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World Jewish News
Netanyahu: Lebanon will pay if Hezbollah attacks
11.08.2009
Israel will hold Lebanon responsible for any future Hezbollah attack should the Iranian- and Syrian-backed militia be brought into Beirut's incoming government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
Though U.S.-backed Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri bested Hezbollah in a June ballot, he is holding talks on a new coalition expected to include the Shi'ite group and its allies. Hezbollah has a minister in the outgoing cabinet.
Israel fought Hezbollah in its southern Lebanese bastions in a 2006 war but has accused the guerrillas of rearming under the noses of UN peacekeepers and plotting attacks on Israelis to avenge the assassination of top militia Imad Mugniyeh last year.
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Some analysts believe that Israel, which has hinted it could attack Iran's nuclear facilities, also wants to blunt Hezbollah's ability to serve as a retaliatory arm of Tehran.
"If Hezbollah joins the Lebanese government as an official entity, let it be clear that the Lebanese government, as far as we are concerned, is responsible for any attack -- any attack -- from its area on the state of Israel," Netanyahu told reporters.
"It cannot hide and say: 'It's Hezbollah, we don't control them.'"
Triggered by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, the 2006 summer war exacted a heavy toll on Lebanese infrastructure. Some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed.
Borderline calm
Israel credits the offensive with keeping the border largely quiet since, but Hezbollah has said it is ready to fight again and is determined to hit back for the Feb. 12, 2008 killing of its military mastermind, Imad Mugniyeh, in a Damascus car-bombing.
Israel denied involvement in that slaying, and has warned that Hezbollah and Lebanon would bear the consequences for any reprisals against Israelis abroad.
Netanyahu's threat followed similar comments by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in recent days. The spiraling rhetoric has stirred speculation on both sides of the frontier that a fresh conflict could be in the making.
Senior Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hashim Safieddin said on Sunday that if Israel attacked Lebanon again, the group's response would make the 2006 war seem like "a joke", Lebanese media reported.
Asked about Netanyahu's remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said they were intended to preserve the quiet through deterrence. But he also made clear that Israel regards its neighbor as a potential Iranian proxy.
"Hezbollah is a terror organization that has become a semi-army. Basically, it is a branch of Iran on our northern border, with Syria's consent and with Lebanon's consent. This is not a healthy phenomenon," Meridor told Israel Radio.
Assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, Israel has questioned the efficacy of U.S.-led efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy. Iran denies seeking the bomb but has stoked regional jitters with virulently anti-Israel statements and support for Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamist militants similarly arrayed against the Jewish state.
Tension continued to mount Monday in southern Lebanon after Israeli forces reportedly advanced to the area of the Shaba farms, forcing the Lebanese army on alert, a Lebanese army source said.
The source said three armored Israeli vehicles, accompanied by a civilian car, advanced towards Shaba Farms, located at the junction of south-east Lebanon, south-west Syria and northern Israel.
Israel seized the 25-square-kilometre swath of land rich in water resources from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war when it captured the neighboring Golan Heights, which it later annexed.
Since then, the Shaba Farms have been caught in a tug-of-war between the three nations. Lebanon claims, with the backing of Syria, that Shaba is Lebanese. Meanwhile, Israel says the area is part of Syria and that their fate should be discussed in future peace talks with Israel.
The Lebanese army, stationed on its side of the border, has been placed on high alert, deploying tanks and positioning soldiers inside fortifications, the Lebanese military source added.
Источник: Haaretz
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