BEIRUT — For much of my adult life, I have found that doing crossword puzzles and reading United Nations Security Council resolutions are two very effective ways to keep the mind alert and functioning at a reasonable level of utility. The recent UNSC Resolution 1701, passed two weeks ago to bring an end to the fighting between Israel and Hizbullah, will go down in UN lore as a masterpiece of deliberate and constructive diplomatic fluidity, and a gold medal winner among mind and word games. That’s precisely why it was agreed on, passed unanimously, and is being slowly implemented. For it reflects what professional diplomats do best: Construct win-win arrangements that all sides can sell to their people as great national triumphs.
The resolution provides a historic opportunity to address this dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict in a manner that augurs well for a possible revival of attempts to restart a comprehensive approach to Arab-Israeli peace-making. This is why it is so important to make this resolution work. UNSC Resolution 1701 is important in a wider context because of four crucial elements:
* It applies the rule of law as the basic criterion for conflict resolution. This is a most welcomed change from the recent unruly ways of zealots in Washington, Israel, and, increasingly, in London, who prefer to change conditions in the Middle East by using a combination of their equally powerful arrogance and armies. Yet, importantly, it also puts brakes on those amongst us in the Arab-Iranian Middle East whose proclivity to unilateral and often demagogic militancy has been one of the recurring catastrophes of our age. Police states and gangster politics in either the Middle East or the West must be countered by applying the rule of law as the determinant of political behavior and the use of force.
* It reflects negotiated positions and concerns of all the key players, excluding none. The UN forum is valuable not just for the fine meals and useful conversation in the delegates’ dining room overlooking the East River, but also for forcing a multilateral approach to dealing with issues that bilateral or unilateral ways do not achieve. A big problem we suffer in the region now is that some of the key players and intermittent rascals — the United States, UK, Israel, Hizbullah, Iran, Syria, Hamas — often do not speak to each other, let alone negotiate their differences. Bombast and bombs become the preferred vocabulary of interaction in such cases. This resolution breaks the pattern of boycotting key players, and includes Hizbullah in its wording and scope, which provides an approach that can be repeated regionally.
* It treats all parties relatively, but not fully, equally and fairly, by including all the crucial issues for both sides and by renegotiating to make it more acceptable to both sides. All the key issues for Lebanon and Israel are mentioned in the text in some manner, including prisoners, the occupied Shabaa farms, cross-border raids, Lebanese government authority in the south, an expanded international force to ensure the peace, a full and speedy Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and stopping foreign armament of Hizbullah or other non-governmental armed groups in Lebanon. The embarrassingly pro-Israeli first draft of the resolution was changed after forceful collective Arab diplomatic intervention and a spirited posture by the Lebanese government — both rare and welcomed events that elicited some flexibility from the other side.
* It includes robust international military involvement to implement the resolution, signifying both its political legitimacy and an intent to apply its terms. This is the most contentious and complex part of the resolution, because the precise mandate of the international troops under UN command is disputed. Israel, the United States and others in Lebanon and abroad want Hizbullah to be relieved of its weapons quickly, while the prevalent view in Lebanon, including in the government, is that Hizbullah’s armed/disarmed status will be addressed for sure, but after the security and sovereignty issues with Israel are resolved. The letter of the resolution demands that Hizbullah and Israel stop using weapons against each other, which is happening and is likely to continue. The spirit of the resolution expects that weapons in Lebanon will only be in the hands and control of the Lebanese government and armed forces. This must happen one day in the near future, when the government in Beirut feels that Israel no longer threatens, occupies or attacks Lebanon.
It is vital that Resolution 1701 be implemented quickly, efficiently, equitably and fully, for the sake of Lebanon and Israel, but also for the wider region. Its ground-breaking nature could provide an important vision of how to move more ambitiously to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict in full. That would also blunt some of the local tension, resentment and militarism that are exploited by parties further afield, such as the United States and Iran. Here’s my vote of confidence for those whose long lunches along the East River in New York result in constructive outcomes in the form of new resolutions that both test the riddle-solving portions of my brain and make it more likely that the rest of me won’t get blown up in another missile war in the coming months.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, and editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star.
Copyright ©2006 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 25 August 2006
Word Count: 860
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