Will Truce Bring Peace?

By all accounts, a truce designed to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is near. It will come on the heels of the worst day of the war for Israel, in terms of military casualities.

Israel's cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday to accept a U.N. deal, and, while it still criticizes the inability of the United Nations to label Israel as the "main aggressor" in the conflict, the Arab League also believes that this is the best chance to end the fighting.

A coalition of Lebanese organizations that has been providing relief to those affected by the fighting around Beirut continues to provide information on the fighting, but has yet to comment on the ceasefire agreement. A group on international activists gathered in Beirut is organizing a convoy to deliver aid directly to desperate villagers in Southern Lebanon. They see this as one way to highlight the continuing humanitarian crisis created by the Israeli attacks. They wonder what Israel will do when their convoy crosses the Litani River. I wonder if I would get onto one of those trucks . . .

Israel says it won't leave Lebanon until U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese army establish their control in Southern Lebanon. Given that weeks of heavy bombing and a massive ground offensive haven't allowed Israel to establish control of Southern Lebanon, one wonders how long the Israelis will be there.

Hezbollah, for its part, says that it won't stop fighting until the Israelis leave. Will this truce bring peace?

Some Israeli commentators are not waiting for the fighting to stop to demand a rethinking of Israeli policy. For one of them, the obvious failure of this military thrust should be cause for reflection. Others suggest that the ceasefire agreement meets Israel's goals, but the language of one analysis suggests that the writer, himself, isn't so sure.

The more critical views aren't just coming from maverick columnists. . . . How about a man who sat on the Israeli side of the table during the negotiations with the Palestinians at Oslo and at Taba? Daniel Levy suggests that the Israeli embrace of the neoconservative gang running U.S. foreign policy should be reconsidered in the wake of this episode. He is right.

And, speaking of the Palestinians, let's not join the mainstream media in forgetting that this was a two-pronged Israeli offensive that is making a mess of the lives of over one million Gazans. A stop to the Israeli bombing of Lebanon and the Hezbollah rockets hitting northern Israel won't mean peace in the region.