Lebanon has rejected a draft UN resolution proposed by the US and France that calls for "full cessation of hostilities" between Israel and Hezbollah. Nouhad Mahmoud, a Lebanese foreign ministry official, said on Sunday that the government "would have liked to see our concerns more reflected in the text" of the draft resolution. | “...the government "would have liked to see our concerns more reflected in the text...” |
The UN draft resolution was released on Saturday after Washington and Paris reached an agreement on the document's details. Mahmoud said Lebanon had proposed some amendments to make the draft more acceptable to Beirut. "It must address the concerns of the Lebanese people. Otherwise it won't fly," he said. He added that Beirut remained committed to the seven-point plan adopted last month by its cabinet, which includes Hezbollah ministers. The plan calls for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, the return of Lebanese people driven from their homes by the fighting and the deployment of UN and Lebanese forces in the south, along with the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Speaking after a cabinet meeting held to discuss the document, Ghazi Aridi, the Lebanese information minister, said:
| “None of us will give up anything to do with national sovereignty, rights, dignity™...” |
Mohammed Fneish, one of two Hezbollah cabinet ministers, said: "We [will] abide by it on condition that no Israeli soldier remains inside Lebanese land. If they stay, we will not abide by it."
| “We will abide by it on condition that no Israeli soldier remains inside Lebanese land. If they stay, we will not abide by it...” |
An Israeli cabinet minister said the draft resolution put pressure on his country to complete its military operation quickly. "We have the coming days for lots of military moves. But we have to realise the timetable is getting shorter," said Isaac Herzog, the tourism minister and a member of the security cabinet. "It is a fact that we have to accept and act in accordance with," he said on Israeli Channel 1 television.
| “... a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations...” |
Nassir al-Nasser, Qatar's ambassador to the UN, the Security Council's only Arab member, said: "If we call for cessation of hostilities, then what after that? The Israeli forces are on the territory of Lebanon. They should go back."
| “The draft also called for Hezbollah to be disarmed and for Lebanon's borders to be solidified, especially in the disputed Shebaa Farms area...” |
A vote on the resolution is expected within the next few days. Some political analysts said the UN initiative would be difficult to put into practice. "There's going to be a huge gap between the content of this resolution and the military and psychological reality on the ground [which] will make it hard to implement," said Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Telhami said one problem was that Hezbollah has not been involved with drafting the resolution. "It isn't clear that they (Hezbollah) have any input in this, and it's hard to see how you're going to implement something like this [without it]."