What ended Israel’s final invasion of Lebanon in 2006—and made the newest incursion all however inevitable—is a once-heralded U.N. decision honored extra within the breach than the observance. The unhappy saga and unsure way forward for Decision 1701 act as a mirror to just about every little thing that has occurred between Israel and Lebanon within the 18 years because it was handed.
In the summertime of 2006, U.N. Decision 1701 turned that vanishingly uncommon creature—a unanimous U.N. Safety Council decision on the Center East—that put an finish to Israel’s unsuccessful 34-day invasion of Lebanon, which had been supposed to oust Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. The decision, heartily welcomed in Tel Aviv and Beirut, appeared to level the best way towards a long-lasting peace by obliging Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah and Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereign frontiers.
For each drafters and diplomats on the time, the settlement appeared to offer each international locations one thing that they deeply craved. Lebanon, simply rising from the shadow of Syrian occupation, would see an opportunity to implement its shaky writ over everything of its personal territory and get a promise from the U.N. to maybe, someday, look into the territorial disputes across the Shebaa Farms space which have vexed the area for many years. Israel would achieve a safety cushion alongside its northern border, with the troublesome Hezbollah pushed again no less than so far as the Litani River, if not disarmed nationwide.
None of that, alas, got here to move. Hezbollah not solely remained in southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River, but in addition grew and rearmed itself exponentially within the wake of the 2006 struggle. Lebanon by no means did get satisfaction for the simmering land dispute on the border with Syria in areas at present occupied by Israel. The massive U.N. peacekeeping drive in southern Lebanon had no remit to tackle Hezbollah, which was the one technique to really maintain the peace. And the Blue Line marking the border between Lebanon and Israel turned not an inviolable frontier, however moderately a visit wire for almost 20 years of provocations, threats, and assaults.
That’s the reason on Tuesday, as Israel launched its renewed floor incursion into Lebanon, Israeli safety officers pointed to the failures of U.N. Decision 1701 as a casus belli.
“There’s a U.N. decision, nonetheless legitimate, that requires Hezbollah to not be deployed south of the Litani River, and the Israelis can level at that each one day, daily,” stated Matthew Levitt, an professional on Hezbollah and terrorism on the Washington Institute.
It’s not that the diplomatic finish to the 2006 struggle was a foul thought; it’s that the optimistic assumptions rooted within the decision by no means got here near turning into actuality.
The decision is “an excellent benchmark. Each Israel and Lebanon may benefit. However there isn’t a credible enforcement mechanism,” stated David Daoud, an professional on Lebanon and Hezbollah on the Basis for Protection of Democracies.
The basic drawback with the decision is that its core premise was that the Lebanese state (and navy) would no less than maintain Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, if not transfer to disarm the group totally and reclaim the monopoly on armed violence that’s the hallmark of precise sovereign states. That plan by no means got here near realization, and regardless of optimistic visions in 2006 of Lebanon’s future, seemingly by no means might have.
Hezbollah is not simply a militia, or a part of the anti-Israel “axis of resistance,” or an Iranian proxy, or a terrorist group. It’s all of these issues, however it’s also, as Levitt has written, a shadow state inside Lebanon. It’s a part of the federal government with out being the federal government. It snared extra votes within the final legislative elections than some other formation and has a de facto veto on each governmental resolution within the nation. It runs social companies, finds jobs for supporters, and is wildly standard among the many massive and rising Shiite neighborhood. Additionally it is essentially the most closely armed and combat-capable group within the nation.
“The implementation of Decision 1701, as a result of it relies upon for implementation on the Lebanese state, would require Hezbollah’s prior consent, and Hezbollah just isn’t within the enterprise of destroying itself,” Daoud stated. The mixture of its sturdy public assist and armed may signifies that any effort by the federal government to disarm or neuter the group would result in one other Lebanese civil struggle, he added. “And Hezbollah would win. So it’s a mixture of the Lebanese authorities being each unwilling and unable” to totally implement the decision in any case these years, he stated.
Earlier this yr, the Lebanese authorities balked at implementing the bits of the decision that carried obligations for it (coping with Hezbollah) by noting that the components of the decision that carried a prize for it (decision of the land dispute) have been nonetheless nowhere to be seen. Lebanon, stated International Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, “is not going to settle for half-solutions.”
Because the drums of struggle beat louder, the Lebanese authorities stated earlier this week that it was prepared to lastly implement Decision 1701 by deploying the Lebanese military to the border area in southern Lebanon. Nevertheless it by no means tackled head-on the decision’s necessities to defang Hezbollah, which continued, because it had for the reason that opening of the Israel-Hamas struggle in October 2023, launching hundreds of cross-border assaults on Israel and displacing tens of hundreds of Israeli residents from the northern a part of the nation.
That’s what Israel meant when it invoked Decision 1701 in launching the newest incursion: If the Lebanese authorities is unable or unwilling to maintain Hezbollah away from Israel’s border as it’s required to do, then Israel will do this itself.
The tough half, because the U.N. mission in southern Lebanon helpfully famous within the early hours of the newest invasion, is that Israel’s cross-border incursion of Lebanon is itself a violation of the phrases of Decision 1701. On the floor, violating a key U.N. decision appears an odd technique to go about implementing it.
In actuality, underneath worldwide legislation, a state that’s the sufferer of a terrorist group has the appropriate of reprisal if, after years of fruitless efforts, the state harboring that terrorist group refuses to behave. The US deployed simply that logic in coping with terror threats in locations resembling Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The larger query is whether or not Israel’s newest invasion is finally an effort to resuscitate Decision 1701 and all its guarantees, or moderately a bid to show as soon as and for all that no scrap of paper, if backed solely by the need and attain of the federal government of Lebanon, will convey safety to Israel’s northern border.
“I believe the Israelis are pondering: ‘We need to get our residents again residence. We will’t have Hezbollah sitting throughout the border planning Oct. 7-style assaults, so right here is that this decision that was by no means applied; it’s designed to ensure peace and safety on either side of the border, so let’s implement it,’” Daoud stated. In that imaginative and prescient, Israel may impose a buffer zone in southern Lebanon and basically push Hezbollah nearer to the Litani River, because the decision was meant to do.
France and the US spent current weeks working to craft a diplomatic answer to the looming battle, making an attempt to delink Israel’s tensions with Hezbollah from its ongoing combat with Hamas additional south in Gaza. However, as France’s international minister advised the United Nations final week, any actual answer should start with a full implementation of Decision 1701. And the shortage of Hezbollah buy-in on the newest diplomatic overtures could have doomed them from the beginning. Even after the Biden administration, which had been looking for a answer for months, threw its weight final week behind a 21-day cease-fire proposal, Israel’s international minister rejected it lower than 12 hours later.
Having contended with an escalating tempo of rocket and missile assaults from Hezbollah for nearly a yr, Israel seems unlikely to comply with any diplomatic answer that will see a return to the established order that existed earlier than the Hamas assaults of Oct. 7, 2023.
“Israel can’t be put ready the place we can not implement these agreements in Lebanon ourselves,” stated Eyal Hulata, Israel’s former nationwide safety advisor. “It have to be clear that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has the flexibility to interdict violations of the settlement, notably in southern Lebanon.”
Or, after almost 20 years of failed guarantees and increasing Iranian assist for its prodigal proxy group, Israel (and its allies and companions) could conclude that the guts of the matter lies not a number of miles north or south of the Litani River, however in Tehran.
“What can be required to stop Iran from resupplying and funding Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and Hamas?” Levitt requested. “So the lesson this time could also be: A properly worded doc just isn’t going to do it.”
Amy Mackinnon contributed reporting for this story.