Home » Politics & Society » International Affairs » Global Security » Delicate Truce in the Mid-East

After a month -long war between Israel and Hezbollah, a ceasefire was finally achieved between the two warring powers on Aug. 11. But many believe this UN ceasefire will not serve as a long-term peace plan for the region.

"The way I see it is Israel has never lived up to its so-called peace pretense. Israeli airplanes flew over Beirut even after the ceasefire, so they never ever live up to their peace promises, " said Adnan Noureddine, public relations officer for the al-Huda Lebanese Muslim Society, a pre-dominantly Shi'ia organization based in the GTA.

"This peace settlement may go a little bit further only because they [Israelis] know very well now that there is someone who can stand up against them," he said.

Although there is a strong sense of distrust between both disputing sides, both hope that peace will reign in the region. The war cost more than 1,200 lives---the cost ranging higher on the Lebanese side of the border, where at least 1,000 civilians have been reportedly killed. The damage on the Israeli side was nearly 160 casualties.

Alicia Richler, the associate director of communications at the Canada-Israeli Committee chose not to make a statement on the longevity of this ceasefire, but she did mention that the current peace settlement would hold only if Lebanon kept its promise and took hold of southern Lebanon. Otherwise, she said, the ceasefire would lose its grip and stability in the region would be deeply undermined.

"For this ceasefire to really hold Hezbollah has to keep its part of the bargain. It must disarm and it must allow the Lebanese army to rule in southern Lebanon. That is the only way the ceasefire is going to hold," she said.

"If Hezbollah is going to be allowed to re-arm, then both sides haven't achieved anything. I don't think this [war] is over, and I don't think we have accomplished very much and it is very sad. A lot more has to be done but hopefully it can be done on a negotiating table, and people can sit down and talk to each other."

Richler said this ceasefire would not lead to long-term peace, but rather, if it is successful, would only lead to some sort of stability, like that achieved between Israel and Jordan. Peace, she said, would only come with Israel coming to terms with all its neighbours, including the Palestinians. She said this stability and "some quiet" would eventually translate into peace in the long-run.

Richler mentioned that regardless of the statements made by the Israeli government that Hezbollah has been severely damaged, the reality is that Hezbollah still remains as a fully functioning organization in southern Lebanon, an organization she believes carries a constitution that does not want to "terrorize" Israel indefinitely, but instead wants to completely "exterminate" Israel.

"Israel is happy to live next to Lebanon, but Israel is not going anywhere and if they have to, and if they are attacked again, Israel will fight as hard as it can to defend itself. If more soldiers are captured, Israel will go right back to doing what they were doing before and they won't even hesitate," she said.

But Noureddine views Hezbollah under an entirely different light and said it was actually Zionist Israel that was causing the problems in the Middle East. He explained that for centuries, Christians, Muslims and Jews used to co-exist in peace in the Arab world and the current problems in the area were not due to religion, but due to the existence of the political ideology of Zionism, which Noureddine coined as "foreign" and like "cancer in the body."

"It is like when a foreign organ is placed in the body, the whole body starts rejecting it, because it is not native to it, that is exactly how Israel is in the Arab world. Just look at the map, it is entirely Arab and Israel is there in the middle of it," he said. "Jews are not foreign to the Middle East, they are from the region, just like Arabs.It is the Zionist ideology that is foreign to the region. There are a lot of Jewish people that are against Israel. Anti-Israel doesn't necessarily mean anti-Semitic, don't forget that Arabs themselves are Semitic."

Noureddine explained that as a Lebanese himself, he does not see how anyone could disassociate Hezbollah from Lebanon. He said Hezbollah is Lebanon and Hezhollah represents the peoples' movement against Israeli occupation in their country. He said it was only the United States, Israel and their backers that view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, otherwise, in Lebanon, it enjoys the status of a fully functioning political party.

"The West knows that Hezbollah has two representatives in the Lebanese government, but they ignore it on purpose because they want to say it is a terrorist organization. Why is it a terrorist organization? Because it is defending its people? Protecting the people from Israeli aggression? Israel is the terrorist, that didn't leave a single standing bridge in all of Lebanon and killed thousands of civilians," Noureddine said.

Another puzzling issue after the ceasefire was the claim of victory on both sides. For Richler, it was something she expected.

"I personally don't think anybody won this one. When a war ends in a ceasefire, both sides don't really accomplish anything. I don't think there are any winners, reality is, I think there are only losers here," she said.

Richler explained that in the Israeli Knesset, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert claimed Israeli victory only to boost the morale of the Israeli people, in an attempt to find positives out of a war that cost so many lives. She said the government was trying to let the public know that if Israel is attacked, it will do something about it. Richler said any other country would say the same thing for the people, but in reality, she doesn't think anybody won the war.

Noureddine however, stated a more clear-cut explanation of why he thought Hezbollah did achieve a resounding victory. He said in any war, there are mostly losers because there are a large number of causalities, but at the same time, judging is done not only based on the amount of people that are killed, but also based on the achievement of the stated purpose of the war. He said this war can only be judged by the achievement of its purpose.

"If there is one loser, it means the other one is the winner. The stated purpose of the war was that they wanted to get back their two soldiers, and they didn't achieve that and then they wanted to dismantle Hezbollah, which they couldn't achieve either. If there is more of a winner, then it is definitely Hezbollah."

The copyright of the article Delicate Truce in the Mid-East in Global Security is owned by Sumaira Shaikh. Permission to republish Delicate Truce in the Mid-East in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.