The UN agrees on something

After a month of slaughter in Lebanon, the UN Security Council has finally agreed to the text of a draft resolution which has now been passed unanimously. Resolution 1701 is marginally better than the previous draft of last week which gave Israel everything it demanded. It does not call for an immediate ceasefire but does call for "a full cessation of hostilities". It also calls for Israeli troops to withdraw as they are replaced by a 15,000 strong international force which will back up the Lebanese army, and for Hezbollah to pull back and later disarm. It is still balanced heavily in favour of Israel as was noted by the foreign minister of Qatar, the only Arab on the Security Council. But we all know that the USA would have vetoed anything less. Kofi Annan expressed his disappointment that an agreement hadn’t been reached sooner. The full text of his statement is here. It is interesting that some progress was made once Blair was told to take a back seat and left for his holiday.

One of the weaknesses of the resolution is that it still allows Israel to murder Lebanese civilians provided it calls such atrocities ‘defensive measures’, while Hezbollah must cease all attacks whether they are defensive or not. Another weakness is that Israel has been given permission to stay in Lebanon until a security force appears which could take months. I doubt Hezbollah will tolerate the IDF occupation of a square inch of Lebanon for any length of time. This highlights the main problem; the UN can decide what it likes but it’s events on the ground which matter. Lebanon, despite accepting the resolution has already expressed doubts about it stopping the war.

Lebanese acting Foreign Minister Tarek Mitri was scathing in his criticism of Israel during an address to the Security Council shortly after the body unanimously adopted the long-awaited resolution.

"A ceasefire that is incomplete is not a true ceasefire. A ceasefire that retains for one side the right not to cease firing is not a ceasefire," Mitri said.

"The Lebanese are not confident in Israeli distinction between 'defensive' and 'offensive'," he added. "The end to military operations should be unqualified."

"For a month now, as the world continues to watch and the international community continues to watch, Israel has besieged and ravaged Lebanon, creating a humanitarian and environmental disaster," he said.

Mitri characterized the weeks of Israeli artillery and aerial bombardments against his country as a "strategy of terror" and an "obscenely disproportionate and unjustifiable" retaliation for Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel.
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Ehud Olmert has also said he accepts the resolution and will urge his cabinet to agree to it on Sunday. However even as he spoke, Israel was rapidly escalating the war.

Ehud Olmert's office said late Friday that the expanded incursion into Lebanon would continue "for the time being," despite agreeing to a cease-fire resolution drafted by the United Nations Security Council.

Israel will press ahead with its military offfensive in south Lebanon until Israel's Cabinet approves an emerging Mideast cease-fire deal, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said early Saturday.

"The logic would be that even in the framework of this successful outcome, if you hand over to the Lebanese army a cleaner south Lebanon, a south Lebanon where you have Hezbollah removed from the territory, that makes their [the Lebanese] troubles a lot easier," Regev said.
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As if to prove the point, Israeli aircraft attacked a convoy of 500 vehicles full of civilians who were fleeing the fighting killing seven people and wounding 36. Israel called the attack a ‘mistake’. The attack took place near the town of Chtaura in the Bekaa Valley about 50km north of the Litani River. Israel had earlier warned that it would attack any vehicle below the Litani River. Since the resolution was passed, Israel has been significantly "broadening" its campaign with the cities of Tyre and Sidon being targeted. To get an idea of the pessimism felt about the UN resolution, take a look at this Sky News poll screenshot which I grabbed. "Will the UN agreement end the Middle East crisis?" The pessimism is increasing, originally it was 25% "Yes" and 75% "No", and has since plummeted to 7% "Yes" and 93% "No".

The U.N. Human Rights Council was also busy on Friday, condemning Israel for "massive bombardment of Lebanese civilian populations" and other "systematic" human rights violations. It has decided to send a commission to investigate.

The Geneva resolution expressed "outrage" at what it called "senseless killings by Israel, with impunity, of children, women, the elderly" and to "immediately stop military operations against (the) civilian population."
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There is a petition calling for Israel to be prosecuted for its numerous war crimes. Please sign it.

Tags: Lebanon, Israel, UN resolution