For Israelis, truce with Hizbullah is unrealistic

Israel's weekend raid on a Hizbullah base in eastern Lebanon, rattling the week-old cease-fire, raises serious questions over whether the two sides will exercise the restraint needed for the truce to last.

There is widespread concern here that the UN resolution that quieted the heavy guns last Monday, after 34 days of fighting, is an agreement that's good on paper but unrealistic in the field. Many say the cease-fire does not represent an end – only an end to "Round 1."

As if to drive home the point, Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, under fire for his management of the war, told government ministers here Sunday that it didn't end in a "knockout," but had achieved a victory "by points."

For many Israelis, it is as if the war continues but in a lower gear – at least for now.

"I don't consider the cease-fire truly active," says Unit Commander Roy Timor Rousso, a reserve officer who spoke near the Israeli-Lebanese border last week after returning from the front. "I mean, the orders are clear – we can't open fire. But in our mind-set, this is the most dangerous time, because this is the time when they'll try to take advantage of the calm and rearm."

Lebanese officials, as well as the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, say that an Israeli commando raid that began late Friday was a violation of the tenuous truce initiated a week ago.

"The secretary-general is deeply concerned about a violation by the Israeli side of the cessation of hostilities as laid out in Security Council Resolution 1701," a spokesman for Mr. Annan said in a statement.

But Terje Roed-Larsen, a senior UN envoy in Beirut, said that if Hizbullah was found to have smuggled weapons, it would be a violation of the deal, Reuters reported.

Israel argues that it was explicitly acting to stop Hizbullah from replenishing its diminished weapons supply by smuggling arms from Syria into Lebanon.

"We need to thwart any attempt to pass weapons from Syria to Hizbullah. Any such activity needs a counter measure," Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai told reporters before a weekly cabinet meeting here Sunday.

"There is no violation of the agreement," he said. "It is the Lebanese who are to be blamed for allowing the weapons transfer. We must not turn a blind eye when ammunition from Iran and Syria is being transferred. The one responsible is [Prime Minister Fouad] Siniora. We should give him an ultimatum – either he stops the weapons transfer or we target his infrastructure."

Part of the difficulty with transforming the cease-fire into something more substantial is the scarcity of specifics on how to implement the deal, and the relative sluggishness of putting a buffer force into play.

As part of the deal, 15,000 international peacekeeping troops are supposed to be deployed in south Lebanon. Along with the Lebanese Army troops, being sent throughout what has essentially become the Hizbullah heartland, these are supposed to amount to 30,000 troops. But so far, only some 50 French Army engineers have arrived and another 150 are on their way. It now looks unlikely that France will take the lead on the buffer force as Israel and US officials had hoped.

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