Last month Nicholas Noe argued in the NYT:
Unfortunately, even though the Bush administration has provided more than $300 million in tactical aid to Lebanon since the Syrian withdrawal of 2005, it still apparently refuses to provide the kind of strategic weapons — guided rockets, tanks, modern artillery and intelligence-gathering equipment — that are desperately needed in this task. During her visit to Beirut this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice didn’t even mention the issue.
The reason for this, American and Lebanese officials say privately, is a longstanding prohibition against supplying Lebanese forces with advanced equipment that could be used against Israel.
This “red line†remains even though Hezbollah has far more dangerous weaponry, and despite Washington’s commitment to build up the authority of the state. It is a testament to how short-sighted and contradictory the American approach to Lebanon has been.
David Schenker disputes Noe’s claims and adds:
In the coming weeks, Washington may choose to modify its aid package to the LAF. If this occurs, it will be because of Hezbollah’s recent political and military gains, not Israeli complaints. By blaming Israel for a weak LAF, Noe is essentially repeating Hezbollah’s justification for retaining its army and arsenal.
It is in Washington’s long-term interest to see the LAF develop into a strong national institution. But it’s important to understand that the strength of this institution does not primarily rely on its capabilities, but rather on its will to take on difficult missions on orders from the democratically-elected government of Lebanon. No amount of U.S. military assistance will change this current dynamic.
Israel Matzav mentioned this dispute and adds:
Schenker apparently ignores the deep connections between the LAF and Hezbullah. The LAF will never be a national force until it is willing to challenge Hezbullah. Not only is that not happening (and I don’t expect it to happen), but with a two-thirds Shiite composition, the LAF is assisting Hezbullah in its arms buildup by allowing Hezbullah to set up positions inside Shiite villages in southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL cannot go without LAF escort, and then warning the terrorists when UNIFIL is coming to inspect. But then that continues a tradition of LAF collusion with Hezbullah that went on throughout the war two summers ago and even before it.
via memeorandum
On another front Justus Reid Weiner and Diane Morrison argue that Israel’s imminent trade of prisoners for corpses with Hezbollah strengthens Hezbollah politically.
The extra-legal behavior of the proxy organizations has two implications for the law applying to prisoners taken in Arab-Israeli conflicts. On the one hand, the organizations themselves illegally defy the laws of war by depriving Israeli POWs of their protected rights such as the right to contact Red Cross representatives and communicate with their families. On the other hand, the organizations’ fighters are unlawful combatants who are not entitled to the protected status of POWs, and are subject to prosecution as war criminals. Indeed, these organizations fall under the definition of terrorist groups under such instruments as the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, and Israel – like other states – is legally obliged to take a variety of steps to foil the terrorists’ activities and bring them to justice.
By exchanging prisoners with the proxy organizations as if they were law-abiding states, Israel can be seen as upgrading the status of the organizations’ unlawful combatants from terrorists and war criminals, giving them the same rights as lawful soldiers, without demanding from them the reciprocal obligations. At the same time, Israel downgrades the rights of its own captured soldiers by overlooking the organizations’ systematic depravation of POW rights for Israeli soldiers under the Geneva Conventions. The damage this does to both international law and the international criminal justice system is considerable.
Given that Hezbollah is a proxy army of Iran (and Syria) and that Iran is the major threat to the region, one would hope that the world appreciated the danger of strengthening Hezbollah militarily or politically. Given that Israel is the primary target of Hezbollah, one would assume that Israel would be most aware of the peril.
And yet it is others who are arguing the best way to fight Hezbollah, while Israel unilaterally entered into a deal with it. It makes no sense.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad
