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Only Lebanese Pressure Will Disarm Hizballah


[Economist-UK, 17Aug06] if Hizballah is ever to give up its weapons and become just another political party, it will be through the pressure of the other Lebanese, not as a direct result of Israel's war. The trouble for Israel is that in peacemaking, as well as in war, the enemy gets a vote. What the well-meaning protesters who have been marching in Europe in praise of Hizballah refuse to acknowledge is that today, as in the 1940s, Israel still has some neighbors who continue to deny its very right to exist as a Jewish state. Peace does not depend only on Israel. Six years ago Israel withdrew from Lebanon to a border painstakingly demarcated by the UN. Hizballah fought on anyway. Like Iran, it says its aim is Israel's destruction. Whether Hizballah and Iran seriously propose to destroy Israel is hard to tell, but it is what they keep saying - and they have imitators. The Palestinians' ruling Hamas movement has not yet dared to say out loud that it accepts even the principle of sharing Palestine with a Jewish state. Hamas, after the Lebanon war, is in danger of subscribing anew to the old illusion that Palestine can be liberated by force. Hizballah has now killed stone dead the idea of Israel giving up territory again without cast-iron security assurances. So there will be no leaving any of the West Bank until there is a deal.
2006-08-18 01:00:00
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