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By Jason D. Greenblatt
Former White House Middle East Envoy
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U.N. Resolution 1701 is in the news again after a bloody weekend in the ongoing Israel-Hezbollah war. A Hezbollah drone hit an Israel Defense Forces base, killing several soldiers and wounding hundreds more. Meanwhile, the IDF incursion into southern Lebanon, to push Hezbollah out of the positions from which it has fired thousands of missiles into Israel over the past year, has met resistance from the U.N. agency whose job it was to keep Hezbollah at bay for the past 18 years.
Among the intellectual and diplomatic classes, the solution to the clear and present danger from Hezbollah against Israel, and the emptying of a vast area of northern Israel because of Hezbollah's unprovoked attacks against the Jewish state, is reestablishing Resolution 1701. It's as if they simply want to tack on an addendum to the original resolution, "and this time we mean it." But that is a tremendous mistake. There is a reason 1701 failed. It was destined to because U.N. peacekeepers cannot restrain a fanatical group backed by a rogue state bent on destroying another nation.
Some background provides useful context. Resolution 1701 was adopted by the U.N. Security Council in August 2006 to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel after a monthlong war that started when the Iran-backed group attacked Israel, killing three soldiers and abducting two more. The resolution called for a full cessation of violence and Hezbollah's disarmament, in exchange for IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the deployment of the Lebanese army along with an enhanced United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The IDF withdrew, leaving Israel vulnerable to more fighting on its northern front, while the provisions that were meant to keep Israel safe have completely failed.
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Hezbollah, needless to say, did not disarm. To the contrary, it has stockpiled a huge arsenal of lethal weapons—including, by some estimates, 150,000 rockets and missiles (including precision missiles)—to wage a war on Iran's behalf against the Jewish state. Israel has successfully destroyed some portions of these rockets and missiles over the past few weeks, but in the past few days we have seen that Hezbollah still has plenty of firepower as well as effective drones.
But Resolution 1701's principal failure was in its establishment of a demilitarized zone between the Litani River and the Lebanon-Israel border. UNIFIL has been completely unable or unwilling to enforce this provision. Hezbollah has fired thousands of missiles at Israel from this area where it is not "allowed" to be. As video footage has shown, Hezbollah has built massive, reinforced tunnel systems and other military outposts and attacked Israel from areas right under UNIFIL's nose, just yards from UNIFIL buildings. Even as I write this, northern and central Israel are being bombarded from launch sites in the should-be-demilitarized zone, sending millions of Israelis into shelters.
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UNIFIL seems to find its voice only to cry foul when Israel gets too close. It let Hezbollah arm, entrench and dominate in southern Lebanon without the slightest complaint, probably surmising that the jihadi group would have no compunction about killing anyone who blew the whistle about 1701 violations. This showcases one of the key systemic shortcomings of diplomatic solutions between nations and militant organizations. When peacekeepers are afraid to restrain Hezbollah but unafraid to complain about Israel, they end up being cruel to the kind and kind to the cruel.
That is why 1701 has not worked and will not work no matter how intently Western diplomats insist. The fact of the matter is that Hezbollah is holding Lebanon hostage on Iran's behalf. It exists to destroy Israel and will not stop trying to do that until it is dismantled, even as it wrecks Lebanon in the process.
Thinking that 1701 is the solution to Hezbollah's terrorizing of Israel's northern and central regions—not to mention non-Hezbollah Lebanese, Syrians and other Middle Eastern groups—is the height of ostrich diplomacy. Or it's the delusion that we can reach a peaceful solution by sticking our heads in the sand and pretending the source of the turmoil doesn't exist. That's what UNIFIL does when Hezbollah violates the rules it never intended to follow. And that's what Western "experts" do when they insist that UNIFIL can solve the problem. That is what the Biden-Harris administration does when it repeats these pipe dreams.
Such a solution is simply not attuned to the nature of the issue and to the magnitude of Hezbollah's ambitions and capabilities. The idea that pushing Hezbollah north of the Litani would keep it from regrouping and restarting its southern march into Israel is naive to the point of willful ignorance. At best, success in reestablishing Resolution 1701 would be fleeting, a minor setback in what should be an all-out effort to remove Hezbollah's offensive capabilities.
Finally, trying to resolve the hostilities through 1701 would be a nightmare for the people of Lebanon. It would allow Iran and its proxy Hezbollah to maintain their chokehold on the country, where they brutally repress the population of a once-flourishing nation to turn it into a staging ground for the ayatollahs' war against the Jews. Hezbollah could replenish its degraded weapons arsenal if given the time and the world's diverted attention. Now is a unique opportunity to capitalize on Hezbollah's degradation—as it is currently leaderless, depleted and on the run—to help the Lebanese people liberate themselves from what is essentially a foreign occupation.
We in the West need to be devising strategies to finish Hezbollah off and free the Middle East from its destabilizing presence—not returning to failed diplomatic frameworks that could give a militant organization a new lease on life. The more time we give these groups, the more sophisticated and dangerous they become.
Jason D. Greenblatt was the White House Middle East envoy in the Trump administration. He is the author of In the Path of Abraham: How Donald Trump Made Peace in the Middle East—and How to Stop Joe Biden From Unmaking It and the founder of Abraham Venture LLC. Follow him on X: @GreenblattJD
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