Fiasco in Lebanon

Debmey

By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | 8/24/2007

This weekend the UN Security Council is scheduled to renew the mandate for its Resolution 1701, which was supposed to stabilize the situation in Lebanon in the wake of last summer抯 war between Israel and Hezbollah. In so doing the Security Council will be ratifying something that is even worse than a farce.

A declassified Israeli intelligence report on Lebanon published last week by Israel抯 Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose main points were presented here on Friday by David Bedein, could be seen as a primer on what not to do in foreign and security affairs, especially for a small, isolated country like Israel.

In its dry, factual way, the report explodes梥ometimes even, seemingly, in spite of itself梕very optimistic assumption about the new, 1701-mandated regime in Lebanon, in which enhanced UNIFIL and Lebanese-army forces were supposed to ensure tranquility and prevent Hezbollah from recouping its losses in the war.

The report takes on special resonance at a time when parts of the Israeli Left and the Israeli government are infatuated with the idea of withdrawing the Israeli army to indefensible borders, or keeping it there, and substituting it with foreign forces in the West Bank and Gaza.

The report starts by saying the implementation of 1701 has been 揺quivocal,