Back in February, 2002, Thomas Friedman trumpeted the Saudi “peace plan” as proposed by then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah:
Earlier this month, I wrote a column suggesting that the 22 members of the Arab League, at their summit in Beirut on March 27 and 28, make a simple, clear-cut proposal to Israel to break the Israeli-Palestinian impasse: In return for a total withdrawal by Israel to the June 4, 1967, lines, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees. Full withdrawal, in accord with U.N. Resolution 242, for full peace between Israel and the entire Arab world. Why not?
I am currently in Saudi Arabia on a visit — part of the Saudi opening to try to explain themselves better to the world in light of the fact that 15 Saudis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. So I took the opportunity of a dinner with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, and de facto ruler, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, to try out the idea of this Arab League proposal. I knew that Jordan, Morocco and some key Arab League officials had been talking about this idea in private but had not dared to broach it publicly until one of the ”big boys” — Saudi Arabia or Egypt — took the lead.
After I laid out this idea, the crown prince looked at me with mock astonishment and said, ”Have you broken into my desk?”
”No,” I said, wondering what he was talking about.
”The reason I ask is that this is exactly the idea I had in mind — full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations,” he said. ”I have drafted a speech along those lines. My thinking was to deliver it before the Arab summit and try to mobilize the entire Arab world behind it. The speech is written, and it is in my desk. But I changed my mind about delivering it when Sharon took the violence, and the oppression, to an unprecedented level.
After this free publicity, Abdullah went around the Arab world to garner support for his initiative. On one of his stops he visited Syria and as the NY Times reports, President Bashar Assad gave his crucial support to the initiative.
Syria expressed its support today for a Saudi peace effort for the Middle East, while a bomb planted in an Arab schoolyard and crude rockets fired at an Israeli town fed the rapidly expanding blood feud between Israelis and Palestinians.
In its first statement on the plan proposed last month by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, which pledges Arab countries to a full normalization of relations with Israel in return for full Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in the 1967 war, Syria expressed its ‘’satisfaction with the position of Saudi Arabia.”
The statement followed a meeting between Prince Abdullah and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in Riyadh. It said a comprehensive peace ”cannot be achieved except with Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab land, including the Syrian Golan.” The statement also called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees, a matter critical to Lebanon, where many of them live.
This report leaves out a critical point. Syria insisted that Abdullah include language demanding an Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon. The communique from the Arab summit reflects this change:
Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
What’s remarkable about this demand is that Israel had already withdrawn beyond the accepted international border of Lebanon two years earlier!
The United Nations has confirmed that Israeli troops have completely withdrawn from south Lebanon. But the Lebanese Government rejected the UN verification, saying Israeli forces were still in control of some part of Lebanese territory.
The point of the dispute was the area known as the Shebaa farms.
A group of farms close to the poorly-defined border of Lebanon and Syria has emerged as a potential new flashpoint for conflict between Israel and Lebanese Muslim guerrillas.
The Syrian-backed guerrilla group, Hezbollah, says Israel must withdraw from the area of the Shebaa farms – which it says lies on Lebanese territory – or face continued attacks.
Israel says most of the area lies on the Syrian side of the Lebanon/Syria border and that it will only withdraw from the part marked as Lebanese territory on United Nations maps.
I suspect that the vagueness of the BBC’s reporting here is due to its pro-Arab bias, adding uncertainty to Israel’s claim, but later on it gets to the key point:
Syria agrees with Lebanon that the Shebaa farms area is part of Lebanon.
However, Israel points out that it seized the territory from Syria, during the 1967 Middle East War.
This isn’t a small matter. After everyone claimed that Hezbollah would lay down arms or if they didn’t would be exposed as terrorists worthy of destruction. Here’s Thomas Friedman from his fantasy “How Bibi got re-elected”
Now that Israeli troops are out of Lebanon, noted Mr. Netanyahu, everything is reversed: Politically, if the Iranian-directed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas try to come across the border, they will be invading Israel, and Israel will be justified in massively retaliating against Lebanese, Syrian and Iranian troops that abet such an invasion. And if Israel does retaliate, it won’t be with guerrilla warfare, but with the Israeli Air Force massively striking Lebanese, Iranian and Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and maybe inside Syria.
But of course Hezbollah regularly violated the border between 2000 and 2006. In 2004 Friedman wrote:
Israel’s withdrawal is not a cure-all for this. Israel will still be despised. But if it withdraws to an internationally recognized border, it will have the moral high ground, the strategic high ground and the demographic high ground to protect itself. After Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the Hezbollah militia, on the other side, went on hating Israel and harassing the border — but it never tried to launch an invasion. Why? Hezbollah knew it would have no legitimacy — in the world or in Lebanon — for breaching that U.N.-approved border. And if it tried, Israel would be able to use its full military weight to retaliate.
Friedman having been proved wrong that Hezbollah would at least respect the border and would devote its energies to building itself politically in Lebanon. So he comforted himself by raising the threshold: Hezbollah would never invade Israel. It was a standard that would be proven wrong in 2006.
And of course behind Hezbollah’s continued war against Israel was the false pretext that Israel still “occupied” Lebanese territory, Shebaa Farms. That is the reason that Syria actively promoted the idea that Shebaa Farms was Lebanese. It needed a justification for allowing Hezbollah to continue attacking Israel with impunity. Alan Makovsky put it like this:
Support for Hizballah and the Lebanese claim to Shebaa Farms
Syria not only endorsed an Arab League summit statement supporting Lebanon’s claim to Shebaa farms, but Syrian U.N. ambassador Mikha�il Wahbi also wrote in an October 24 letter, “Israel . . . has not completed the withdrawal from south Lebanon to the internationally recognized borders, including the Shebaa farms.” This stance, in effect, justifies ongoing Hizballah attacks on Israel, retaining for Syria a source of pressure on Israel, despite the “loss” of southern Lebanon. Syria has supported and has no doubt directed Lebanon�s refusal to deploy its troops to the border following the Israeli withdrawal.
And the more pernicious implication of the claim that Shebaa Farms is Lebanese territory, is that it shows that the Arab world will continually change the terms to which Israel must comply in order to earn an ill-defined “peace.” So it’s a mistake for Israel to accede to this demand. It’s also a mistake for the West – especially the United States – to promote this fiction. All it does is strengthen Iran and its proxies at the expense of Israel and the West.
I’ve provided you with this background so we can evaluate a few paragraphs from yesterday’s New York Times on the current effort to push Israel to negotiate with Lebanon over Shebaa farms:
When Israel withdrew from the occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, the United Nations Security Council stated that the withdrawal was complete even though Israel held onto the disputed area because Shebaa, the United Nations said, was part of the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel.
But Lebanon and Hezbollah say the land is Lebanese, and Syria has not contradicted them. Moreover, Hezbollah has used Israel’s hold over Shebaa as a reason for keeping its men under arms despite United Nations resolutions calling for the disarming of all Lebanese militias.
Hezbollah says that as long as part of the Lebanese homeland is occupied, it needs its weapons because the national army is weak.
But the West, especially the United States and France, wants to reduce the power of Hezbollah, a client of both Syria and Iran, and has been looking for ways to strengthen the pro-Western government of Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah officials made clear that they viewed Israel’s offer as part of an effort to disarm the group. “If they really want to give us back our land, they can withdraw and implement the Security Council resolutions,” said Nawar Sahili, a Hezbollah member of Lebanon’s Parliament, referring to a United Nations resolution that calls for the Shebaa issue to be resolved.
Saying that Syria “has not contradicted” Hezbollah on Shebaa farms is a vast understatement. Syria has promoted this idea for its client Hezbollah.
The assertion that Israel negotiating with Lebanon will somehow strengthen the “pro-Western government of Lebanon” is outright nonsense. It will strengthen Hezbollah at the expense of the nominally pro-Western government of Fuad Siniora.
Finally, quoting a member of Hezbollah mentioning Security Council resolutions without mentioning the various resolutions that Hezbollah is violating serves to give cover to the terrorist organization.
Resolution 425 which Israel fulfilled when it withdrew from Southern Lebanon, also called for the disarming of militias and the Lebanese army establishing control over southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s continued control over Southern Lebanon prior to 2006 stood in direct violation of that resolution. And its re-arming now – which the article notes – violates Resolution 1701 – which the article doesn’t note.
For Israel, the main concern in Lebanon is Hezbollah’s increasing power. Israeli military officials say that Hezbollah has many more rockets and much deadlier ones today than it had two years ago when the two fought a monthlong war after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border to capture and kill Israeli soldiers.
Acceding to Syria’s and Hezbollah’s demands will only serve to strengthen them. If Israel gives in here, Hezbollah will make new demands. Better that Israel should be (unfairly) portrayed as unreasonable than that Iran’s proxies should be strengthened even further.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.