Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: UNSCR 1701

Showing posts with label UNSCR 1701. Show all posts

Friday, June 30, 2023

What are Israel's options on Hezbollah's clear aggression on Israeli territory?

Washington is urging the Lebanese government to pressure Hezbollah into removing an outpost erected in the occupied Shebaa Farms, Israeli media reported on 29 June.

Walla news outlet cited anonymous Israeli and US officials as saying that the outpost represents a “miscalculation on Hezbollah’s part, which does not take into account the potential Israeli response. Therefore, this incident has the potential for serious escalation.”

“Our goal is for the outpost not to be there. We prefer Hezbollah evacuate its people itself over us bombing them. We have made this clear to the US, and the Americans made it clear to the Lebanese,” the report cites an Israeli official as saying.

According to Walla, Hezbollah began erecting the first tent in April. The Israeli army reportedly did not realize this until a second tent had been set up.

Israel tried to handle the situation “under the radar in quiet talks” with UNIFIL for weeks.

Other Israeli media outlets say Tel Aviv set a deadline to remove the tents, and that it would deal with the resistance group “on its own,” sparking fears of a wider confrontation.

Beirut has acknowledged that the outpost is south of the UN-recognized Blue Line, separating Lebanese and Israeli territories.

Last week I wrote, "Israeli territory is being stolen by a terrorist group. It seems unbelievable that Israel would outsource the solution to the impotent UN."

It appears that Israel is treading carefully, not wanting to start a war over this but not willing to back down.

It first gave UNIFIL a chance to get involved and do its job to ensure that all of Southern Lebanon, let alone Israeli territory, is not occupied by an Iranian militia. Israel informed UNIFIL of the tents in April, but they have proven to be worthless:

According to Kan news, which originally reported on the Iranian proxy’s armed presence inside Israel proper, the IDF approached UNIFIL regarding the matter some time ago, but the watchdog only came to the site following diplomatic pressure from Israel at UN Headquarters.
Upon inspection, UNIFIL confirmed that tents set up and manned by Hezbollah have indeed been established on the Israeli side of the internationally recognized Blue Line in the contested Mount Dov region, an area claimed by Israel, Lebanon and Syria and also known as the Shebaa Farms.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan wrote that Hezbollah’s actions constitute a violation of UN Resolution 1701, enacted following the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and ratified by both countries. The resolution calls for armed groups besides the official Lebanese military and UNIFIL to remain north of the country’s Litani River.
The letter also contained photographs of the Lebanese position in Israel.
Furthermore, the former public security minister noted that Hezbollah has built 27 outposts along the Blue Line over the past year, and that he expects the UN to take action on the matter, as these positions also violate Resolution 1701.

So now Israel is asking France and the US demand that the Lebanese government get involved.

Israel is trying to allow Hezbollah to "climb down the tree" quietly without being shamed, but patience is running out:

“Our goal is for the outpost not to be there,” an Israeli official was quoted as saying. “We prefer Hezbollah evacuate its people itself over us bombing them. We have made this clear to the US and the Americans made it clear to the Lebanese.”

According to the Ynet news site, Israeli officials believe UN peacekeepers will not be able to act against the post and are looking to the US and France instead. The outlet claimed Israeli officials had set a deadline for the position to be removed, after which it will get rid of the tents itself, a move that could spark a wider conflagration.

Alma Research, which watches Hezbollah closely, believes that the terror group wants a war.

In our assessment, Hezbollah intends to reach an escalation that will lead to a broad military conflict with Israel, out of an internal interest in strengthening its power in Lebanon. Hezbollah is trying to escalate with a defiant presence on the border, the Megiddo attack, firing rockets, and now the placing of tents on Israeli territory. Israel for the time being is not dragged in. Last summer, Nasrallah gave ideological and religious approval for a military conflict and as far as Hezbollah is concerned, he has carried out significant power-building in recent years and is ready for a conflict. Continued provocations or a broad conflict is a win-win for Hezbollah.

The strategy is Iranian, not Lebanese

I believe that Israel's best card to play is the Lebanese people itself. While they hate Israel, they hate Hezbollah and Iran as well, and they do not want to be dragged into a new conflict that only benefits Iran.

The Lebanese media has been muted in this issue. I believe that unless Hezbollah dismantles the tents quickly, Israel should publicly say - but with the intent that the Lebanese hear - that the situation is intolerable and that Israel will bomb the tents on Israeli territory.

Israel should make a public deadline, announce the date that the tents would be bombed, emphasize that these are on Israeli territory, and then bomb them if they are not removed.

Israel must emphasize that it has no intention of attacking Lebanon - unless attacked first. If Hezbollah responds with rockets, the gloves will come off.

The UN agrees where the Blue Line is so Hezbollah's claim that the territory is Lebanese will not impress more residents.

If the Lebanese people publicly call for Hezbollah to withdraw, it would have a hard time pretending that it is defending Lebanese interests.

The entire Shebaa Farms issue is just an excuse by Hezbollah to maintain its massive arsenal for the pretense of "defending Lebanon." Everyone knows it is a joke. But Lebanese lives are in the balance, and it must be made clear to the world that Iran and its Hezbollah proxy are trying to start a war that would only hurt the Lebanese people.

It is clear that Israel cannot allow an enemy to wantonly grab its land. No state would. Israel's patience so far has been somewhere between heroic and foolhardy.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Hezbollah opens a military outpost on Israeli territory in Shebaa Farms

Israel's Kan News reports:

During a discussion held last week in the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee of the Knesset, it was revealed that a Hezbollah force invaded the sovereign territory of the State of Israel, in the Mount Dov sector, and established an armed military position there. This was announced today (Wednesday) for the first time in the program "Hatze Hayom".

These facts were discovered and discussed by several members of the Knesset in a meeting held last Tuesday in the committee, with the participation of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Members of the Knesset drew the Prime Minister's attention to an unusual and serious incident that is taking place on the northern border.

According to what was said in the discussion, in recent weeks a Hezbollah force crossed the Blue Line on Mount Dov and set up two tents inside Israeli territory. The position is manned by Hezbollah with several armed men on its side (between three and eight) who are stationed in front of the IDF soldiers within the sovereign territory of the State of Israel.

The IDF spokesman's response: "The issue is recognized and being dealt with in front of all the relevant parties."

This IDF response does not fill one with confidence.

After Israel withdrew behind the Blue Line in 2000, certified by the UN, Hezbollah created the fiction that the Shebaa Farms/Mount Dov area that was under Israeli control was still Lebanese and uses that as a pretext to continue building its massive arsenal, to "defend" Lebanon from "Zionist aggression."

Israel captured the area from Syria in 1967. Interestingly, Syria's president has said that that the Shebaa Farms is Syrian, not Lebanese.

Hezbollah has been aggressive in recent years in shoring up its forces on the Blue Line while providing pretexts to UNIFIL that it wasn't changing anything. It seems unlikely that either the UN forces or the Lebanese Armed Forces would do anything to force Hezbollah out of the area; after all, Hezbollah as an armed group is not allowed to exist in the entire southern Lebanon under UNSC resolution 1701.

Israeli territory is being stolen by a terrorist group. It seems unbelievable that Israel would outsource the solution to the impotent UN.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

What does UNIFIL do in Lebanon? A TikTok video indicates, not too much.

UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, released a TikTok video to show what a typical day looks like for one of its soldiers.

The answer is...outside marching down the Blue Line, not much.

Of course, this is not entirely fair. Their regular reports to the UN show that UNIFIL does do lots of things, mostly to support the Lebanese Armed Forces, although they do nothing to help disarm Hezbollah. Every report includes a paragraph like this:

No progress was achieved with regard to the disarmament of armed groups. Hizbullah continued to acknowledge publicly that it maintained military capabilities. The maintenance of arms outside the control of the State by Hizbullah and other groups in violation of resolution 1701 (2006) continued to restrict the State’s ability to exercise full sovereignty and authority over its territory.

One thing I didn't know is that the Trump administration made some efforts to turn UNIFIL into a more useful organization. The Congressional Research Service notes:

U.S. Administrations have disagreed over the mission and size of UNIFIL. Some U.S. officials have described UNIFIL as a stabilizing presence in southern Lebanon, stating that Hezbollah strikes across the Blue Line have significantly decreased since UNSCR 1701 (2006) increased UNIFIL’s troop ceiling from 2,000 to 15,000. A former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon has noted that “UNIFIL’s value in constraining Hezbollah comes down to its size. Through sheer numbers, it essentially saturates the south. Even if it can evade UNIFIL scrutiny at times, as the tunnels show, Hezbollah does not have the almost complete freedom of movement in the south that it enjoyed under ‘old’UNIFIL.”

In contrast, the Trump Administration asserted that UNIFIL “patrols and checkpoints are of plainly limited use when offending parties can simply hide weapons and tunnel entrances on so-called ‘private property.’” The United States and Israel accused Hezbollah of hiding weapons in violation of UNSCR 1701, and pushed for the addition of language to UNIFIL’s mandate that would allow UNIFIL to access and search private property for illicit Hezbollah weapons. Trump Administration officials criticized the government of Lebanon for not facilitating UNIFIL access to key sites, such as the Lebanese origin points of Hezbollah underground tunnels that cross into Israel.

In response to U.S. pressure, additional provisions were added to annual resolutions reauthorizing UNIFIL’s mandate. In 2017, U.S. officials successfully advocated for language requiring UNIFIL to notify the Security Council whenever it encountered roadblocks or other obstacles; these incidents are now noted in regular U.N. Secretary General reports on the implementation of UNSCR 1701. In 2019, the Security Council approved U.S.-proposed language calling for the Secretary-General to assess the effectiveness of UNIFIL; the resulting report highlighted several structural weaknesses. In August 2020 the Security Council voted to reauthorize UNIFIL but also reduced UNIFIL’s maximum force strength from 15,000 to 13,000 troops. Then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft stated, “The reduction of the ceiling from 15,000 troops to 13,000 is an important step toward right-sizing a mission that has for years been over-resourced given the limits on its freedom of movement and access.”

The private property issue is serious, and it is not all UNIFIL's fault. The Lebanese Armed Forces do not let UNIFIL enter private roads or property, although it appears that UNIFIL does do some aerial reconnaissance of some private property.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, boasts of over 100,000 missiles, many of them high-precision, and UNIFIL cannot or will not do anything about those.

UNIFIL does have a band, though.