https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/21/israel-and-lebanon-do-cedars-line-the-road-to-tehran/
U.S., French, and British diplomats are burning the midnight oil to concoct a formula to avoid escalation of the fighting started by Hizballah along the Lebanese-Israeli border shortly after Hamas’ invasion into Israel from Gaza on October 7. It is indeed a volatile situation, one that cannot simply fade out or smoothly slide into quiet. Israel has made clear it can neither accept a ceasefire in place along the northern border nor simply allow the current expanded border conflict to persist at the level at which it is currently fought. For Jerusalem, the realities on the ground require substantial change.
Israelis—and indeed, it is appropriate to speak of the people rather than just its government since polls suggest a powerful majority, nearing a consensus—understand that Hamas’ invasion was a smaller version of Hizballah’s plans for the northern border communities at the hands of Hizballah’s Radwan force. The Radwan force itself is the template upon which Hamas modelled its Nukhba force—the elite terror army that spearheaded the October 7 invasion.
At the same time, also as a result of the catastrophe of October 7, Israel has learned that a defensive strategy alone—a border wall and missile defense—will not protect Israel from another deadly surprise attack. As a result, Hizballah’s very presence in southern Lebanon is now understood by Israel to be so dangerous that neither the current parameters of the border violence nor the status quo ante before October 7 are unsustainable, and that escalation is only a matter of time. Thus, diplomats are scurrying feverishly not only to reach a ceasefire but also to convince Hizballah to redeploy its terror forces kilometers northward in order to answer Israel’s need for a sharply expanded buffer zone.
The last war in 2006 between Israel and Hizballah ended in a UN Security Resolution (UNSCR 1701). The resolution defined a 30-km-wide buffer zone and an international force to enforce it. Sadly, neither the UN force (UNIFIL) nor the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) ever enforced it, and Hizballah almost immediately drifted back to establish itself in full along Israel’s northern border. Moreover, the UN resolution also called for Hizballah’s dismantlement and the demarcation of the Israeli-Lebanese border. Hizballah never disbanded, although the border Israel defined was acknowledged by UN surveys as the proper line.
Hizballah maintains this fiction of an unresolved border in order to justify its continued existence as a legitimate Lebanese faction defending Lebanese territory from an occupier, therein tying the legitimacy of its continued existence to the irresolution of the border. As such, it persists in demanding the ceding of territory, some of which Israel has held since 1948, as part of the border modification.
If press reports are to be believed, the current formula crafted by diplomats—which Israel has neither accepted nor rejected—is an immediate ceasefire that within days enables the withdrawal of Hizballah forces to at least 10 km northward. The idea emerges from the Israeli tactical concern that the longest-range anti-tank missiles, which so deeply threaten Israeli communities, can accurately hit targets 10 kilometers away. Distancing Hizballah 10 km would also obstruct the Radwan force’s ability to strike without detection since it must traverse a long distance before it even reaches the border. To enforce the withdrawal, the Western powers suggest that a reinforced LAF deployment into the vacated areas can keep Hizballah out reliably enough to allay Israel’s concerns. Moreover, the currently reported ceasefire proposal by the West uses the term “border modification” rather than “border demarcation,” suggesting a subtle but important concession to Hizballah already.
It is a bad deal. It should be rejected by Israel and abandoned by Western diplomats.
