T. Belman. How can we do this deal with Lebanon when we don’t have diplomatic relations with Lebanon.. Wikipedia reports “Israel and Lebanon signed an agreement on May 17, 1983 which was a peace treaty in all but name. Lebanon signed the agreement under American and Israeli pressure, but it was opposed by Syria.” . UNSC Res 1701 in 2006 called for “Disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon (implying Hezbollah)”. This was never implemented.
If they attack us, does this deal end? It should be contingent on peace being maintained.
IMRA
The efficacy of the Lebanon deal, in particular the status of the swath of area of our northern coast which we unilaterally hold for vital security reasons, is a question of international law and thus not in the bailiwick of defense experts.
A defense expert can proclaim that this critical area is secured by the deal for all kinds of reasons which are driven by their assessment of the deterrent effect that implementation of the deal may have on Hizbullah rather than any definitive rights which the deal gives to the Jewish State.
And that’s an extremely reckless assumption.
I daresay that most of the very same talking heads now explaining that the existence of a Lebanese gas rig serves as our guaranty of good behavior on the part of the Lebanese will explain with the same or more vigor, should things go terribly wrong, that WE CANNOT DESTROY THE GAS RIG OF A FRENCH COMPANY.
I write with an extremely heavy heart that many of the defense experts now talking about deterrence have for years embraced the self serving illusion that Hizbullah has not fired its huge arsenal of rockets at us because it is deterred rather than patient.
A reminder: while we frequently bomb Syrian locations associated with the Iranian program to supply Hizbullah with guided rockets, the Israel Air Force takes no action once these same rockets reach Lebanon (and/or if they are assembled in Lebanon). So who is the deterred party?
And when you take the French gas rig of the board we find ourselves threatening to bomb Lebanon back to the stone age when the Lebanese already managed to put themselves in the stone age.
We have a long history of screwing up on the wording of agreements and written understandings because we thought that the dynamics of the situation were more important than the texts.
And time and again we have found ourselves plagued by errors and omissions.
An example: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 was the crowning achievement of then FM Tzipi Livni. It turned out that its wording effectively neutered the UN force created to implement it in Lebanon.
It is reported that Naftali Bennett will decide how to vote on the deal after consulting with defense experts and reads the text himself. I
sincerely hope that he sits down with an experienced international lawexpert before making his decision.
Trump was able to kill the JCPOA because it was never approved by Congress raising it to the lever of a treaty.
Perhaps a rightwing government can cancel the deal for the same reason or because it wasn’t submitted to the people in a referendum as required by Israel law.
@Ted
The answer to this very poignant question will depend on whom is running the country. If the Left succeeds in blocking the formation of a Nationalist govt again, they will do whatever the Americans want them to do, as it seems is their policy to date, making this election even more important than it was just a few weeks ago.
Hopefully the Supreme court will block the passage of this agreement. This is not a subject for a Caretaker govt.
Supreme court to state: Give a reason for not filing order against passing Lebanon deal