A few days before the four-year commemoration of the 2006 July War, the situation in Lebanon, and particularly in South Lebanon, is extremely volatile, essentially because of Israel's threats, the intensive preparations its army is making and what has been leaked in its newspapers about plans to “sever Iran's arms” – as long as directing a strike against the head has been forbidden by a US decision, but also because of Hezbollah's success at voiding Resolution 1701 of its content and at developing its arsenal and troops to higher standards than before the last war. This is a matter which the leaders of the party themselves openly declare, even if they do not reach the extent of saying that such mobilization includes the area South of the Litani River, an area which is supposed to be disarmed and under the supervision of UN troops and the Lebanese Army. Yet what confirms speculations about this area having gradually returned to be a main area of operations for Hezbollah, with what this entails in terms of freedom of movement for its fighters, is the recent series of skirmishes between UN troops and “local inhabitants” under the pretext that the UNIFIL is not coordinating its movements with the Lebanese Army, is “coming up with its own interpretation” of Resolution 1701, and seeks to “modify the rules of engagement”. These accusations directed against the UN force were issued by political and media bodies affiliated with or close to Hezbollah, while the Lebanese Army has not officially adopted any of them – knowing that the level of coordination between the UNIFIL and the Army has not witnessed any changes since the UN force deployed, and that there is a daily predetermined exchange between the two sides of the scheduled activity of each of them in the area of operations and patrols they intends to carry out, depending on whether it requires coordination from the other side. Moreover, the Lebanese Army has not over the past four years even once complained of the level of coordination with UN troops. Surely one must wonder here about the secret behind the ability of the “local inhabitants” to know whether the arrival of a patrol of UN troops to their village has taken place in coordination with the Army or not. Similarly, this would be followed by another question about the discrimination such “inhabitants” practice in dealing with UNIFIL units, as only Europeans meet with “popular anger”, while we have not heard for example of a patrol of Ghanaian troops having stones thrown at it, or of “civilians” confiscating the personal cameras of soldiers from the Indian Battalion after they had taken pictures of uninhabited valleys. Is this connected to foreign directives implemented by Hezbollah in light of the rising tension between Iran and the West due to the sanctions? Some in Tehran may believe, after new UN sanctions were ratified and followed by additional and harsher US and EU sanctions, that it is imperative to create an opening in some place in order to reduce some of the pressure it is bearing, and that there is no better place than South Lebanon, where Hezbollah, which considers itself “religiously bound” to complying with the Iranian leadership's requests, has the ability and the capabilities that would indirectly allow it to keep the US and the West busy. The incidents with the UNIFIL which South Lebanon is currently witnessing fall within the framework of a preprogrammed shift to a new phase, one that requires “taming” UN troops and making them understand that their desire to carry out their mission, which requires them to prevent Hezbollah from storing weapons and deploying fighters in the area South of the Litani River, would mean confrontation with the “local inhabitants”, of which no one knows how they might develop, with what this involves in terms of the possibility of countries withdrawing their units from participation in the UNIFIL if they consider that it will be difficult for them to accept the de facto situation. In effect, the incidents of obstructing UNIFIL patrols have achieved their purpose, as Hezbollah representatives participated in an official meeting between the UNIFIL and the Army to discuss the skirmishes and how to put a stop to them, in a precedent which it will be very difficult for the UN force to prevent from being repeated. This means that Hezbollah has become the reference this force will be turning to every time it faces logistic difficulties, despite the fact that Resolution 1701 does not recognize the right of any party other than the Lebanese government to impose its control through armed forces in the border area. More than this in fact, as Hezbollah has succeeded at changing the function of the UN Resolution which entrusts the UNIFIL with assisting the Lebanese Army in imposing state control. Indeed, the UNIFIL itself now needs the Army to protect it from “local inhabitants”.
