Source: https://unsco.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/s_res_17012006.pdf
On July 12, 2006, the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid on Israel, abducting two Israeli patrolmen before retreating. So began what Israelis call the Second Lebanon War. The 34-day confrontation between Israel and its Iranian-sponsored Lebanese enemy concluded when the combatants accepted a ceasefire proposed by a U.N. resolution. Adopted unanimously on August 11, 2006, U.N. Resolution 1701 indeed brought the Israel-Hezbollah war to an end, but it conspicuously failed to bring the Israel-Hezbollah conflict to an end, despite its ambitious intention to do just this. With this unrealistic objective in view, the resolution made several distinct appeals, calling for Hezbollah’s disarmament and withdrawal to north of the Litani River, the demarcation of the disputed Israeli Lebanese border, the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces in southern Lebanon, and the enlargement of the U.N. peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) fielded in southern Lebanon since 1978.
Resolution 1701 was doomed from the start because its central provision called on Hezbollah to accept by choice what the Lebanese constitution had required by law and what the Israeli military had attempted by force, both unsuccessfully: its disarmament. This was a nonstarter for Hezbollah because the organization’s existential purpose is to make war on Israel, and it could no more give up its arms and, by extension, its armed struggle against Israel than Israel could renounce its Jewish identity. Hence, a day after the resolution passed, Hezbollah announced that it would not accept — and the Lebanese government announced that it could not enforce — the resolution’s foremost provision. For the same reason (i.e., Hezbollah’s existential commitment to making war on Israel), the terrorist group rejected the resolution’s demand that it pull back to the Litani River, some ten miles north of the Israeli border. Hezbollah, after all, would cease to be Hezbollah if it allowed southern Lebanon–the movement’s heartland and its staging ground for attacking Israel — to be declared a no-go zone.
The resolution proved the wisdom of the adage that a law or, in this case, a conciliar motion is only as good as its enforcement. Far from ending the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, the resolution neither restored Lebanese sovereignty nor Israeli security; on the contrary, since the motion was passed, Hezbollah has been rearming busily, replenishing its rocket arsenal many times over and emerging as the world’s best-equipped non-state actor.
Nor was the relative quiet that reigned on the Israeli Lebanese border in the years after the war a consequence of Resolution 1701. In the Second Lebanon War, Israel had visited devastation on Hezbollah’s positions south of Beirut and near the Israeli border, leaving Hezbollah with no desire to renew hostilities. Thus, it was Israeli deterrence, not U.N. deliberations, that brought the residents of Israel’s Upper Galilee a measure of postwar peace.
If any good came from this resolution that was otherwise a dead letter, it came from broadening UNIFIL’s mandate in one particular respect. The resolution created a cooperative forum, the “Liaison and Coordination Arrangement,” that opened a channel of direct communication between Israel and the Lebanese Armed Forces and between Israel and Hezbollah indirectly. This channel has, at times, prevented escalation when tensions on the Israeli Lebanese border have flared.
Scott Abramson, May 15, 2024
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 on the War in Lebanon
(11 August 2006)
Source: https://unsco.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/s_res_17012006.pdf
The Security Council,
Recalling all its previous resolutions on Lebanon, in particular Resolutions 425 (1978), 426 (1978), 520 (1982), 1559 (2004), 1655 (2006) 1680 (2006) and 1697 (2006), as well as the statements of its President on the situation in Lebanon, in particular the statements of 18 June 2000 (S/PRST/2000/21), of 19 October 2004 (S/PRST/2004/36), of 4 May 2005 (S/PRST/2005/17), of 23 January 2006 (S/PRST/2006/3) and of 30 July 2006 (S/PRST/2006/35),
Expressing its utmost concern at the continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and in Israel since Hizbollah’s attack on Israel on 12 July 2006, which has already caused hundreds of deaths and injuries on both sides, extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons,
Emphasizing the need for an end of violence, but at the same time emphasizing the need to address urgently the causes that have given rise to the current crisis, including by the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers,
Mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging the efforts aimed at urgently settling the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel,
Welcoming the efforts of the Lebanese Prime Minister and the commitment of the Government of Lebanon, in its seven-point plan, to extend its authority over its territory, through its own legitimate armed forces, such that there will be no weapons without the consent of the Government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the Government of Lebanon, welcoming also its commitment to a United Nations force that is supplemented and enhanced in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operation, and bearing in mind its request in this plan for an immediate withdrawal of the Israeli forces from southern Lebanon,
Determined to act for this withdrawal to happen at the earliest,
Taking due note of the proposals made in the seven-point plan regarding the Shebaa farms area,
Welcoming the unanimous decision by the Government of Lebanon on 7 August 2006 to deploy a Lebanese armed force of 15,000 troops in South Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws behind the Blue Line and to request the assistance of additional forces from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) as needed, to facilitate the entry of the Lebanese armed forces into the region and to restate its intention to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces with material as needed to enable it to perform its duties,
Aware of its responsibilities to help secure a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution to the conflict,
Determining that the situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security,
– full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;
– security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;
– full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of 27 July 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State;
– no foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its Government;
– no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its Government;
– provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of landmines in Lebanon in Israel’s possession;
Adopted by the Security Council at its 5511th meeting.