Lebanon: Neutrality

Lebanese neutrality, the only way-out

No peace plan will work unless Lebanon's neutrality is secured despite actors using the country as a playground for their own campaigns.

Commentary for ISN Security Watch (08/08/06)

Any ceasefire in the Middle East will be fragile unless there are fundamental changes in the international policy towards Lebanon. It will also be temporary unless more than lip service is paid to the fact that compared to Israel, it will be much more difficult to reign in a non-state actor such as Hizbollah.

For over six decades, Lebanon has been a playground for various internal militia and external powers. The Maronite Christians, the dominant political force in the country, looked to Paris for political support. Partly to ensure the independence of Lebanon, France also moved close to Syria, its former mandate territory. As a result, since the June war of 1967, Paris has been the principal Western supporter of Syria.

It was the French abandonment of Syrian president Basher al-Assad that enabled Washington to push through anti-Syrian moves in the UN Security Council, such as Resolutions 1559 (seeking Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon) and 1680 (demanding for Syrian recognition of Lebanon). This French shift also enabled the US to move closer to Lebanon.

Syria has been the second player in Lebanon. Even sixty years after the latter was formed, the Syrian leadership has yet to come to terms with Lebanon's independence.

The outburst of civil war in 1975 enabled Syria to intervene militarily in Lebanon. Initially, the Syrian intervention was aimed at preventing Maronites and Sunni Muslims from slaughtering each other.

However, the Syrian presence gradually became a source of resentment, especially within the context of Syria's refusal to recognize Lebanon's independence. The savior soon became an occupier. It was the assassination of former anti-Syrian prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in February 2005 that precipitated a hasty Syrian withdrawal. Still, Syria maintains its influence and to some Lebanese, even covert presence.

Israel is another player in Lebanon. Except for a brief intervention during the 1948 war, Lebanon did not participate in the Arab-Israeli wars. However, the presence of various Palestinian militant groups and their Fedayeen guerrilla in the 1970s dragged Lebanon into a conflict with Israel. This eventually led to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 and the subsequent occupation of the country's south until the summer of 2000 when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Lebanon.

The prolonged quiet along the the Israeli-Syrian border was compensated by both countries using Lebanon as their battleground. Devoid of military or diplomatic options vis-à-vis Israel, Syria has used Hizbollah as an effective leverage against Israel.

Further complicating matters, Israel has used Lebanon as a dumping ground for scores of Palestinian deportees, including hundreds of Hamas militants who were dropped in the no-man's land north of Israel's self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon in December 1992.
Fourthly, since its foundation in the early 1980s, the Shi'ite Hizbollah has emerged as a powerful player in Lebanon. Its protracted and often lethal military attacks against Israeli forces and their Christian allies in southern Lebanon were primarily responsible for the eventual Israeli pullout. Its role as a hardened resistance force has endowed it with international recognition, regional admiration and wider following among Muslims, Shias and Sunnis alike.

Hizbollah has continued to pursue actions that are neither discussed with nor endorsed by the Lebanese government, including the recent incursion into Israel and the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that effectively started the latest conflict.

Palestinians represent the fifth group of player-warriors in Lebanon. They came to Lebanon primarily as refugees after having been expelled by Jordan following the attempts by Palestinian militants to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy. Under a deal worked out by Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser hours before his death in September 1970, Lebanon agreed to host various Palestinian militant groups, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization, led by the late Yassir Arafat. These groups were granted the political space to operate and carry out attacks against Israel. This state-within-state arrangement however, sowed the seeds of a civil war that lasted for over 15 years.

Though much international attention on Resolution 1559 is focused on disarming Hizbollah, any implementation would also cover the Palestinian militants who control and operate most of the refugee camps in Lebanon.

Lebanon has thus, been turned into a dangerous playground for inter-group rivalry, inter-state conflict and private militias that pursue their own goals, violently and independently of the central authority.

Even a regional power would not be able to confront and contain these challenges, and the Lebanese army is symbolic at best and inadequate at worst.

Even a robust and interventionist UN force along the Israeli-Lebanese border could only be a temporary solution.

To restore peace, the international community, especially the UN Security Council would have to recognize, declare and guarantee Lebanese neutrality - a neutrality not only vis-à-vis its neighbors but also vis-à-vis the private militia within.

While ensuring Lebanese neutrality will not be any easy task, it would still be more effective than the periodic fighting over Lebanon that does nothing but leave human suffering in its wake, destroy the economy and empower one non-state actor over another until the cycle begins again.

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