Israel demands U.S. alter draft on Lebanon
By Aluf Benn
August 7, 2006
Haaretz
Original Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747037.html


Israel yesterday asked the U.S. government to make changes in the American-French draft resolution on Lebanon, which the Security Council is slated to approve tomorrow. 

The Israeli requests including the following: 

b Removing all mention of Shaba Farms, so as to avoid linking the cease-fire to an Israeli withdrawal from Shaba. However, government sources said that the United States is unlikely to accede to this. 

b Altering the clause on preventing arms transfers to Hezbollah to make the Lebanese government explicitly responsible for preventing such transfers and to give UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, a greater role in supervising the border crossings. 

b Instituting an explicit international embargo on arms transfers to Hezbollah. The current draft merely calls for such an embargo to be established sometime in the future. 

b Removing the reference to Israel's offensive military operations. Israel claims that it is merely defending itself against Hezbollah's attacks. 

Israel is also concerned about the resolution's failure to address the issue of creating an international force for Lebanon. The current draft says merely that a second resolution will be proposed at some later date to authorize deployment of such a force. This, said a senior government source, seems to indicate that there won't be an international force, because there will never be an agreement on it. 

If they're spitting blood over a declarative resolution [like the current one], just imagine what will happen when they get to a practical resolution, he said. 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has already announced that the resolution will be brought to a vote as is; government sources said this seems to be an effort to pressure the Lebanese government, which has already rejected the draft and is backing Hezbollah's demands. However, the sources noted, during the Security Council debate, other countries are likely to try to alter the clauses most favorable to Israel - such as one that essentially allows Israeli troops to remain in Lebanon for the time being - to meet Lebanon's demands.