LCP on UN Lebanon Resolution

Tranlslation courtesy of M. Abu Nasr.

**********

The Lebanese Communist Party.

Latest developments: 12 August 2006.

Will the American-Israeli aggression against Lebanon
stop after the unanimous adoption by the Security
Council of Resolution 1701 yesterday?

One month and a day after the start of the
American-Israeli aggression against Lebanon, after the
failure of that aggression and its inability to
achieve its aims, after America’s repeated use of
stalling tactics, delaying expected sessions of the
Security Council, and after numerous American drafts
that were proposed and then retouched by France, it
was the battlefield in the south of Lebanon and the
noble resistance that have imposed a new reality
hitherto unknown to Israel in all its long history of
battle in the region and its many well-known wars.
After attacks and retreats in every village in the
south, after which the enemy claimed to have won some
sort of victory or achieved some goal, the dust has
cleared and it is obvious that the field is truly in
the hands of the Islamic resistance that is defending,
resisting, and inflicting losses and military
casualties on the occupying enemy. This reality has
exhausted America’s excuses, its store of delaying
tactics and its time. What has been taking place on
the field of battle has resulted in a growing number
of splits and differences and varying interpretations
in many quarters - within Lebanon, between Israelis,
between Europe and America - it has shuffled the
cards. Diplomats worked feverishly and intensely
until the resolution was passed and announced today
against the backdrop of the decision by the Israeli
government to expand the scope of its military
operations on the ground in the south up to the
al-Litani River, operations that are disconcerting
militarily and politically inside Israel. We might
say that the Security Council resolution was issued so
as to allow the international community to catch its
breath in the raging battle, to allow it to make a
calm reassessment, not only in terms of the latest
developments on the battlefield, but also in terms of
the latest political developments as well, and the
transformations taking place there (in the Arab
states’ positions and the internal Lebanese position,
for example).

The resolution, therefore, was the result of the
steadfastness of the resistance forces and the people
together. The question now is: how seriously will it
be implemented? Will it be regarded as a first step or
a temporary truce? Many questions could be raised if
we look deeply into each paragraph of the resolution
that was finally issued. But it is demonstrable that
an agreement on this resolution would not have been
achieved if all the means available to Israel to
change the reality on the battlefield had not been
exhausted, and if not for the changes in the positions
of various parties (France, various groups in Lebanon,
the Arab states, and the change from a stance of
giving legitimacy to the aggression to one of
embracing yesterday’s Security Council resolution).

Despite that, we can see that there are many landmines
strewn about the "field" of this resolution that does
not meet the minimum Lebanese requirements as
represented by the seven points that the Lebanese
government put forth unanimously, even though parts of
them were picked out and inserted.

· The agreement excluded the demand for Israel to be
brought to trial under international law for the
savagery of its aggression against the territory and
people of Lebanon. Instead, the agreement condemned
Hizballah as the instigator of the fighting, ignoring
all of Israel’s crimes and acts of aggression against
Lebanon.

· The agreement did not include a call for an
immediate cease-fire but for a cessation of military
operations. This means that the door is left open for
Israel and its army to adjust themselves to the
resolution and take whatever required military steps
they believe to be appropriate according to joint
Israeli-American needs.

· In the agreement America makes a temporary tactical
retreat following the failure of the aggression and
its inability to achieve its aims, in an attempt to
create a situation where it can take hold of what is
going on and bring into play some of its well-known
cards, such as the Lebanese internal situation.

· The resolution ignores the matter of the prisoners;
it leaves the subject of the Shabaa Farms area outside
the discussion with the aim of possibly using that
later in deals with regional players.

· It is noteworthy that every point in the resolution
that is in the interests of Lebanon is a preparatory
point, a statement about something for which matters
are to be prepared; while every point that is in the
interests of Israel is a point for actual
implementation.

Much can be said about the resolution but in any case
this agreement would not have been reached had it not
been for continuing, impressive, patriotic, popular
steadfastness; had it not been for the courageous
resistance that once again affirmed that Lebanon with
its patriotic and Islamic resistance and the
steadfastness of its people, and with the rallying of
all the patriotic and democratic forces around the
resistance, cannot be turned into an arena for the
American scheme for the region. It will not be made
into a launching point for the "New Middle East."
Lebanon will only be a place of steadfastness,
patriotism, and Arab identity, regardless of whatever
dreams some might entertain about transferring it from
the patriotic Arab shore to the American shore.

Until this moment all the international attempts to
implement the American-European resolution 1559 have
failed. Equally a failure have been all attempts have
to achieve any of the goals of the American-Israeli
aggression other than the goal of killing the women,
children, and innocent people who paid the price for
this neo-nazi hatred. The attempts of some of the
March 14 forces - including Saad al-Hariri who flew
into Beirut on a French helicopter with
American-Israeli permission, trying to look like a
political savior, spreading the notion that the
solution came as a result of his tireless efforts
abroad all throughout the period of the aggression -
all that will be of no use unless we accept the
principle of a national conference on the basis that
Lebanon has won a victory over the American-Israeli
scheme and we must work quickly and with all our might
to rise to the level of our responsibilities to the
country to make use of this victory politically in
order to take a step forward towards the building of a
state of law and institutions, free of confessionalist
political assignments and above narrow sectarian
interests.

The people and resistance of Lebanon have displayed
their mighty steel will and we must now frustrate all
attempts to gut and empty this patriotic victory of
its contents on the military, political, economic, and
social levels. Our central task must be to fortify
and bolster Lebanese national unity, preventing any
infiltration, reinforcing the legitimate confrontation
with the on-going American-Israeli scheme against our
homeland.

Arabic original: http://www.lcparty.org/120806_1.html