-of-a-kind against a full house.
Israel killed eleven Hizbullah terrorists in the first two weeks following the cease-fire. Hizbullah did not respond. Before the war, eleven dead fighters would have brought rockets raining down on Israel. Hizbullah needs the cease-fire. Don’t expect the border to heat up anytime soon. The rules have changed.
And this, more than anything else, is why the war will be remembered as a watershed event. The world is finally identifying with Israel. People are beginning to understand that it’s Arab violence that causes occupation, not the other way around. This is the first war in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict in which the UN actually played a positive role. When even France supports Israel, something has clearly happened.
Some day, Nasrallah might choose to ignore the UN. But then, Saddam Hussein chose to ignore UN resolutions after his “victory.” We all know what happened after that.
