Cease-Fire Draft at U.N. Falters Amid Arab Criticism 
By Warren Hoge and Neil MacFarquahar	
August 7, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/world/middleeast/07diplo.html

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 6 — Efforts to speed adoption of a draft resolution to halt the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah faltered at the United Nations on Sunday while sharp criticism of the measure rang out across the Middle East.
The Security Council, despite enormous pressure to take action in a war that has raged unchecked for 26 days, failed to hold an expected meeting to discuss the measure and schedule a vote. France and the United States, which announced agreement on the draft on Saturday, plunged into renewed negotiations to meet objections to crucial terms of the proposal offered in amendments by Lebanon and by Qatar, the Arab representative on the Council.
The stalling of progress at the United Nations reflected an outpouring of condemnation across the Middle East, demonstrating a conviction that the proposed resolution spoke to all of Israel’s demands, backed by the United States, without addressing those of Hezbollah. 
The resolution, worked out after a week of intensive talks between Paris and Washington, calls for a truce, asks the current United Nations peacekeeping force to monitor the border area and lays out a plan for a permanent cease-fire and political settlement. But while it called for immediate cessations of “all attacks” by Hezbollah and “offensive military operations” by Israel, it did not require Israeli troops to leave southern Lebanon. 
In Lebanon, the speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, said his country rejected the resolution because it did not call for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops and an exchange of prisoners. “Lebanon, and all the Lebanese people, reject any solution” that does not address issues agreed upon by the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, Mr. Berri said at a news conference.
Arab analysts and diplomats in the Middle East were skeptical about the resolution having any chance of halting the fighting. “They are attempting to gain diplomatically what they failed to achieve militarily,” said one diplomat with long experience in the Middle East. “I expect the cease-fire to be rammed through, but it will turn into a war of attrition.”
Both Iran and Syria, supporters and suppliers of Hezbollah, rejected the resolution. “This draft is a recipe for the continuation of the war because it is not fair to Lebanon,” Walid Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, said in Beirut.
The resolution was being viewed in the region as more a vehicle to calm Western public opinion than one that would actually address the problems on the ground. All Western governments have been facing domestic pressure to halt the alarming deaths of civilians. American allies like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan found themselves caught in the middle. They do not want to condemn a resolution hammered out by their Washington supporters, but at the same time backing the document threatened to anger a simmering public that has rallied to Hezbollah’s cause.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking to reporters in Crawford, Tex., where she was briefing President Bush, cautioned that the resolution was “a first step” and said she did not expect an immediate end to the violence. “These things take a while to wind down,” Ms. Rice told reporters, adding that she “would hope that you would see very early on an end to the kind of large-scale violence that has been raging.’’
She said she had spoken to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon several times on Saturday. “There are things the Israelis wanted and things the Lebanese wanted, and everybody wasn’t going to get everything that they wanted,” she said.
In Israel, the normally talkative cabinet was tight-lipped, but the Israeli news media, citing unidentified government officials, said the government was generally pleased with the plan. The justice minister, Haim Ramon, said that Israel would press ahead with its attacks and that its forces would remain in Lebanon until an international force arrived. Given the complexities of creating that force and putting it in place, that moment could be at least a month away.
The makeup of that force will be addressed in a second resolution that would also set established borders for Lebanon and lay out the procedure for disarming Hezbollah. Jean-Marc de la Sablière, the French ambassador to the United Nations, estimated that resolution would take two to three weeks to prepare. 
Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, who was in Crawford, mentioned logistical issues about the force that must be resolved. “Who’s going to contribute forces,” he said, “when will they be ready to move, who’s going to lift them to get them into the theater; once they’re in the theater, where do they go?’’
The French and American ambassadors, Mr. de la Sablière and John R. Bolton, held a meeting on Sunday afternoon with envoys from the other Security Council permanent members, Britain, China and Russia. Afterward, revised language was sent to the various capitals for overnight review and consideration in a Council meeting scheduled for Monday.
“Our concern, of course, is that the Lebanese government seems to be unhappy with the draft resolution which was produced by France and the United States,” said Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador. “So we are discussing the situation, but unfortunately I don’t think there is a magic wand.” He said that “some of the amendments which we have seen go pretty far from the text which was negotiated, we were assured, in close consultation with the parties, the Lebanese and Israeli governments.”
The principal amendment introduced by Nouhad Mahmoud, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry official, would require Israel to hand over its positions in Lebanon to Unifil, the United Nations peacekeeping force, and withdraw its troops from the country “forthwith.” A second amendment asked for an Israeli withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms area that Israel seized in the 1967 war. 
Warren Hoge reported from the United Nations for this article, and Neil MacFarquhar from Damascus, Syria. Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting from Crawford, Tex., John Kifner from Beirut, Lebanon, and Steven Erlanger from Jerusalem.