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THE CRISIS TODAY - An Insider's Briefing (Tuesday, August 8, 2006)

Israeli Security Expert Yossi Alpher offers a daily briefing during the elevated crisis in Israel...

Today's Briefing - Tuesday, August 8

"Lebanese Army Moving South, IDF Heading North" by Yossi Alpher

Consider the following dead-end formula: Israel will not withdraw from southern Lebanon until it is replaced by an international force. Hezbollah refuses to agree to a ceasefire until Israel leaves the South. And the countries that have agreed to contribute to an international force will not allow their troops to deploy until there is a stable ceasefire.

As the United Nations Security Council continues today to debate a ceasefire plan--it is still far from discussing a second resolution to define the mandate and composition of an international force--it confronts the key issue of sequencing that has thus far stymied the entire effort to end the war in Lebanon. And it encounters two new battlefield initiatives that could conceivably, in the course of the coming days, point to a way out.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora announced yesterday that he would deploy 15,000 troops of his army in the South, down to the Blue Line (UN-delineated Lebanon-Israel border). To that end, the army is calling up reserves. He couched this move in demands anchored in his earlier Seven Point Plan that Israel and the United States still cannot accept, such as turning the Shebaa Farms over to the UN. Still, the possible early deployment of Lebanese forces in the South corresponds with a long-held Israeli demand and with UNSC Resolution 1559, and represents a welcome instance of Lebanese resolve and defiance of Syria that even Hezbollah's government ministers felt obliged to accept.

Meanwhile, Israel has failed to stop Hezbollah's rocket barrage on the north, which two days ago claimed 15 Israeli lives. If a ceasefire were to come into effect under current conditions, and even if it proclaimed the disarming of Hezbollah, its removal from the South and the freeing of Israel's two kidnapped soldiers--all achievements for Israel--Hezbollah (and Syria and Iran) nevertheless could claim a major military achievement, one with ramifications for Iran's future attempts to undermine Israel and for Israel's ongoing confrontation with the Palestinians. At this juncture, only an immediate UN-mandated ceasefire will prevent the Olmert government from deciding within a day or so that the IDF must push further north in order to silence most if not all of the Katyusha launchers.

Could the IDF, rather than a UN-mandated international force, end up escorting the Lebanese Army south to the border?


The Crisis Today-An Insider's Briefing is a new daily, internet publication of Americans for Peace Now. A new edition of The Crisis Today will be posted Tuesday through Friday morning by 9:00 a.m. for as long as the current crisis continues.

The Crisis Today is written by Yossi Alpher, whose views do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for Peace Now or Peace Now.


Link to APN's Crisis Resource Page



Links to previous Briefings:

August 7, 2006
August 4, 2006
August 3, 2006
August 2, 2006
August 1, 2006
July 31, 2006
July 28, 2006
July 27, 2006
July 26, 2006
July 25, 2006
July 24, 2006
July 21, 2006
July 20, 2006
July 19, 2006
July 18, 2006