Security Council Resolution 1701 was passed to save Israel from embarrassment rather than to rescue Lebanon from the horrors of war, writes Doaa El-Bey Up until the last minute, before the start of the ceasefire, Israel was trying to achieve what it could call a victory in a war regarded by most analysts as one won by Hizbullah and Lebanon and possibly all Arab countries. However, they agreed that Resolution 1701 fell short of meeting their expectations. Satea Noureddin wrote in the Lebanese daily As-Safir that 1701 was one of the most ambiguous resolutions ever issued by the Security Council. He regarded its main motive as saving Israel from a war that it launched to achieve certain objectives that turned out to be unachievable through war. Noureddin criticised the Security Council for failing to set a deadline for enforcing the ceasefire and for giving Israel two extra days to continue its military operation against Lebanon before the truce officially took hold. "Although Resolution 1701 is based on resolutions 1559 and 1680, the international community cannot claim that it has the power to disband Hizbullah, a state within Lebanon. Given that neither Israel nor the Lebanese government are capable of doing this, the fighting in the south of Lebanon could last forever," he wrote. Emad Marmal wrote in the same newspaper that 1701 failed to cover up the Israeli military failure. He said it did not reflect the balance of military power in the region: Israel depended on its military supremacy and entered the war to save the new US Middle East project. But the Israeli defeat in the war forced the US to issue such a resolution which saved Israel and ignored Hizbullah's victory. Marmal hailed Hizbullah for accepting the resolution in order to preserve national unity in Lebanon and guarantee the quick return of displaced families to their homes in the south. However, he underlined that the most important thing at this stage was to protect the victory. "What is required now is not to find ways of disarming Hizbullah, but to find ways to benefit from its weapons in boosting Lebanon's defence and from its experience in its war with Israel," he wrote. Charl Kamila wrote in the Syrian daily Tishreen that 1701 won for Israel a diplomatic achievement which it failed to get through war. He said that war and aggression could not ignite a civil war in Lebanon but facilitated the execution of the US- Israeli project for a new Middle East. "Israel committed ferocious aggression and genocide against Lebanon on the pretext of self-defence. By failing to describe these acts as war crimes the resolution cleared the aggressor and blamed the victims," he wrote. Kamila questioned whether the resolution referred to the core of the conflict, the Shebaa Farms, exchanging POWs and compensation for the casualties that Lebanon suffered during the last month. He added that 1701, like 1559, is not an international but a US-Israeli resolution issued by the Security Council. Abdel-Hadi Bu Taleb regarded the war as a defeat for Israel and a victory for Lebanese unity. He wrote in the United Arab Emirates daily Al-Khaleej that it was the first Arab-Israeli war in which the former attacked the land of the latter and its missiles penetrated its air. More importantly, the defeat affected Israeli morale. "It was not only a victory for Hizbullah but for the people, the government and the various factions in Lebanon. The Israeli aggression came to unite the different factions. That unity was clearly shown in the acceptance of all the factions of the Lebanese seven-point national plan to end the war," Bu Taleb wrote. He sounded optimistic when he said that the Israeli aggression had united Arab states. In Asharq Al-Awsat, Buthayna Shaaban drew a picture of the complicated Middle East region, regarding the Israeli war on Lebanon as a copy of its wars against the Palestinians ever since 1948. "It was a life or death war that aimed at deterring any Arab or Muslim from even thinking of fighting Israel or its army which are supported by the US," she wrote. She hailed the Lebanese opposition which broke the complex of fear of Israel for the first time and proved that its faith in the justice of its cause gave them the power to stand up to the enemy. Zuhair Kusaibati praised the Lebanese opposition as well. In the London-based daily Al-Hayat, Kusaibati described Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah's stand as brave. "In accepting Resolution 1701, Hizbullah did not bow to the US or Israel but tried to preserve the 'moment of truth' in which all the Lebanese factions united their ranks in order to save Lebanon or what was left of it," he wrote. He believed that the war revealed that Washington was committing a big mistake in Lebanon -- instead of putting pressure on Israel to stop its atrocities against Lebanese civilians, American President George Bush tried to force Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora to dismantle Hizbullah, and work to establish a new democracy in Lebanon in order to build a new Middle East.
