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Land Swaps Won't Solve the Israel-Hizbullah Conflict

(Washington Examiner) Sean Durns - UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701 call for Hizbullah to be disarmed. Yet both the Lebanese armed forces and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon have been unable, or unwilling, to enforce these provisions. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida reported that "American officials recently proposed, in a virtual meeting with their Israeli counterparts, a land swap between Lebanon and Israel as part of a comprehensive agreement to end the border conflicts and resolve the land dispute between the two countries." In 2022, the U.S. pressured Israel to sign an agreement that established a maritime boundary and exclusive economic zones and regulated rights to gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The White House and State Department hailed the arrangement, saying that the deal would prevent war. Yet less than two years later, Hizbullah began attacking Israel, following the massacre on Oct. 7, 2023. In 2000, the Israel Defense Forces unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon. The Clinton administration cheered the withdrawal, saying that it would lead to peace and a cessation of hostilities. But Hizbullah is not a Lebanese national movement fighting for a Lebanon free of foreign influence. Rather, the terrorist group is itself a foreign influence, the tip of the spear of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hizbullah doesn't want a parcel of land controlled by Israel - it wants Israel's destruction. Slivers of land only whet Hizbullah's and Iran's appetite. What the West takes as a "back and forth" negotiation, Islamists see as weakness: a sign that their opponents lack will. To them, ceding land proves that Israel is easily swept away. For decades, American policymakers have treated the various Islamist terrorists at war with Israel as if they are rational actors who can be induced to make peace if offered land, foreign aid packages, or some other incentive. For their part, the terrorists have been happy to pocket the concessions, ask for more, and then break the promises that they made. Should the U.S. continue to double down on failed policies, it will bring about the very war that it is seeking to avoid. The writer is a senior research analyst for CAMERA.
2024-09-22 00:00:00
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