July 24, 2000
It has been relatively quiet on the northern border since Israel withdrew from Lebanon - perhaps too quiet. The quiet is not one of stability, but of a power vacuum that will be filled. The Lebanese government and the United Nations bear the sovereign and international responsibility for filling that vacuum, and have procrastinated long enough.
Over a month ago the UN Security Council confirmed that Israel had indeed fulfilled Resolution 425 calling for a complete withdrawal from Lebanon. Israel went to considerable lengths to obtain this international imprimatur, in a number of cases blowing up military posts located just meters from the international border.
In recent weeks, Israel has been busy trying to correct minor violations of the UN-drafted "blue line" that will be the border until a permanent frontier can be negotiated between Lebanon and Israel directly. Until now, Lebanon has used the existence of violations - none more than 20 meters in depth - to delay spreading its authority to its own border.
At the same time, the United Nations has not moved as quickly as expected to expand UNIFIL and move that force to the border with Israel. Even if the long-awaited deployment of an enhanced UNIFIL contingent is completed as expected, such action is insufficient if it is not accompanied by a similar deployment by Lebanese government forces, both army and police.
Lebanon's and the UN's fastidiousness with respect to confirming the obvious - that Israel has withdrawn from Lebanon - is in sharp contrast with their fervor for implementing the other, now urgent, portions of Resolution 425. That resolution, as Israel continues to point out, provided for the restoration of international peace and security and the return of Lebanese authority to the area.
Since Israel's complete withdrawal from Lebanon, the United Nations has taken little interest in Lebanese violations of the border or Lebanon's failure to deploy its army in the South. In any case, such a deployment alone should not be considered sufficient; its purpose should be to disarm Hizbullah and prevent disturbances on the border.
The international interest in restoring peace to southern Lebanon is not just a matter of Israeli security and UN credibility, but a humanitarian necessity. The residents of the area, naturally, crave such stability, but it is also the key to allowing the Lebanese who fled to Israel to return to their homes.
Israel, both officially and as a society, has responded with a large degree of sympathy and generosity toward its Lebanese allies who became refugees following Israel's withdrawal. But decent treatment now cannot erase the bitter feelings of abandonment, the undignified rush to the border, or tensions that grow over time from living in a foreign land. Some Lebanese have returned home, but many more could if the Lebanese government did not allow Hizbullah to replace its own authority in the South. A general amnesty for South Lebanese Army veterans would, as is reportedly being considered, encourage such a process further.
The current quiet in southern Lebanon should not be read as providing unlimited time to establish a new, stable, and peaceful order in the area. Israel's swift withdrawal, though promised, was somewhat unexpected. The subsequent death of Syrian president Hafez Assad has perhaps further slowed the process of any party consolidating control of the area. This reprieve, born of confusion and unique circumstances, cannot be assumed to continue.
The hesitancy of the French and others, for example, to contribute to the expansion of UNIFIL - on the grounds that the border is quiet - risks being a self-negating prophecy. Israel and the international community should not regard UNIFIL as the major guarantor of a peaceful border - that responsibility lies with the Lebanese government. But UNIFIL can be an important vehicle of international attentiveness to the problem, and therefore should be utilized to the fullest extent.
A peaceful Israeli-Lebanese border, which a short time ago was dismissed as an impossibility, is now in danger of being taken as a given. The pessimism then was unwarranted, but so is the current high degree of complacency. Lebanon, of all countries, knows full well the price of anarchy born in a vacuum of power. That is how two foreign armies, Israel's and Syria's, came to compromise Lebanon's independence. Israel's withdrawal has given Lebanon, having defeated anarchy, an opportunity to restore a measure of its independence. It would be a shame for both Lebanon and Israel if that opportunity were squandered now.
