An unwanted truce

Mysteriously absent from the proceedings is Condoleezza Rice, whom many predicted would fail to negotiate peace in the war between Hezbollah and Israel. A war, by the way, over a small portion of land known as the Shebaa Farms.

Israel considers it part of the Golan Heights, which it illegally annexed. The Shebaa Farms lie along a disputed border between Lebanon and Syria very near but not immediately at the northern boundary of Israel.

According to the Middle East Report, by the way, Hezbollah claims that the two Israeli soldiers it captured, that rationalized Israel’s air attacks and invasion, were on Lebanese territory. Apparently, Israel’s occupation of the Shebaa Farms is the rationale for Hezbollah’s existence.

The fact of a truce, negotiated through the United Nations, is interesting. The United States ambassador to the UN is John Bolton, infamous as a hardline neoconservative. My belief is that neither side really wants this truce.

Hezbollah claims it was winning the war, and it certainly doesn’t appear that the Israelis were winning despite overwhelming conventional superiority. Israel may have found a face-saving way out. But if the real aim is Syria and Iran, the Middle East Report has argued that neoconservatives want a war sooner rather than later; Iran, they believe, is developing nuclear weapons, and they want the war to happen before Iran succeeds.

The one safe statement that can be made is that this story isn’t over.

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