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Failure to Disarm Hizbullah Makes Future Violence Inevitable

[Washington Institute for Near East Policy] Oded Eran - UN Security Council Resolution 1701, an agreement that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah, did not end the conflict, and its failure to disarm Hizbullah makes future violence between the two sides inevitable. Resolution 1701 does not allow UNIFIL to fulfill the resolution's mission to assist the Lebanese government in disarming all armed Lebanese groups. As a result, Hizbullah has more than doubled its prewar arsenal of long- and short-range missiles and rockets by way of the porous Syrian-Lebanese border. In less than two years, Hizbullah has recovered from its losses and depletion of weapons stocks. Whatever was destroyed during the war has been reconstructed and fortified in the past two years. The absence of any Hizbullah military offensive against Israel since 2006 comes from the policy decision of Hizbullah's leaders to focus on the domestic agenda and solidify its political position in Lebanon. The writer, a former senior Israeli diplomat and ambassador, is director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2008-10-24 01:00:00
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