A Peace to End All Peace

David Fromkin's excellent study of the World War I peace settlement's effect on the Middle East was titled A peace to end all peace. That title would be equally apt for a proposal put forth by Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and France for ending the current round of fighting in Lebanon.

According to Haaretz, the proposal calls for an immediate, unconditional cease-fire, followed later by implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which mandates Hezbollah's disarmament and the deployment of the Lebanese army along the Israel-Lebanon border.

However, there are two catches: Resolution 1559 would be implemented only via negotiations among the various Lebanese factions, and only if Israel agrees to withdraw from a small piece of land called Shaba Farms.

Conditioning the resolution's implementation on the agreement of all Lebanese factions, including Hezbollah, virtually guarantees that it will never be implemented at all.

EVEN MORE serious, however, is the proposal that Hezbollah's disarmament be conditioned on an Israeli withdrawal from Shaba Farms, thereby rendering meaningless the UN's own certification, just six years ago, that Israel had withdrawn from every last inch of Lebanese territory.

This certification, unanimously issued by the UN Security Council following Israel's pullout from Lebanon in May 2000, was based on the recommendation of UN experts who carefully studied old maps of the border and compared them to Israel's withdrawal line.

Unless the rest of the international community decisively rejects the idea of conditioning Hezbollah's disarmament and the Lebanese army's redeployment on an Israeli withdrawal from Shaba Farms, the Lebanese cease-fire deal will prove the death knell of Middle East peace for many years to come.