News, analysis, and background on the ongoing conflict

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

What ended Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon in 2006—and made the latest incursion all but inevitable—is a once-heralded U.N. resolution honored more in the breach than the observance. The sad saga and uncertain future of Resolution 1701 act as a mirror to nearly everything that has happened between Israel and Lebanon in the 18 years since it was passed.

In the summer of 2006, U.N. Resolution 1701 became that vanishingly rare creature—a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution on the Middle East—that put an end to Israel’s unsuccessful 34-day invasion of Lebanon, which had been intended to oust Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. The resolution, heartily welcomed in Tel Aviv and Beirut, seemed to point the way toward a lasting peace by obliging Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah and Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereign frontiers.

What ended Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon in 2006—and made the latest incursion all but inevitable—is a once-heralded U.N. resolution honored more in the breach than the observance. The sad saga and uncertain future of Resolution 1701 act as a mirror to nearly everything that has happened between Israel and Lebanon in the 18 years since it was passed.

In the summer of 2006, U.N. Resolution 1701 became that vanishingly rare creature—a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution on the Middle East—that put an end to Israel’s unsuccessful 34-day invasion of Lebanon, which had been intended to oust Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. The resolution, heartily welcomed in Tel Aviv and Beirut, seemed to point the way toward a lasting peace by obliging Lebanon to rein in Hezbollah and Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereign frontiers.

For both drafters and diplomats at the time, the agreement seemed to give both countries something that they deeply craved. Lebanon, just emerging from the shadow of Syrian occupation, would see a chance to enforce its shaky writ over the entirety of its own territory and get a promise from the U.N. to perhaps, one day, look into the territorial disputes around the Shebaa Farms area that have vexed the region for decades. Israel would gain a security cushion along its northern border, with the troublesome Hezbollah pushed back at least as far as the Litani River, if not disarmed nationwide.

None of that, alas, came to pass. Hezbollah not only remained in southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River,........

© Foreign Policy