Israel Matzav

No one's very happy about Ghajar withdrawal, but maybe it won't happen

No one is very happy about the arrangement to divide the town of Ghajar in half.

"The people of Ghajar do not want to be part of Lebanon," said Timur Goksel, former senior adviser of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), of the village's 2,200 residents -- none of whom is Lebanese.

"They say they have nothing to do with Lebanon, historically, politically, socially," Goksel told AFP. "If they become Lebanese they are going to lose all their privileges as Israeli citizens."

...

Israeli officials have said responsibility for the sector will be transferred to UNIFIL, whose troops will redeploy around Ghajar's northern perimeter but not inside the village itself.

"The plan is basically to return to the pre-2006 status quo," said Andrew Tabler, a Syria and Lebanon expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"Israel will only patrol south of the Blue Line and Israel's main security fence will run along the village's southern border," Tabler, who was recently in Ghajar, told AFP.

Most Ghajar residents are Syrian Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, who have acquired Israeli citizenship.

They reject the partitioning of their village, which would put 1,700 people in Lebanon and 500 in Israel and possibly leave family members unable to visit each other.

While Hezbollah is demanding that Israel hand over the northern part of Ghajar to the Lebanese army, with UNIFIL backing, experts say the Lebanese military is unlikely to be granted access.

"The (Israeli) security fence running along the northern edge of the village will remain," Tabler said. "The question being worked out now is who will patrol the northern neighbourhood."

The Lebanese government has yet to react officially to Israel's proposed withdrawal, but Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, arguably the most powerful figure in the country, has rejected the plan.

"The Lebanese part of Ghajar must be returned to Lebanon and the Syrian part, with its residents, must be given to Lebanon until the Syrian-Lebanese border is demarcated," Nasrallah has said.

So if no one is happy about it, why are we going through with it? Why it's the fierce moral urgency of course.

Unless we don't go through with it....

Experts say, however, that Israel's commitment to withdraw from northern Ghajar is unlikely to take place soon.

"It is not going to happen until there is a peace treaty between Syria and Israel, and then Lebanon and Israel, so everyone will cross that bridge when they come to it," Tabler said.

Huh? I hadn't heard that one before.

Labels: blue line, Ghajar, Second Lebanon War, UN Security Council Resolution 1701

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:54 AM