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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: click here In-Depth Issues:
IDF: Hizballah Hostilities Liable to Restart Soon - Amos Harel (Ha'aretz) Israel Campus Beat - August 20, 2006 Point Counter-Point: Who Won the War?
Iranian Weapons for Hizballah Waiting in Damascus - Roee Nahmias (Ynet News)
See also Turkey Halts Lebanon-Bound Iran, Syria Planes - Yossi Melman (Ha'aretz)
British Military Equipment Found in Hizballah Bunkers - Bob Graham, Michael Evans, and Richard Beeston (Times-UK)
Shin Bet: Rise of Terror in Gaza a Strategic Problem - Gideon Alon (Ha'aretz)
Iran Fires Practice Missiles, Affirms Nuclear Stance - Nazili Fathi (New York Times)
Thousands March in Pro-Israel Demo in Finland (NewsRoom Finland)
Search Key Links Media Contacts Back Issues Fair Use
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
The European countries that had been called upon to provide the backbone of a peacekeeping force delayed a decision on committing troops until the mission is more clearly defined. European governments are insisting upon clarifying the chain of command and rules of engagement. "In the past, when peacekeeping missions were not properly defined, we've seen major failures,'' a spokeswoman for the French Foreign Ministry, Agnes Romatet-Espagne, said Sunday. A senior French official said, "Italy, Spain, and Finland have raised the same questions as France has." Australia, which has placed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, has refused to commit troops. "We don't have any confidence in it. It is not going to have the mandate to disarm Hizballah." (New York Times) See also Israel: No UN Troops from Countries that Don't Recognize Israel - Doug Struck Israel on Sunday objected to including countries that do not have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in the nascent peacekeeping force for Lebanon, such as the Muslim countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. "The idea that you could have forces on our border from countries that we could not talk to, that we couldn't coordinate with, would cause problems," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Sunday. (Washington Post) See also below Observations: Israel Committed to Block Arms to Hizballah - Steven Erlanger (New York Times) Hizballah mourners in a funeral parade shoved aside anti-tank barriers at a UN base in Lebanon Sunday in a demonstration of their new political strength. When the chanting procession, several hundred strong, reached the gates of the UNIFIL compound, inside of which is the Naqoura town cemetery, mourners argued with the French guards, but failed to gain entry. A mob of young men then dragged the barriers away and the UN opened the gates. "They will eat us alive," said one official as the throng surged in. Nowhere in the border area Sunday was there any sign of the Lebanese Army. By Sunday night, UNIFIL's standing force of 2,000 had been supplemented only by the arrival of 49 French military engineers. (Telegraph-UK) See also Multinational Force Will Only Open Fire in Emergency - Nir Magal A document sent from UN Headquarters to the Italian Defense Ministry regarding the jurisdiction of the multinational force in Lebanon was published in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. It was written that the main objective of the soldiers will not be disarming Hizballah, but rehabilitating Lebanon from the war's damage and keeping order. The soldiers will only be permitted to open fire "in a manner befitting of the need in response to an emergency situation." (Ynet News) See also UNIFIL Troops Permitted to Open Fire on Armed Hizballah Militants - Shlomo Shamir and Yoav Stern (Ha'aretz) An internal Lebanese army statement, circulated among forces in the past week, has called for troops to stand "alongside your resistance and your people who astonished the world with its steadfastness and destroyed the prestige of the so-called invincible army after it was defeated." The circular will fuel the concerns of Israel, the U.S., and the UN Security Council that the Lebanese army is incapable of securing the south of the country, adding increased urgency to the calls for a multinational force to be swiftly deployed. According to sources close to the army command, there has been a tacit agreement between Hizballah and the army that those fighters who hail from the south will return to their villages and all arms will be put out of sight. Suggestions from Washington that the Lebanese army should forcibly disarm Hizballah have been met with alarm by the army command. One defense analyst said that, in the south, the army often acted as a subordinate to Hizballah's military apparatus. "All intelligence gathered by the army is put at the disposal of Hizballah, but Hizballah does not offer the same transparency to the army," he said. "In a sense, military intelligence in the south is operating on Hizballah's behalf." (Guardian-UK) The federal judge who last week refused to throw out charges of conspiring to violate the 1917 Espionage Act against two former pro-Israel lobbyists simultaneously made it much more difficult for the government to prove its case against them, attorneys for the defendants and First Amendment advocates contend. In his Aug. 10 opinion, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said the law is constitutional. But for the government to prove its case, he ruled, it must show that the two men disclosed national defense information "closely held by the government" and that each "had bad faith purpose" in passing it to others, knowing it "could be potentially damaging to the United States" or be "useful to an enemy of the United States." (Washington Post) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
A special IDF force operated early Saturday in the east Lebanon town of Baalbek to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Iran and Syria to Hizbullah. Lt.-Col. Emanuel Morano, 35, was killed and two others were wounded. (Ynet News) See also Explaining the Baalbek Operation - Aluf Benn After a reconnaissance operation near Baalbek, the IDF unit was surprised on the way back by Hizballah fighters. In the battle that ensued, three Hizballah fighters were killed. Israel says the operation was not a violation of the cease-fire because it was an intelligence-gathering mission, not an attack. (Ha'aretz) See also Elite Unit's "Crown Jewel" Killed in Lebanon - Etgar Lefkovits (Jerusalem Post) St.-Sgt. Ro'i Farjun, 21, from Yehud was killed on Saturday after a Palestinian opened fire at the Bekaot checkpoint in the Jordan Valley. Troops returned fire, killing the gunman. Muhammad Ban-Yuda, 22, from Tamun near Jenin, arrived at the checkpoint in a car, drew a gun, and shot the soldier several times at short range. Fatah's military wing claimed responsibility for the attack. The IDF has noticed an increased effort by Palestinian terror cells in the West Bank to perpetrate attacks since the war in Lebanon began. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
It is easy to criticize the French government for its reluctance to contribute soldiers to the UN peace-keeping force in Lebanon. The French government's wariness is, however, understandable. French officials have called the mandate agreed for the UN force by the Security Council "a recipe for disaster." That description is likely to prove accurate. UN troops will not have the power to use force except in self-defense. They will not be allowed to intervene to disarm Hizballah. Without a strengthened mandate, the UN force will simply have to watch as the situation unravels. Hizballah will not disarm voluntarily; the Israelis will not sit idly by if rocket attacks resume. If the war starts up again, the only difference will be that a large UN peace-keeping force will be caught in the middle. If the UN presence is to have any positive effect, the Security Council must agree to a strengthened mandate. (Telegraph-UK) See also France Leads...Sort of - Editorial There are few more regular - or entertaining - sights than French statesmen indulging in grandiose statements of political and philosophical intent, and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing. Whether it is French domestic reform, the future of the EU, NATO, or foreign policy, the French are past masters at saying one thing and doing quite another. (Times-UK) See also Waiting for Jacques - Editorial It would be tempting to laugh about France's paltry commitment of 200 additional peacekeepers for Lebanon, if it weren't so dangerous. After insisting for years that they be treated like a superpower, the French are behaving as if they have no responsibility for helping dig out of the Lebanon mess. (New York Times) It is vitally important to implement the relevant articles of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 regarding the disarmament of Hizballah. Unfortunately, this obligation, also contained in Resolution 1559 from 2004, is the subject of a plan which, according to Resolution 1701, is to be developed in the next month by the UN secretary-general and implemented at a later date. In the meantime, Hizballah has stated that it refuses to disarm. This situation elevates the importance of an embargo on supplying Hizballah with weapons, as called for in the UN resolution. However, there has been no decision to deploy a special force that would supervise the embargo on the Syrian-Lebanese border and in the Lebanese seaports and airports. Right now, Resolution 1701 just calls on Lebanon to secure its borders; UNIFIL may assist the Lebanese government if requested. The resolution also only calls on states to refrain from selling weaponry to Hizballah, but does not authorize any state to enforce an arms embargo. What is necessary is the establishment of special forces that will carry out this mission of monitoring the entry-points into Lebanon. Given the huge amounts of Iranian weaponry that were delivered to Hizballah in the past six years, this is a glaring inadequacy in the resolution. The writer is a senior research associate at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Hizballah certainly did not run away and did hold its ground, but its mediocrity is revealed by the casualties it inflicted, which were very few. There was a fully developed IDF plan in the contingency folders - a sophisticated blend of amphibious, airborne, and ground penetrations to swiftly reach deep behind the front, before rolling back to destroy Hizballah positions one by one from the rear, all the way to the Israeli border. That plan was not implemented because of the lack of casualties among Israeli civilians. Hizballah distributed its rockets to village militias that were very good at hiding them from air attacks, but quite incapable of launching them effectively. Instead of hundreds of dead civilians, the Israelis were losing one or two a day. This did not politically justify the hundreds of casualties that a large-scale offensive would certainly have cost. (Jerusalem Post) Observations: Israel Committed to Block Arms to Hizballah - Steven Erlanger (New York Times)
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