Sunday, August 13, 2006

The end is near (update 3)

Israel and Lebanon have approved the U.N. resolution calling for a cease-fire to end the current conflict. The two Hezbollah members of the Lebanese Cabinet voted to approve the resolution, but, according to CNN, a meeting "to discuss implementing the plan" has been postponed "to give government officials more time to discuss the plan with Hezbollah". Needless to say, "[t]he postponement sparked concern worldwide among leaders with high hopes for the resolution". Apparently Hezbollah wants "to keep its weapons south of the Litani River -- a zone the U.N. resolution calls for demilitarizing".

In the meantime, the violence continues:

Israel and Hezbollah pounded targets with heavy missile barrages Sunday, looking to inflict maximum damage in the final hours before a cease-fire resolution was to go into effect.

Israel reported that 250 rockets hit its territory, including the port city of Haifa. At least one person was killed in the rocket attacks.

The Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, launched what appeared to be one of the heaviest bombardments on southern Lebanon in the 33-day-old conflict, and struck targets in Beirut's southern suburbs.

If there is peace, it will be a tenuous and fragile one at best. So much remains in doubt.

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For more, see Ed Morrissey:

Does anyone not believe that this crisis has been precipitated by Hezbollah's refusal to leave southern Lebanon and disarm? The cease-fire proposal put the onus on them to cease their attacks on Israel and to dismantle their military wing. I warned earlier that such a requirement would eliminate the need for Hezbollah at all; their entire raison d'etre for the Lebanese people has been as a shield against the Israelis. If the Lebanese Army took that function away from them, they just become another terrorist militia, a construct of which the Lebanese have rightly tired.

He may very well be right. Hezbollah stands to lose a great deal if there is peace.

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