Don't tie Lebanon down with a solution in Palestine - Lebanon Daily Star

[oberliner]

Op Ed Piece from the Lebanon Daily Star with an interesting proposal for peace.

Any thoughts?

Don't tie Lebanon down with a solution in Palestine
By Chibli Mallat

Excerpt:

Colleagues and I in Beirut and New York have proposed a draft Security Council resolution from the very first day of the crisis on July 12. Its preamble states the unacceptability of the action that triggered the crisis in terms of both international law (violation of the Israeli-Lebanese border) and domestic law (Hizbullah, a non-state party, triggering war). It reaffirms relevant Security Council resolutions, especially the need for Lebanon as a whole to decide upon war and peace - another term for the state's monopoly over violence and the government's exclusive responsibility over borders.

The operative clauses of the draft resolution are three. First is the release of the two Israeli soldiers; second, negotiations between the Israeli government and the Lebanese government through the Security Council over all outstanding issues. The cease-fire should be operational at the beginning of this second phase. A third clause would keep spoilers at bay through the Security Council's threatening to name leaders locally and regionally who might prevent the implementation of the two previous clauses. This should reduce the appetite for extremist posturing.

The second clause is the most important. It means that Lebanon is back in full control of its territory and details can be hammered out later, in a non-violent and inevitably protracted process, to sort the disagreements, and they are many, including over the Lebanese citizens still held in Israel.


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=74227

[ConservativeDemocrat]

1. Thoughts? Only that it is the only real chance for peace

If Hezboallah is rewarded by the international community for this act of aggression against Israel, it will mean the end of any chance of permanent peace in the region. The Israeli electorate - having already agreed to return all the land in Lebanon and rewarded with an Acts of War, having already retreated fully from the Gaza strip, and rewarded with rockets being launched out of the territory they ceded - will officially declare the entire concept of "Land for Peace" to be dead.

"We gave them land," they'll say. "And all they gave us was war."

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community