A border row jangles the nerves and increases fear of a wider war
Aug 5th 2010
IT SOUNDED like a news item from a sleepy suburb: Tree-Pruning Ends In Tragedy. The clash along the tense Israeli-Lebanese border on August 3rd, which left two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and an Israeli officer dead, did look rather like a backyard spat. At the spot where it happened, Israel’s security fence runs, unhelpfully, not along the legal frontier, but some 60 metres inside the Jewish state, leaving a no-man’s-land gap. Lebanese soldiers, spotting an Israeli maintenance crew using a cherry-picker to reach over the fence, may have assumed this was a border intrusion. They say they fired warning shots over the heads of the crew. To the Israelis they were plainly sniper rounds, one of which struck and killed a lieutenant colonel, standing in an observation post 200 metres away. Israel responded with artillery and rockets. UN peacekeepers quickly intervened to soothe tempers. The UN later said the tree was indeed on the Israeli side of the border.
The tragedy could have been much worse. Israel and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia, fought a full-blown war here four summers ago. Despite the withdrawal of Hizbullah fighters and their replacement by ill-equipped Lebanese army conscripts, and despite the presence of a beefed-up 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, tension has been rising. The inconclusive war of 2006, which started when Hizbullah fighters attacked a similar Israeli patrol, has left the Israeli army itching to smash the guerrillas for good, particularly since their arsenal now includes thousands of bigger and better missiles, but also because Hizbullah is funded by, and loyal to, Israel’s biggest bugbear, Iran.
Many Lebanese fear that, in advance of any possible fight with Iran, Israel will try to remove the threat of Hizbullah’s retaliation. Israel’s leaders have stated bluntly that in any future war it would not, as it largely did in 2006, focus its wrath solely on Hizbullah’s Shia areas. It might hit the civilian infrastructure across the country and seek to topple Lebanon’s shaky government, in which the Shia party holds a veto-wielding block of seats in the cabinet.
Hizbullah claims the loyalty of most of Lebanon’s Shias, who make up around a third of the population. Its military force is small but far better motivated, trained and equipped than the Lebanese army. Many non-Shias admire the party and take pride in the courage and skill of its fighters. But many also dislike its militaristic “resistance” culture, resent its ties to Iran and Syria, and accuse the party of inflaming trouble with Israel, thereby undermining the Lebanese state. In May 2008 Hizbullah forces briefly seized the centre of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, to block what they saw as the government’s attempts to curb their freedom of action.
Worries over a repetition of such tactics have been mounting as the date looms for a tribunal under the aegis of the UN, charged with investigating a series of assassinations in Lebanon between 2004 and 2008, to issue indictments. Last month Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, announced that he had been told to expect that members of his party may be accused of the murders, including that of Rafik Hariri, a five-times prime minister and leading Sunni politician, whose assassination in 2005 sparked an uprising that ousted Syria and its allies, including Hizbullah, from control. It is feared that proof or even strong suspicion of Hizbullah’s guilt in the murders may widen sectarian fissures and perhaps spark a new round of civil war.
Such fears recently prompted a sudden bustle of diplomacy in Beirut. Influential Arab leaders, including Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the wealthy emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad al-Khalifa, flew in to calm nerves. Their efforts seem to have succeeded for the moment. Mr Nasrallah had promised to expose the tribunal as a Western conspiracy and reveal the real culprits behind the assassinations, in a speech marking the fourth anniversary of what Hizbullah calls its “divine victory” over Israel.
But speaking before a crowd of supporters on August 3rd, the cleric said instead that he would postpone any revelations and provide proof of Israel’s responsibility for the crimes later. It was convenient for him to be able to point to the border incident over the tree as evidence of the need for his guerrillas to “resist Israel” and guard “Lebanon’s holy soil
Aug 5th 2010
IT SOUNDED like a news item from a sleepy suburb: Tree-Pruning Ends In Tragedy. The clash along the tense Israeli-Lebanese border on August 3rd, which left two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and an Israeli officer dead, did look rather like a backyard spat. At the spot where it happened, Israel’s security fence runs, unhelpfully, not along the legal frontier, but some 60 metres inside the Jewish state, leaving a no-man’s-land gap. Lebanese soldiers, spotting an Israeli maintenance crew using a cherry-picker to reach over the fence, may have assumed this was a border intrusion. They say they fired warning shots over the heads of the crew. To the Israelis they were plainly sniper rounds, one of which struck and killed a lieutenant colonel, standing in an observation post 200 metres away. Israel responded with artillery and rockets. UN peacekeepers quickly intervened to soothe tempers. The UN later said the tree was indeed on the Israeli side of the border.
The tragedy could have been much worse. Israel and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shia party-cum-militia, fought a full-blown war here four summers ago. Despite the withdrawal of Hizbullah fighters and their replacement by ill-equipped Lebanese army conscripts, and despite the presence of a beefed-up 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, tension has been rising. The inconclusive war of 2006, which started when Hizbullah fighters attacked a similar Israeli patrol, has left the Israeli army itching to smash the guerrillas for good, particularly since their arsenal now includes thousands of bigger and better missiles, but also because Hizbullah is funded by, and loyal to, Israel’s biggest bugbear, Iran.
Many Lebanese fear that, in advance of any possible fight with Iran, Israel will try to remove the threat of Hizbullah’s retaliation. Israel’s leaders have stated bluntly that in any future war it would not, as it largely did in 2006, focus its wrath solely on Hizbullah’s Shia areas. It might hit the civilian infrastructure across the country and seek to topple Lebanon’s shaky government, in which the Shia party holds a veto-wielding block of seats in the cabinet.
Hizbullah claims the loyalty of most of Lebanon’s Shias, who make up around a third of the population. Its military force is small but far better motivated, trained and equipped than the Lebanese army. Many non-Shias admire the party and take pride in the courage and skill of its fighters. But many also dislike its militaristic “resistance” culture, resent its ties to Iran and Syria, and accuse the party of inflaming trouble with Israel, thereby undermining the Lebanese state. In May 2008 Hizbullah forces briefly seized the centre of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, to block what they saw as the government’s attempts to curb their freedom of action.
Worries over a repetition of such tactics have been mounting as the date looms for a tribunal under the aegis of the UN, charged with investigating a series of assassinations in Lebanon between 2004 and 2008, to issue indictments. Last month Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, announced that he had been told to expect that members of his party may be accused of the murders, including that of Rafik Hariri, a five-times prime minister and leading Sunni politician, whose assassination in 2005 sparked an uprising that ousted Syria and its allies, including Hizbullah, from control. It is feared that proof or even strong suspicion of Hizbullah’s guilt in the murders may widen sectarian fissures and perhaps spark a new round of civil war.
Such fears recently prompted a sudden bustle of diplomacy in Beirut. Influential Arab leaders, including Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the wealthy emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad al-Khalifa, flew in to calm nerves. Their efforts seem to have succeeded for the moment. Mr Nasrallah had promised to expose the tribunal as a Western conspiracy and reveal the real culprits behind the assassinations, in a speech marking the fourth anniversary of what Hizbullah calls its “divine victory” over Israel.
But speaking before a crowd of supporters on August 3rd, the cleric said instead that he would postpone any revelations and provide proof of Israel’s responsibility for the crimes later. It was convenient for him to be able to point to the border incident over the tree as evidence of the need for his guerrillas to “resist Israel” and guard “Lebanon’s holy soil
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