Hezbollah politicians back peace package

From the newswire just now: Hezbollah politicians back peace package - Yahoo! News.

It starts out with an immediate cease-fire. Following that would come:

• the release of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners; Israeli withdrawal behind the border; the return of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.

• moves to resolve the status of Chebaa Farms, a small piece of land held by Israel and claimed by Lebanon. The proposal calls for the
U.N. Security Council to commit to putting the area under U.N. control until a final demarcation of the border.

• the provision by Israel of maps of minefields laid during its 18-year occupation of the south.

• "the spreading of Lebanese government authority over the entire country," meaning the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, with the strengthening and increasing of the small, lightly armed U.N. peacekeeping force currently there.

The provisions do not spell out the order in which the steps must take place, but Saniora has said the government cannot spread its authority in the south unless the Chebaa farms issue is resolved. Israel's hold on Chebaa has provided Hezbollah with a rationale to maintain its arsenal and its "resistance" against Israel.

The Dove believes that when people make an offer, a counter-offer is expected. Here's a Lebanese proposal. What is America going to do? Israel? Do you want peace?

We need shuttle diplomacy now, we need real statesmen/women who can run around among the parties and work out an agreement.

Comments

[crosspatch]

When will Hezbollah comply with international law? Or is that only a constraint on the other side?

GENEVA (AFP) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had not received agreement so far to its request to visit two Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah guerrillas.

“To this day we have not received a positive response,” said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations at the ICRC.

[anon]

Hezballah should agree to disarm before any of these steps, rather than just "allow" the Lebanse army to deploy in the south while Heballah arms itself with even longer range rockets that it could fire into Israel whenever it wanted to while the Lebanese army in the south can do nothing except look up into the sky watching the rockets from the north fly towards Israel.

IF this is done, I'm sure Israel would agree to release the Lebanese child murderer that Nasrallah wants and also agree to give the Sheba farms. After all, that tiny area would've been given to Lebanon long ago had all the maps (including Lebanese ones) not shown that it wasn't Lebanese but Syrian.

If this deal is made and Hezballah disarms first then everybody can be sure that Israel would keep its part of the deal. On the other hand, if Hezballah doesn't disarm, then it's only a question of time before Heballah fires more rockets into Israel (tho' not from the south of lebanon but from further north). At first Heballah would deliberately fire only one rocket into empty areas, thereby setting a precedent by which it can fire rockets without an ensuing war. Then it could wait (as it did in the past) and escalate gently, for example, fire 2 rockets into an army post in Israel... then it could wait again (As in the past) and escalate a little more... and so on and so forth.. and all to (for example) "stop the injustices against the Palestinians/Hamas". This is a certainty!

Remember that they carried out the last round of bombardment+killing+kidnapping with the expressly stated aim of releasing not only a few Lebanese killers but also thousands of Palestinian terrorists! For the Hezballah, it's no problem to invent pretexes and to fight for Hamas/Iran.

Even if Hezballah promises to disarm (and your article says nothing of such a promise) it has disarm completely before the other steps are taken - otherwise nobody will be surprised if it doesn't disarm in the end and even begins to re-arm. It would present itself as a great "liberator" and explain that it "has received information" for which it must be armed to prevent Israeli atrocities, etc. Meanwhile, it would wave its flag, proudly exhibiting how it "liberated land and prisoners" and is still out there and armed. Then we would all just wait and watch for the next round of war...