1559 Seen as Terminating Syria's Dream of Annexing Lebanon in Stages

Naharnet

France and the United States have agreed to delay a decision on the future of the U.N. peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, pending Kofi Annan's report on the progress of enforcing resolution 1559, which was seen in An Nahar Wednesday as having ruptured Syria's dream of annexing Lebanon stage-by-stage. The Franco-American move clears the way for the Security Council this week to extend the term of the 2000-strong U.N. force known as UNIFIL for six extra months as of Feb. 1 without scaling down its size or changing its peacekeeping mandate, An Nahar said in a Washington-datelined dispatch on Wednesday. The 15 member-states of the U.N. executive arm are currently holding informal consultations on Lebanon's request for an unconditional UNIFIL extension. A voting session is scheduled for Friday, An Nahar's Washington correspondent Hisham Milhem reported. The U.S. and France have agreed to re-examine UNIFIL's future in light of the way Lebanon's elections for a new parliament are conducted in May and Annan's biannual report on the implementation of resolution 1559 in April. UNIFIL's new mandate expires on July 31, Milhem noted. Al Hayat quoted unidentified western sources at the U.N. in New York as saying Annan's personal envoy Terje Roed-Larsen was poised to fly to Damascus for talks on the 1559 implementation once President Bashar Assad returns to the Syrian capital from his state visit to Russia. There was no word whether Roed-Larsen would visit Beirut for the same purpose before or after the Damascus trip. But Al Hayat quoted unnamed French sources as saying Presidents Bush and Chirac were expected to hold follow-up talks on resolution 1559 at the NATO summit scheduled for Feb. 21 in Brussels. An Nahar on Wednesday ran the second and final installment of a takeout entitled 'A Geo-Strategic Reading into the Lebanese-Syrian Relations." Dr. Nabil Khalifeh, the takeout writer, concluded that 1559 had terminated Syria's historic dream of annexing Lebanon in stages. The Lebanese government was alarmed by the American-French attitude, fearing that it could herald the UNIFIL's withdrawal from South Lebanon in summer. The foreign ministry in Beirut has summoned the ambassadors of the security council's 15 member states to ascertain that UNIFIL's mandate won't be terminated by the expiry of the new extension.

U.S. Wants Syria to Leave Lebanon 'Now,' not in 2 Years

The United States could not stomach Syria's latest declaration that it would, perhaps, withdraw from Lebanon in 2007, insisting the withdrawal should be carried out "immediately and completely" in compliance with U.N. resolution 1559, An Nahar reported on Tuesday.The Beirut daily's Washington correspondent Hisham Milhem quoted responsible American sources as saying they were not interested in any speculation about a timeframe for Syria's departure from Lebanon.As far as Lebanon is concerned, sources were quoted as saying the Bush administration expects Syria to make deeds that speak out louder than words. "We must see movements on the ground submitting to resolution 1559," one unnamed source was quoted as saying.The sources were also quoted as rejecting Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al Sharaa's linkage of 1559 implementation to a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict taking place in the Middle East as he implied in an interview with the CNN on Sunday.It was in this interview that Sharaa said the Syrian army would perhaps stay on in Lebanon for two more years.

Source: Naharnet

Israel Decides to Hit Lebanon en Masse if Hizbullah Strikes Again

Ariel Sharon's government has ordered the Israeli army to mount a full-scale
military retaliation against Lebanon if Hizbullah persists in escalating
border tensions between the two countries, Israeli officials say.
The orders were sent out after an emergency meeting of Sharon's security
cabinet in Jerusalem on Wednesday to discuss two Hizbullah cross-border
attacks staged within eight days at the Shabaa farms zone of the common
border.
One Israeli officer was killed and three soldiers wounded in the first
attack and a French Truce Observer was killed and Swedish officer wounded in
Israel's retaliatory tank fire. One Hizbullah fighter was killed in the
Israeli response to the first attack and two Lebanese women were wounded in
the retaliation for the second.
Sharon's Security Cabinet has decided to permit the army to carry out
greater retaliation if the Hizbullah attacks continue, Israeli officials
were quoted by the Associated Press as saying in Jerusalem.
"The military has no limitation to act if the situation deteriorates
further," one official said.
The official did not elaborate on what the anti-Lebanon 'greater
retaliation' woud mean on the battlefield.
He would not say if Israel would retaliate against Syrian targets, too.
Israel blames Syria -- the main power broker in Lebanon --for not reining in
Hizbullah. In late 2003, Israeli jets struck a base of Palestinian militants
inside Syria in retaliation for an attack inside Israel.
Israeli officials believe Hizbullah is trying to disrupt efforts by Israel
and the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to end more than four years
of fighting in the Intifada, The AP said.
Since longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in November, Hizbullah
has stepped up its efforts to carry out attacks against Israelis, both along
the border and through militant cells it supports in the Palestinian areas,
the security officials said, according to The AP.
The officials believe Hizbullah wants to embarrass Abbas, portraying him as
a collaborator with Israel as tensions continue on the Israel-Lebanon
border.(Naharnet-AP)

Rice Takes Uncompromising Stance that Syria Must Leave Lebanon

NaharNet
Incoming U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has taken an
uncompromising stance about the termination of Syria's dominance of Lebanon,
asserting to Congress that U.N. Resolution 1559 "tells the Syrians that the
world expects them to begin withdrawing their forces from Lebanon and to
halt terrorism from there."
"Lebanon can be a stronghold of democracy in the Middle East and that's why
we have to take interest in what happens in Lebanon," Rice said, answering
questions at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held to
confirm her as Colin Powell's successor once Bush's second term in the White
House begins on Thursday.

Rice described Syria as a "non-constructive force" and said the Assad regime
was "risking long-range strained relations" with the United States, hinting
that added sanctions would be clamped against Syria. An Nahar highlighted
Rice's remark on Lebanon on page-one on Wednesday.

She said Security Council Resolution 1559 which was co-sponsored by the
United States and France was a "very important accomplishment. It tells the
Syrians that the world expects them to respect Lebanon's legitimate
sovereignty and begin withdrawing their forces and halt terrorism from
there."

An Nahar's Washington correspondent Hisham Milhem noted that Rice erred in
referring to the number of the U.N. resolution. She said resolution 1546
instead of 1559. Rice's quotes have been transliterated into English from
Milhem's Arabic version.(See Middle East section for Rice's policy on other
issues.)

Lebanon Is Fed Up of Demagogic Speeches

By Gebran Tueni
President Emile Lahoud's statements to the foreign diplomatic and consular corps and Premier Omar Karami's statement to the consular corps were totally illogical, even though they were addressed to extraordinary people who have a high level of education and expertise. As a matter of fact, the diplomats and the consuls did not understand why resolution 1559 would be a threat to Lebanon's unity, security and stability.
Would anyone explain to us and to them how the calls for the respect of Lebanon's sovereignty and independence would be a threat to Lebanon's unity, stability and independence?
How is it that the calls for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon would be a threat to its unity, stability and independence?
How is it that the calls for the banning and disarmament of all militias would be a threat to Lebanon's unity, stability and independence?
How is it that the calls for the respect of democracy and the holding of free elections would be a threat to Lebanon's unity, stability and independence?
These are not Israeli requests as Premier Karami said.
How is it that the international community's insistence on preserving Lebanon's integrity would be a threat to its unity, stability and independence?
Would anyone explain to us how the presence of the Lebanese army in the South would protect Israel not Lebanon, and how the deployment of the army on the borders during war times would be a threat to the country? Is the army designed only for peace times?
If so, why do the countries build armies and spend a lot of money on them? Isn't it for the defense of their borders against enemies?
Doesn't President Lahoud think that saying such words in front of a respected diplomatic corps is shameful for Lebanon and its credibility on the international scene?
The diplomatic corps and the international community won't respect us when the Lebanese President attacks UN resolution 1559 on the grounds of defending Syria not Lebanon, whereas the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister declared the same day that his country is not in a war with resolution 1559.
Don't the officials realize that the policy of subordination does not serve Lebanon, Syria or the Lebanese-Syrian relations? It also harms Lebanon's and Syria's images in the West.
Isn't there one rational official who would say to President Lahoud that such positions harm both Lebanon and Syria?
Doesn't anyone dare explain to Lahoud that resolution 1559 is the result of the oppression of the Lebanese people, the mistakes of the Lebanese authorities and Syria's bad performance in Lebanon?
What was President Lahoud thinking when he said that resolution 1559 would contribute to the resettlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon? As long as all the Lebanese people, from all groups and confessions, and the authorities are against the resettlement of Palestinians, this issue would not pose a real threat. Moreover, who dares sign the resettlement decree?
Furthermore, the President should explain to the people that Israel's refusal to implement the resolution about the Palestinians' right of return does not mean it denies the Palestinians' right to return to the future Palestinian state, but to Israel where they will become second-degree Israeli citizens.
Why doesn't someone inform Lahoud about the conclusions of the famous Taba meeting of the refugees' committee in 2000 which discussed the Palestinians' return to their homeland or their assimilation in different countries throughout the world? The United States and Canada took then a clear position when they accepted to receive more than 500 thousand Palestinian refugees, most of them from Lebanon, in case Israel continued to deny them their right of return, or in case the Palestinians themselves refused to return to Palestine!
President Lahoud should take a look at the remarks noted by the present Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, who participated in the meeting.
Enough bargaining about the Palestinians' resettlement because the real threat is somewhere else, i.e. Lahoud's insistence on linking the settlement of the Lebanese crisis to all the issues of the Middle East… and maybe the world, and on making Lebanon a hostage or rather a bargaining chip used by all those who have a pending issue in this world.
What was Lahoud thinking when he said that disarming the Palestinian camps means depriving them of the tool of peace, at a time when the Palestinian authorities decided to stop armed operations and resistance against Israel, especially from the Lebanese territory?
The verbal one-upmanship neither protects Lebanon nor serves its interests. What really serves the interests of Lebanon and Syria and the Lebanese-Syrian relations is the implementation of resolution 1559.
Moreover, in order to protect the resistance, Hizbullah militia should be dismantled, illegal weapons banned and the Lebanese army should be deployed on the borders with Israel and in the South. More specifically, there should be no military operations to liberate Shebaa Farms amid a volatile regional juncture, because they may lay a huge burden on Lebanon's, and maybe Syria's stability and security.
These operations serve Israel because it could use them as a pretext to attack Lebanon and Syria.
The ordinary citizen who was surprised by the deterioration of the security and military situation in the South would ask "why does Lebanon alone fight Israel whereas other Arab fronts are secure and calm?"
Why does Lebanon alone fight a military war against Israel whereas Syria is attached to the truce with Israel in the Golan Heights?
Mr. President, take it easy. Demagogic ways are neither in the interests of Lebanon nor in the interests of Syria. And I don't think they are in your interests if the aim is to restore a certain position or role!
The goal, Mr. President, must be to save Lebanon and protect its national interests, to put the Lebanese-Syrian relations on the right track, to uphold Lebanon's reputation and credibility in international bodies, and to restitute the Lebanese people's trust in their country after the political community deprived Lebanon of its values and its people through demagogic speeches, and the most recent example was the statements of the President and the Premier to the Arab and foreign diplomatic and consular corps.

'Lebanon, Syria, Israel Sit on Powder Keg Apt to Trigger Mideast Apocalypse'

Israel has struck back with dive-bombing air strikes and massive artillery and tank canon barrages targeting a cluster of Lebanese border towns, where a French officer from the U.N. Truce Observer Group was killed along with a Hizbullah irregular. A Swedish officer with the Observer unit was wounded along with a Lebanese translator.
However, the Israeli media said Monday the retaliation on Sunday was just a localized response and quoted government officials and the military establishment as holding Syria fully responsible for Hizbullah's attack and vowing to exact a heavy price from Damascus.

"This is a very serious incident and a very dangerous provocation for which Syria bears full responsibility, said Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres, who takes over as vice Premier to Ariel Sharon next week. "Israel has exercised self-restraint long enough."

"Responsibility for this attack lies with Hizbullah, Lebanon and Syria," he said. Hizbullah and its sponsors in Lebanon and Syria "have to decide whether they want to be in a triangle of peace or in a triangle of provocations and terrorism."

State run radio Israel said in airing the reaction of the Tel Aviv press that "Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Hizbullah are again sitting on a powder keg that could unleash a Middle East apocalypse if it explodes."

The attack was described by the local and international media the deadliest since Hizbullah killed two Israeli soldiers in the Shabaa Farms enclave six months ago. But the death of French Major Jean-Louis Valet contributed a heavier impact than any other previous operations since Israel evacuated occupied south Lebanon in May of 2000.

Milos Struger, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, said the Frenchman was "killed by shelling from the Israeli side of the Blue Line," the post-evacuation border line drawn by U.N. cartographers.

Hizbullah has made it plain in its communiqués that Sunday's attack was designed to dramatize the group's resentment of U.S. and French pressure to make the Beirut and Damascus governments bow to U.N. resolution 1559, which urged the termination of Syria's tutelage over Lebanon and the disarmament t of Hizbullah.

The flare-up also came hard on the heels of a threat by U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman in Beirut that the United States would add Lebanon to its list of rogue countries if it procrastinates any longer in disarming Hizbullah.(Naharnet-AFP, AP)

France Contends 1559 Abolishes All Treaties Regulating Syria's Tutelage

France has taken its pressure on the reigning regimes in Beirut and Damascus to a higher zenith, contending that all treaties that regulated Syria's tutelage over Lebanon in the past two decades have been rendered null and void by U.N. resolution 1559 of Sept.2, 2004, An Nahar reported on Saturday. "All treaties signed before the issuance of resolution 1559 have been abolished by Security Council resolution 1559. This covers the Taif Accord, especially in the section concerning the redeployment or pullout of Syria's armed forces," An Nahar's Paris correspondent George Sassin quoted responsible French sources as saying. The Taif accord was concluded in 1989 under the sponsorship of the 22-nation Arab League to halt Lebanon's 15-year civil war. But the Arab League had effectively stepped aside when Syria consequently assumed full control of Lebanon, citing the past as the green light. France's new contention also abolishes the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Coordination Lebanon and Syria concluded in 1992, which has largely cemented Syria's hegemony in Lebanon. "It has become impossible to continue to support such an accord, especially that it has not been fully implemented," Sassin quoted the French sources as saying. "It is imperative that a review should take place along the basis of resolution 1559 that supports the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon." Sassin also quoted the sources as saying France had been "patient long enough" to make the Syrian authority realize the need for the implementation of the Taif pact, noting that President Chirac has rejected in his annual address to the foreign diplomatic corps in Paris old formulas and outdated contentions "often repeated by the Lebanese authorities." The sources, Sassin wrote, also asserted that such methods as assassinations, assassination attempts, food poisoning or threats to kill were now outmoded. This was a reference to the car-bomb assassination attempt of Lebanon's ex-Economy Minister Marwan Hamadeh and the poisoning by the Ukraine secret service of opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, Sassin noted. "This applies to the Lebanese and the Syrian authorities alike as far as directing intelligence services to carry out assignments outside the framework of their basic missions," the French sources were quoted as saying. "If the Lebanese authorities want to give a signal of openness to the international community," the sources told Sassin, "they should not be afraid of calling in international observers to monitor the upcoming legislative elections, especially that the government is affirming that these elections will be credible."

Chirac Makes Syria's Pullout Top Priority, Bush: 'Beware Physical Terror'

Naharnet

France has made it clear to Syria that it has to discontinue its tutelage over Lebanon, while the United States served a fresh warning on the Assad regime that the Bush administration would not tolerate "physical terrorization" of Lebanese opposition figures before, during and after the spring elections.
The French move was made by President Chirac in the course of a New Year address at the Elysee to the accredited foreign diplomatic corps in Paris on Thursday, asserting that enforcement of U.N. resolution 1559 was a top priority for France. The speech captured the page-one banner-line of An Nahar in Beirut on Friday.

"Implementation of resolution 1559 underlines our attachment to a free, independent and sovereign Lebanon. This implementation preoccupies our attention and alert, especially on the fringes of the upcoming parliamentary elections in spring," Chirac said.

"The careful selection of Chirac's words carried a cautioning message to the Lebanese authorities against messing with the elections," An Nahar quoted a French source at the presidency as interpreting Chirac's remark on Lebanon.

Chirac, however, did not mention Syria by name in connection with the enforcement of 1559, which calls for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, which means the Syrian army, and the disarmament of all militias operating on its territory, an obvious allusion to Hizbullah and Palestinians.

Chirac's speech chimed in with a spiraling U.S. campaign to make the Assad regime understand that compliance with1559 was inescapable. France cosponsored 1559 with the United States. The Security Council passed the resolution Sept. 2.

Jumblat Demands Diplomatic Ties with Syria to End Lebanon's Servitude

Druze leader Walid Jumblat has taken his campaign against Syria's tutelage a notch up, siding for the first time with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir in publicly demanding the establishment of diplomatic relations on an ambassadorial level between Lebanon and Syria. "The concept that the Lebanese and he Syrians are one people in two states has to be reconsidered," Jumblat said in an interview published by the French-language Beirut daily L'Orient le Jour Wednesday and reproduced by the Agence France Presses on Thursday. "There are plenty of bonds between the Lebanese and the Syrians. But they are two different people in two different states," Jumblat said, disputing the 'one people' concept that was coined by Syria's late President Hafez Assad during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. The regime of Assad's son, Bashar, which took over Syria's reins in 2000, has adopted the 'one people concept,' which, Jumblat suggests, has turned Lebanon into "the last remaining Soviet-like subservient state in the world" despite the collapse of the Soviet Union. Jumblat demanded a "state-to-state relationship between Lebanon and Syria" that would one day lead to the establishment of diplomatic ties. "Even within the Soviet empire there were diplomatic relations and ambassadors between member-states," he said. The leader of the Progressive Socialist Party said he had been subjected to enormous pressure to change his opposition to the extension of President Lahoud's term in office and his rejection of meddling in Lebanon's political life by Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services. "But Syria has lately received a real warning from the western powers," Jumblat said in an apparent reference to a reported warning by the United States that it would hold the Assad administration responsible for any life-threatening attacks against Lebanese opposition leaders. He urged Syria to disband its secret service apparatus in Lebanon as "the only way to establish a relationship of trust and mutual confidence" between the two countries. The resignation of President Lahoud will be a face-saving exit for Syria," Jumblat said, asserting that the upcoming parliamentary elections in spring would amount to a "referendum for a "unified, democratic and independent Lebanon without subservience." He emphasized the need of foreign observers to monitor the elections and "abort Moukhabarat interference."

Jumblat Warns of 'White Coup d'Etat' to Unseat Lahoud

Naharnet

With another Progressive Socialist Party activist escaping an assassination attempt, Druze leader Walid Jumblat declared that the opposition may have reached the fringes of a 'white coup d'etat' and may demand the resignation of President Lahoud. The PSP chief spoke in an interview aired by Al Arabiya satellite network Sunday night just as a power outage engulfed Beirut and all satellite dishes went dead for more than an hour, preventing the population from seeing or hearing Jumblat's escalatory declarations. There were suggestions in the local media Monday morning that the blackout was stage-managed by a state-supported Moukhabarat secret service, taking Jumblat's confrontation with Lahoud's Syrian-extended regime to a higher peak. The escalation of the political clash was further dramatized by an apparent attempt to assassinate PSP activist Akram Saab in Shweifat by a bomb planted in his 4-wheel car. He escaped with minor leg injuries that forced him to use a walker. Jumblat's thinly veiled threat to constitutionally unseat the Syrian-backed Lahoud coincided with the president's return to Beirut from a year-end vacation with his family in southern France. "It marked a fiery entrance to 2005," commented An Nahar. "The opposition wholly wants to end the police state regime of Syrian and Lebanese Moukhabarat service," said Jumblat, warning of a "more dangerous era under the shadow of a biased government bent on rigging the coming elections." "I think we have reached the fringe of demanding Lahoud's resignation and I hope we won't end up in a situation similar to the1952 ouster of former President Bishara el-Khoury by passive resistance," Jumblat said. "We may be on the threshold of a white coup." The Druze chieftain also warned that he would demand the reopening of the unresolved case of his father's assassination in 1977 if the Lahoud regime persists in a week-long intimidation campaign against PSP activists in cases dating back to the 1975-1990 civil war. The elder Jumblat, Kamal, was murdered in a gunfire ambush in the Druze hinterland in the midst of a confrontation with Syria a year after it sent its army to Lebanon ostensibly to end the civil war. The senior Jumblat was then allied with Yasser Arafat's guerrillas. "If they want to reopen files, I also will demand the reopening of my father's file. Let them dare say who killed him," the junior Jumblat said in an indirect reference to a possible Syrian involvement to engineer Kamal Jumblat's assassination