NYT: First the Truce, Then the Test of How Long It Can Last

First the Truce, Then the Test of How Long It Can Last

By STEVEN ERLANGER | August 15, 2006

JERUSALEM, Aug. 14 — Standing before flattened buildings in the shattered southern suburbs of Beirut, one of Hezbollah’s two ministers in the Lebanese cabinet, Hassan Fadlallah, asserted Monday that Hezbollah had scored “a divine victory” in its conflict with Israel.

One of the key questions to be answered by that conflict was neatly reflected in the ruined setting Mr. Fadlallah chose.

Will ordinary Lebanese come to agree with him, or will they ultimately blame Hezbollah for attacking Israel and thus bringing about the destruction of so many buildings, roads, bridges and lives?

In the answer, some suggest, lies the fate of the cease-fire — and of a weak Lebanese government.

For the moment, Hezbollah is bathed in a heroic light, not just in Lebanon but throughout the Muslim world. Lebanon’s prime minister, Fouad Siniora, appears unable or unwilling to force the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament, at least in the south, as called for in the United Nations Security Council resolution that halted the combat.

Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in a television speech that his fighters would accept the cease-fire. Yet he insisted that Hezbollah would continue to fight in violation of it so long as Israeli troops remained on Lebanese soil.

And whether Hezbollah intends to let its fighters be banned from the kingdom it built for itself in southern Lebanon, with the lavish help of Iran and Syria, is another open question.

The Security Council appears to have done its best to promote the interests of Lebanon and to diminish Hezbollah’s hold over the slice of the country between the Litani River and the Israeli border.

But the Council has passed far-reaching resolutions on Lebanon before — especially Resolution 1559, in September 2004, which called for the disbanding of Hezbollah’s fighting force and all other militias and the extension of Lebanese government control over the entire country.

That resolution had no enforcement mechanism and was largely ignored.

After 34 days of warfare, the latest resolution, 1701, repeats the goals of 1559 but provides more teeth, including a more robust United Nations force of up to 15,000 soldiers that is supposed to patrol a specific southern demilitarized zone and help the government monitor its borders, ensuring that Iran and Syria do not resupply Hezbollah with rockets, missiles and ammunition.

But will it be effective? And what soldiers will be in it? When will they arrive? And will the force be willing to confront Hezbollah? Or, as many Israelis expect, will it allow Hezbollah to remain in southern Lebanon unimpeded so long as the border appears quiet?

As always, the real test is not in the resolution but in its fulfillment, and there are reasons for skepticism. If the skepticism turns out to be correct, how long will Israel stand by and watch the rearmament of Hezbollah in violation of the resolution?

For Israel, its second line of defense is, bluntly, the effect of the damage it has done to Lebanon and to Hezbollah itself in the last month. Hezbollah is still standing and was able to fire more than 200 missiles on the last day before the cease-fire, and Sheik Nasrallah has survived.

But Hezbollah has been secretive about its losses, and though it denies Israeli claims that 500 of its fighters were killed and 80 percent of its medium-range and longer-range rockets destroyed, it has almost certainly been hurt more badly than it is willing to admit.

So it is unlikely to want to test Israel again for some time, and Lebanon’s government and a majority of its people, who are not Shiites, are not likely to be eager to rebuild the country just to see it destroyed.

But if Hezbollah is down, it is not out, and this may not be an end to the war but a respite, even if lasts for a number of years.

Israel’s vaunted military invincibility, which has been a big part of its defense strategy, has taken a serious knock. Israel was not even able, in the cease-fire resolution, to get the immediate return of its two captured soldiers, meaning an extended negotiation with Hezbollah over prisoners, prisoners of war and the bodies of dead fighters.

Israeli officials are quietly concerned about how the war looked to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, whom they regard as less shrewd and less stable than his father. The Syrians have a wellequipped and well-trained army much larger than Hezbollah’s militia, and an air force, too, and Mr. Assad is committed to obtaining the eventual return of the Golan Heights.

Showing the Syrians that the Israeli Army is still capable was one major reason, Israeli officials say, that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorized the wider Israeli offensive just before the cease-fire.

But the main Israeli worry is Iran, which invested millions of dollars in Hezbollah and which the West accuses of harboring a secret program to build nuclear weapons. What judgments the Iranians take from this little war is among the most important of the unanswered questions.

For Israel the war also raises serious questions about another unilateral withdrawal of settlers, this time from the West Bank. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party, spoke for many Israelis on Monday in saying that the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 produced this war, and that the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip a year ago produced a Hamas electoral victory and continued instability and rocket fire.

While Mr. Olmert was elected on a platform of another withdrawal, opinion polls indicate that Israelis are almost evenly divided on the plan, which is probably enough to kill it.

The Lebanese war also raises even more serious questions, suggests Shai Feldman, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis, about the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel respected the international border with Lebanon as verified by the United Nations, and it was Hezbollah that violated the border. “If international borders mean nothing,” Mr. Feldman asked, “why should the Israeli public support a withdrawal from the West Bank to create a Palestinian state?”

Preserving the idea of a two-state solution is one reason Mr. Olmert went to war, Mr. Feldman said. And it is one reason the Security Council acted as strongly as it did to defend the integrity of the international border and mandate an expanded United Nations force to protect it. But whether Israelis will trust those guarantees is yet another open question.