US envoy Amos Hochstein, the former Israeli soldier who succeeded in clinching a deal between Israel and Hezbollah over maritime borders only because everyone benefited from the offshore oil and gas platforms, is now playing dirty. He keeps pressuring the Lebanese and threatening them with unleashing an Israeli onslaught that would be worse than the Gaza genocide, but can't seem to convince the rabid Zionists of implementing UNSCR 1701 by withdrawing from Lebanese territories they still hold in the south.
Unfortunately for the vast majority of the Lebanese, they see both Israel and Hezbollah equally as hyper-militarized terrorist outlaw entities. The Lebanese don't want to see a victorious Hezbollah any more than they want to see Israel continue its occupation and harassment of the Lebanese population in the south.
Both Israel and Hezbollah have continued to violate UNSCR 1701 since it was voted in 2006. But America is either a weak, or a pernicious hypocritical, bully: It can't contain its own ally Israel's belligerence and colonialist DNA, and it doesn't talk directly with the Iranian masters of Hezbollah. It keeps talking to a ghost Lebanese state that has ceased to exist in practice: The Islamist Hezbollah is blocking the election of a president, it runs a resigned caretaker government without any powers, it is dismantling every Lebanese state institution (tourism, education, industry...), and holds Lebanon hostage to a short-term cessation of hostilities in Gaza and to a long-term and very hypothetical destruction of the state of Israel. Like Hamas, Hezbollah's Iranian-stated objective is to "liberate" Al-Aqsa Mosque, without ever articulating what the Israel-Palestine landscape should look like in a state of peace.
But Amos Hochstein, operating disingenoulsy to resolve all these long-standing issues, keeps visiting Lebanon and warning the Lebanese hostages of Hezbollah, but never Hezbollah directly mind you, of the dire consequences of Israel's planned invasion of Lebanon and its objective of seizing and annexing Lebanese territories south of the Litani river.
Mr. Hochstein: You are negotiating with the terrorist organization Hezbollah indirectly by talking to Hezbollah's hostages - the Lebanese people and state. No serious agreement can be reached in this upside-down negotiation; Hezbollah can always violate any such agreement and claim deniability by arguing that it was the Lebanese government, not Hezbollah, that agreed to the terms of the agreement. Hezbollah has done it before in 2006: UNSCR 1701 was negotiated between the Lebanese state and Israel, while the belligerents were Hezbollah and Israel. UNSCR has yet, after nearly 20 years, to be implemented.
Imagine if the Americans warn the Israeli hostages held by Hamas of terrible consequences to their lives if the Hamas-Israel war continues. That is exactly what Hochstein is doing: He is warning the Lebanese hostages of Hezbollah of dire consequences if the Hezbollah-Israel war continues in the south.
The Lebanese people are essentially waiting for certain war and fearing the worst.
The US had been involved in Lebanon since 1958 when President Eisenhower disptached 10,000 US Marines to protect Lebanon against the likes of Hezbollah back then. The US then kept its word and Lebanon survived the Arab Nationalist onslaught of Gamal Abdel-Nasser. But suddenly, around 1974, the US changed course and decided - thanks to the American Zionist war criminal Henry Kissinger - to turn Lebanon into a cesspool of violence where all the region's problems could be "contained" and where the millions of Palestinian refugees could be settled, thus relieving Israel of the Right of Return. That hasn't worked well, at least not yet, despite years of warfare between the Lebanese and the Palestinians. But the Americans, the Israelis and the Syrians keep trying: They are now determined to dismantle Lebanon and force it to accept the permanent settlement of 2.5 million Syrian refugees which gives the brutal Syrian regime a break.
With Israel free of the burden of a return of millions of Palestinian refugees, and Syria free of the return of millions of Syrian refugees, Lebanon will cease to exist as we know it. It will turn from a 50-50 Christian-Muslim pseudo-democracy into an abject Islamic terror state with a 5% Christian minority (the last free Christian community in the entire region) and in constant warfare between the Shiites and the Sunnis.
Thank you Amos.
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U.S. envoy says war at Lebanese-Israeli border would not be containable
Reuters
Mon, March 4, 2024 at 3:48 PM GMT+2·1 min read
Senior White House adviser Amos Hochstein speaks after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut
BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. Special Envoy Amos Hochstein said on Monday that a truce in Gaza would not necessarily bring an automatic end to hostilities across Lebanon's southern border and he warned about the risks of an escalation of the conflict.
Hochstein is visiting Beirut as part of diplomatic efforts to end four months of exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel taking place in parallel to the Gaza war.
It has marked the worst conflict across Lebanon's southern border since the 2006 war, fuelling fears of a bigger confrontation.
"Escalation of violence is in no one's interest, and there is no such thing as a limited war," he told reporters after meeting Lebanon's parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who is close to Hezbollah.
Hochstein said friction on the border had increased in recent weeks.
"A temporary ceasefire is not enough. A limited war is not containable," he said.
Lebanon deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab told Reuters he believed the timing of Hochstein's visit signalled progress in efforts over a Gaza truce.
Hezbollah has publicly indicated that it would halt its attacks on Israel from Lebanon when the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip stops, unless Israel kept shelling Lebanon.
But Hochstein said a Gaza truce would not automatically trigger calm in southern Lebanon and said he was "hopeful" for a diplomatic solution to the conflict across that border.
"It does not necessarily happen that when you have a ceasefire in Gaza, it just automatically extends" to Lebanon, he said.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; editing by Jason Neely and Angus MacSwan)
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