By Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It could not have been more explicit.
Standing next to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said if the situation in Lebanon flares into warfare as it did in 2006, Israel would not just blame Hezbollah.
“The main responsibility lies with the Lebanese government. We make it clear once and again that we see the government of Lebanon and behind it the government of Syria responsible for what happens now in Lebanon. And the government of Lebanon will be the one to be held accountable if it deteriorates.”
In Israel, BG Yossi Beidatz of Israeli Military Intelligence was equally clear in his presentation to the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. “Weapons are transferred to Hezbollah on a regular basis and this transfer is organized by the Syrian and Iranian regimes. Therefore, it should not be called smuggling of arms to Lebanon – it is organized and official transfer.”
But Secretary Clinton, in her remarks to the AJC, maintained the fiction that the Lebanese government is not a party to the conflict in its own country:
“We have spoken out forcefully about the grave dangers of Syria’s transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and have expressed our concerns directly to the Syrian government… Transferring weapons to these terrorists – especially longer-range missiles – would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel. It would have a profoundly destabilizing effect on the region. All states must stop supplying weapons to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Every rocket smuggled into southern Lebanon or Gaza sets back the cause of peace.
“The cause of peace” is a relative term. There are those for whom the removal of Israel from the region would engender “peace.” Hezbollah is one of them, taking arms, funding and training from Syria and Iran in pursuit of its goal. It is also an indigenous Lebanese organization that serves in the Cabinet of pro-Western PM Sa’ad Hariri. It is that Cabinet which authorized Hezbollah to maintain an independent army in the country. Which, to close the circle, means that Hezbollah weapons – whether in the north or in the south – are part of the Lebanese Government’s responsibility.
JINSA’s 28th Flag and General Officers Program in Israel met with the UNIFIL liaison to the IDF earlier this month. The Colonel, accompanied by a political officer, confirmed that understanding of the military situation in Southern Lebanon. UNIFIL’s mandate under UNSCR 1701 is to ensure that no weapons are kept south of the Litani River except those of UNIFIL itself and those of the Lebanese Government; it has no mandate to stop smuggling from Syria. Claiming that UNIFIL patrols have found little in the way of Hezbollah armaments in the south, the Colonel said that any missiles in Lebanon would therefore be NORTH of the river – the problem of the Government of Lebanon, not UNIFIL.
Self-serving as that position is, it comports better with reality than the American position – which is that the Government of Lebanon is victimized by Hezbollah, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) should be supported, financed, armed and trained to assert itself in the south so it can disarm Hezbollah in conjunction with UNIFIL.
In that belief, the US has provided the LAF with helicopters, anti-tank missiles and night vision goggles.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.