WarSclerotic

Walid Phares: Prosecute Hezbollah – WSJ.com.

There is no hope for Lebanon unless the U.N. and the West will enforce the tribunal’s findings on the Hariri assassination.

By WALID PHARES

In the coming weeks, the United Nations will indict the killers of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in its first-ever tribunal to try terrorists. As the international prosecutors of the Security Council’s Special Tribunal for Lebanon prepare to make their case on the February 2005 assassination, in which Hezbollah features prominently, the “Party of God” and its backers in Tehran and Damascus are once again taking off their gloves.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently visited Lebanon to show support for Hezbollah, indicating that Iran, and not only its minions, would act in the event of an adverse ruling. In June, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as well as Iran and Syria threatened the Lebanese government and Prime Minister Saad Hariri—son of the slain head of state—with dire consequences if they support indictments of the organization. Hezbollah threatened to stoke civil unrest and break up the government, which could spark another war with Israel and destabilize the entire region.

In the past five years, Hezbollah has shown that it usually makes good on its threats. Between July and December of 2005, a range of anti-Hezbollah lawmakers and journalists died or suffered grievous injuries in attacks across Lebanon, and bombings hit several anti-Syrian neighborhoods in Beirut.

In the first six months of 2006, Nasrallah claimed he was negotiating with Lebanon’s leaders to surrender his weapons, only to trigger a devastating war with Israel. After the war, Hezbollah unleashed more violence at home, killing Lebanese legislators, including the Sunni Walid Eido, the Christian Antoine Ghanem and Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel, son of former President Amine Gemayel. In May 2008, Hezbollah mounted a full-fledged military invasion of West Beirut and parts of the Druze Mountains, which crumbled Fuad Siniora’s pro-Western government and propelled Hezbollah to the fore of Lebanon’s national security policy. Since then, no domestic force has been able to confront Hezbollah or pressure it into disarming.

Hezbollah has reason to fear the Special Tribunal, whose mandate covers more than the Hariri murder. It includes prosecuting the assassinations of Cedar Revolution leaders Samir Cassir, George Hawi, and Lebanese parliamentarian Jebran Tueni, as well as the bloody attempts against former Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamade and journalist May Chidiac.

The U.N. originally established the tribunal as an international criminal court, comprised of judges from Lebanon and across the world, to prosecute the acts relating to Hariri’s assassination under Lebanese law. Under Chapter 7 of its charter, the U.N. is required to provide force to execute its decisions, if necessary, but it cannot do so without the support of the Lebanese government.

At the time, that would have been possible, as many Lebanese politicians publicly accused Syria’s Assad regime of the assassination, and observers predicted that the tribunal could even result in the indictment of Syrian officials. The Lebanese government was then headed by a pro-Western, anti-Syrian majority, and was modestly willing to push back against Hezbollah.

When Hezbollah invaded Beirut and toppled then-prime minister Fuad Siniora’s cabinet in May 2008, it brought in a new government headed nominally by Saad Hariri, but with a pro-Syrian President, General Michel Suleiman. It had also by then penetrated Lebanon’s security apparatus, giving Iran an implicit veto.

That’s why when the tribunal issues its verdict, the Lebanese government is unlikely to make any arrests. In preparation for the forthcoming showdown, Hezbollah has been hyperactive in identifying and arresting anyone it believes would support the indictments, branding them as Israeli spies, and agents of a “vast Zionist conspiracy.”

Thanks largely to bountiful Iranian aid, Hezbollah is winning its war against international justice. The Turkish government even suggested that the Special Tribunal postpone its decisions. And Lebanese officials, including traditionally anti-Syrian politicians, have been bullied into saying that they would consider any indictment of Hezbollah an act of aggression against the Lebanese Republic.

The message to those in the U.S. and Europe looking for “dialogue partners” should be clear: There are no moderates in Hezbollah. When the Special Tribunal issues its final verdict, let’s hope for Lebanon and the region’s sake that the U.N. and the West will have the courage to enforce the prosecutors’ findings.

Mr. Phares is the director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Fox News contributor, and author of “The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008).

AJC Mideast Briefing: “It’s Too Quiet” – American Jewish Committee.

Ed Rettig, Acting Director, AJC-Jerusalem

Like the cliché from an old Western film where the hero squints at the horizon and says “it’s too quiet,” General Amos Yadlin, the outgoing chief of Israel’s Military Intelligence, issued a warning in his recent briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He said, “The recent security calm is unprecedented but there should be no mistake that there are efforts [by elements] in the area to grow stronger.” Israel’s enemies are lying low for two reasons. First, the 2006 (Lebanon) and 2008 (Gaza) conflicts generated deterrence. But second, the current calm serves their purposes. They make use of the time to arm themselves with new weapons.

Retired General Giora Eiland noted the dangers that would confront Israel should a Palestinian state arise that was not completely demilitarized:

1. 1. Rockets and missiles of different varieties, positioned throughout the West Bank, would be able to reach the entire State of Israel.
2. 2. Advanced antiaircraft missiles would be capable of shooting down not only large passenger aircraft flying into Ben-Gurion Airport, but also helicopters and even fighter planes.
3. 3. Anti-tank missiles that are highly effective up to a range of 5 km. can easily cover strategic positions such as Israel’s north-south Highway 6 and other sites that are crucial to Israel’s defense.

Eiland points out that all these weapons are small and easily smuggled, so that demilitarizing a Palestinian state by depriving it of tanks and airplanes will not address the threat. Eiland urges revising the discussion of what constitutes “secure borders.” He specifically suggests thickening Israel’s narrow waist beyond its current 16 kilometers in order to allow a margin of safety and guarantee Israel’s internal lines of communications in the event of war.

Further complicating the situation is the Iranian nuclear program. While many assume that solving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will make it easier to deal with Iran, the inverse may be more accurate. Yadlin reports the Iranians now have enough enriched uranium to create one nuclear bomb and are well on the way to enriching enough for a second. Failing to deter or neutralize the Iranian nuclear program would make the current discussion of future borders largely irrelevant.

An Iranian nuclear weapon would mean that Israel must enhance its capacity to survive a first strike. Israel is particularly vulnerable because its population lives largely along the coast and many of its security resources are located there. To withstand a first strike Israel will have to move resources away from the coast. Since it is about the size of New Jersey, Israel does not have vast, empty lands to which it can disperse crucial facilities and population. The logical diredction for dispersal is Jerusalem. That is a Muslim holy city and is surrounded by 1.5–2.3 million West Bank Palestinians, and so is regarded as a less likely Iranian nuclear target. Thus, as Prof. Martin Kramer, a noted academic expert, expressed it: “… a nuclear Iran creates a dynamic where Israel, from a strategic point of view, is compelled to keep a tight grip on Jerusalem and a large swath of the West Bank for the simple reason that it creates a deterrent to an Iranian attack. If all our strategic assets are concentrated on the coastal plain around Tel Aviv, we’re vulnerable.”

Combining the analyses of Yadlin, Eiland and Kramer, we see how the concept of secure borders may become ever harder to define. Iranian nuclear-weapon capacity; a decline in the significance of demilitarizing Palestine of armor and airplanes; the rising importance of readily smuggled or manufactured missiles all elevate the strategic significance of much of Jerusalem and the West Bank, even as the Israeli public has shown disregard for the much discredited “greater Land of Israel” ideology.

This weakens the arguments supporting the feasibility of a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish State of Israel behind “safe borders.” Conversely, it strengthens the hand of the pragmatic “security right” in Israel (as opposed to the “Greater Land of Israel” right). And it may well encourage a majority of Israelis, who tend toward pragmatism, to question their safety under current formulations of possible borders, such as those indicated by former President Clinton in his recent remarks on the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Iranian nuclear-weapons capacity will alter Israel’s fundamental safety calculations that currently guide their negotiators.

So much hinges on the results of the U.S. initiatives to stop Iran’s nuclear program. If they succeed, we may yet have a peace accord in this region. If they fail, efforts at peace between Israel and the Palestinians may well be sent back to the drawing board.

Hamas invites Ahamdinejad to Gaza – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Islamist group calls on Iranian president to visit Strip after his October tour of Lebanon, however estimates say visit unlikely to take place

Dudi Cohen