Making of Lebanese Foreign Policy: Understanding the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War by Henrietta Wilkins

Author:Henrietta Wilkins [Wilkins, Henrietta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781299637573
Goodreads: 18542960
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

The Siniora-led government recognized the importance of the UN and it made frequent appeals to the UN for it to help secure an end to the war. Throughout the war, Siniora kept in regular contact with Kofi Annan and Siniora’s government stressed its willingness to negotiate with Israel through the UN. For example, on 15 July, the Lebanese Council of Ministers agreed that ‘negotiations and discussions should take place through the United Nations and Arab and friendly countries’ (Al Jazeera TV, 2006a). The final UN resolution that brought an end to the war was widely supported by members of the international community including the EU, China, France, Japan, Russia, Singapore, Turkey, and the US (AFP, 2006b).

However, although it ended the war UNSCR 1701 was heavily criticized for supporting the regional aims of the US-led alliance. The resolution was seen as an attempt by the US and France to create a regional security agenda according to their own regional objectives and to pressurize Iran, Syria and Hezbollah into conforming to their demands. This was because the resolution called for Hezbollah to be disarmed and it limited Hezbollah’s freedom of movement in South Lebanon by deploying the Lebanese army and an enhanced UNIFIL force in the region (Picard, 2006: 147; Leenders et al., 2006: 7). The French Ambassador to the UN, Jean-Marc La Sablière, explained that the resolution aimed to end the war, to create a new situation without Hezbollah south of the Litani River, and to ensure a long-term solution to the problem (Harel and Issacharoff, 2008: 218). In this case, the resolution restricted Hezbollah’s freedom of movement in South Lebanon but it failed to limit Israel’s ability to strike Lebanon. This is an example of how international actors have used their influence within the UN to try to impose their will on the Middle East regional system.

UNSCR 1701 was also criticized for being biased towards Israel and therefore of compromising the neutrality of the UN. This was because: it was designed to disarm Hezbollah, something Israel had failed to achieve militarily during the war; it reflected an Israeli agenda and Israeli military goals; and it did not condemn the brutality of Israel’s actions. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Syria’s official news agency, said ‘Syria is sorry that the resolution shied away from recognizing Israel’s responsibility for its savage attacks on civilians and its destruction of Lebanese infrastructure, which constitute war crimes’ (Reuters, 2006). The Jordan Times also criticized the resolution for failing to resolve issues such as the release of Lebanese prisoners and the future of the Shebaa Farms (The Jordan Times, 2006).

The resolution was also accused of being biased because it only called for an end to ‘offensive’ Israeli military operations and not to all of Israel’s military operations, while at the same time calling on Hezbollah to halt all its military actions. By only calling for Israel to cease its ‘offensive actions’ (see point one, Appendix 2), it meant that Israel’s ‘defensive actions’ could continue. As Israel

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.