Decoding Israel Lebanon “ceasefire” and UN Resolution 1701

My segments for UK Column News yesterday focus on the dishonest “ceasefire” brokering by US between Israel and Lebanon

On UK Column News yesterday I decoded the Western media portrayal of UN Resolution 1701 which is used to vilify Hezbollah while defending the Zionist unlawful occupation of both Lebanese and Syrian territory while constantly breaching the “cessation of offensive operations” clause in the agreement.

In the report I cite analysis by Middle East Observer on X – they have just published a follow up to their original work on 1701 which I include in full below:

https://t.co/IKTMbc6fH4

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) November 20, 2024

Israel’s hidden issue with resolution 1701, and is Lebanon still linked to Gaza ?

In this article we will discuss why Israel is not abiding by resolution 1701.

How resolution 1701 came to being

This resolution was created as the solution to end the 2006 war, where Israel failed it’s declared objective of disarming and eliminating Hezbollah. It was drafted while Israeli tanks were being decimated, giving Hezbollah an edge over Israel in the resolution, which we will explain in the next section. The main points of resolution 1701 are the cessation of hostilities(includes airspace breaching), withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanese territory, resolving the Shebaa Farms issue with the UN, and implementing resolution 1559 which is supposed to lead to the ”disarmament of Hezbollah”.

The “disarmament of Hezbollah caveat”

Resolution 1559 states that ”all armed militias must be disarmed” after all foreign forces leave the country (in 2004, Syria was still in Lebanon, and Israel still occupies Lebanese land). As long as Israel still occupies parts of Lebanon (info on this on the linked article in the intro), the implementation of 1559 will not kickstart.

Resolution 1701, clause #3: implementing 1559 and implying national consensus on the weapons.

In the context of Hezbollah as a resistance group, what does ”disarming” mean and imply ? This is where everything happens, or where everything stops. So let’s answer the most important question first. Why does Israel want Hezbollah disarmed ? Because it’s weapons are a threat to Israel’s security. The issue is not with Hezbollah as an organization, the main issue for Israel is the presence of qualitative weapons inside Lebanon that are outside the supervision and control of the USA, regardless of who is the owner of these weapons.

So what does ”disarming Hezbollah” mean from the Lebanese side ? It means transferring the qualitative advantage from Hezbollah to the Lebanese state, with the goal of implementing a national defense strategy to counter the Israeli enemy and his qualitative edge. This means that Lebanon as a state will now have to change the doctrine of the Lebanese Army and turn it into a force designed to defend against an enemy with air and technological superiority. This starts with a crucial aspect : disconnecting the Lebanese Army from the American Central Command in order to hide the qualitative edge from the eyes of the USA, who’s presence in Lebanon is aimed to protect Israel.

There is an American law called the Qualitative Military Edge which states that no country in the Middle East can have weapons that are not approved by Israel.

The second step will be to acquire air defense systems, which by default will not be Western, because they will never give Lebanon defense systems that will shoot down Israeli jets. This will then be followed by setting up underground infrastructure, guerilla warfare training, and a complete merge between the resistance and the Lebanese Army. This is what ”disarming Hezbollah means” from the Lebanese side.

Will this happen ? Absolutely not, because there will never be a national consensus inside Lebanon around disconnecting the Army from the American Central Command. A good part of the Lebanese politicians consider themselves part of the Western infrastructure and don’t consider that Lebanon needs to have a real Army designed for defense, and they want to rely on American ”promises” to guarantee the defense of Lebanon, instead of relying on the Army and People of Lebanon. This is the reason Hezbollah came into existence in the first place.

There was never a Lebanese defense strategy and Israel’s impunity was never countered. So in order to ”disarm Hezbollah”, what needs to be done is resolve the reason why Hezbollah got created. Because this issue is not resolvable, the Lebanese Government, since 2008, the Lebanese state’s formula for the defense of Lebanon has been : ‘the army, the people and the resistance’. Hezbollah is part of the government and has allies, in some governments they are a majority and other times they’re a minority.

There has never been a consensus for a State defense strategy, but what they managed to do is the ‘the army, the people and the resistance’ formula, which keeps Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance force while keeping the Lebanese State shielded from accountability by the Americans because ”we can’t do anything to disarm Hezb”.

Long story short : Ultimately what Israel is looking for is the disarmament of any group or institution that does not have American oversight, and there will never be a Lebanese consensus to accept this, therefore Hezbollah will never be disarmed and will always be legitimate.

Israel knows all of this, and this is the caveat of Resolution 1701 and 1559, and this is why 1701 is considered a victory for Hezbollah in 2006.

Knowing all this, Israel never implemented even the first two clauses of 1701, which is the cessation of hostilities(mainly the air sorties / spying) and the pull out from all Lebanese territory (read previous article).

Lebanon is only asking to implement 1701 to stop the war, does this mean Hezbollah agreed to disconnect the Lebanese and Gaza fronts ?

This is where things get interesting. Hezbollah is now using a policy of ambiguity precisely on this question. The official speech now mentions only the war on Lebanon. Are the fronts disconnected ? Let’s first understand the implications of Israel accepting to abide by 1701 to stop the war.

Israel has been breaching 1701 since 2006 with over 33,000 air breaches. It’s this constant spying 24/7 from the air over Lebanon that helped Israel achieve all the tactical victories related to the assassinations and spying. Had Israel adhered to 1701 from it’s side and not spied for 18 years on Lebanon, it’s possible that Israel wouldn’t have even been able to wage the war on Hezbollah today with scarce intel. Israel’s wars are intel-based more than anything else. So in practice what does it mean if Israel agrees to stop breaching Lebanese sovereignty ? It means it is accepting that Hezbollah will get re-armed in a much more secretive way, without spy aircraft looking at every inch of land in Lebanon, putting Israel in grave danger in the future. What’s a less costly solution then ? Hezbollah offered it since day 1. Stop the war on Gaza and we stop the fire from our side. By stopping the war on Gaza, Israel can obtain a ceasefire from Lebanon without being ”forced” to implement 1701 from it’s side. The implementation will stay pending as it was since 2006.

So why is Hezbollah doing a policy of ambiguity on the connection with the Gaza Front ?

In Lebanon, all the refugees are now living in areas where the the political parties and people all disagree with the idea of the support of Gaza, even parties like FPM who are pro resistance disagree with Gaza support but stand with resistance for the defense of Lebanon.

Diplomatically now Hezb has to appease the Lebanese interior because now it’s a huge war with large repercussions on all Lebanese people, due to the displacement of over 1.5 million people, it’s not a support front that doesn’t affect the other Lebanese people anymore. It’s much different than before.

So I believe Hezbollah sets the basic conditions which no one in Lebanon can be against, and is a sovereign Lebanese demand : implementation of 1701.

Now I believe that the “bet” is that Israel is the one who refuses this solution, not just during this war but since 2006. So Israel will continue fighting until it’s physically impossible to continue the war, and in this case, the war in Gaza will be ending too. Accepting 1701 includes halting air sorties over Lebanese airspace, this in terms of security, it practically means that Israel abandons the idea of future war, because everything that happened to Hezb is due to the past 18 years of air spying. If they abandon this, it means they effectively increase Hezbollah’s power exponentially, and this itself is probably a bigger threat than Gaza.

I believe the fronts are linked until Israel itself wants to stop the war, and the less costly way would be to stop the Gaza war, which will stop Hezbollah’s attacks automatically, and then Israel can leave Lebanon while keeping the air violations since the implementation 1701 will be delayed under “negotiations”.

Of course this is how I personally read the situation. I could be wrong, but we can make a real assessment on the outcome only after the war ends. We cannot already assume that the fronts are disconnected while the war is still raging. Diplomacy is a tricky world filled with caveats and sneaky tricks. I suggest everyone to wait until the end to make an assessment and don’t already end the war the way you imagine before it actually happens.

https://beeley.substack.com/p/decoding-israel-lebanon-ceasefire