Love of the Land: They’ve Been Telling Us All Along...

They’ve Been Telling Us All Along...

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
31 January "10

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, against which I warned long ago, passed unanimously on August 11, 2006. Two days later, the Israeli cabinet approved the motion 24-0--but with one astute minister abstaining. For whatever it is worth, I thought (and wrote) that the restrictions on Hezbollah (and, more than inferentially, on both Syria and Iran) meant less than nothing. Control of the smuggling of arms to Hezbollah and of the reintroduction of Hezbollah men into southern Lebanon was delegated to UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which had been an interim operation since 1978 ... and a useless operation at that. Utterly useless. And this was the case whether the soldiery was Tonga’s or Spain’s.

Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister during the Lebanon war, formed a sisterhood with Condi Rice, and together they panicked the Council into passing a measure that was bound to fail. UNIFIL had no authority and few men. Hezbollah very quickly began to test 1701 and found that the path was clear for any and every violation it wanted to commit.

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Love of the Land: They’ve Been Telling Us All Along...