Israel missed a reasonable opportunity for a cease-fire with Hezbollah during the first week of the Second Lebanon War, which could have included transferring kidnapped Israeli reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev to the Lebanese government, according to senior Israeli and United Nations officials who were involved in the indirect talks.
The deal offered to Israel between July 16 and 18, 2006, would have at least enabled Israel to ascertain the soldiers’ condition, which remains unknown.
According to the mediators, the Israeli leadership played a key role in botching that opportunity, which led to an escalation of the war with Hezbollah.
Olmert’s associates deny there was a realistic deal, and that the UN diplomats conceded that they could not guarantee Hezbollah would deliver the soldiers to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
“We asked them to go check on that point,” one said, adding that they did not believe Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would agree to the deal, since it would mean admitting failure, and he was not yet that worried about Hezbollah’s survival.
The full story appears in the book “Spider Webs – The Story of the Second Lebanon War,” being published this week in Hebrew by Yedioth Ahronoth.
UN diplomats claim that at the time, Hezbollah did not rule out transfering Goldwasser and Regev to Siniora. Israel Defense Forces officers now confirm that the possibility had been up for discussion, and that Hezbollah might have agreed to it. However, when the UN envoys tried to advance the proposal, it was made clear to them in Jerusalem that the hostages were no longer top priority.
The UN secretary general at the time, Kofi Annan, decided to send mediators to the Middle East on July 13, the day after the soldiers’s abduction. The delegation was headed by Annan’s political adviser, veteran Indian diplomat Vijay Nambiar, and included the special envoy on implementing Security Council Resolution 1559, Norway’s Terje Roed Larsen, and the special representative on the Middle East and under-secretary general, Alvaro de Soto of Peru.
The delegation arrived in Cairo on Saturday, July 15. “The three wise men,” as they were dubbed at UN headquarters, met with their group of aides in a hall at the Arab League building, at the same time that the league was holding a meeting of Arab foreign ministers. While the UN team worked on a cease-fire proposal to be presented to Israel and Lebanon, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia put in separate appearances.
“Every entrance of theirs into the hall was accompanied by a barrage of curses against Hezbollah, which caused some people in the room to blush,” said one diplomat who was present.
Forfeiting Shaba
The idea to transfer the hostages to the Lebanese government had already come up in Cairo.
“The thinking was that once the pair were Siniora’s responsibility, Israel could stop the fighting because the objective cited for going to battle, returning the hostages, would begin to be implemented,” the diplomat added. “We though the next stage after transfering the soldiers to Siniora would be continued negotiations over releasing the three Lebanese prisoners jailed in Israel. But we knew it would be very difficult to limit our offer to prisoners and hostages’ issue.
“The crisis ought to have been used to create a reality that would prevent another flare-up. The means, from our standpoint, was ending Hezbollah’s rule south of the Litani and deploying the Lebanese army in the south. However, we realized we would have to present the Lebanese something that would also interest Hezbollah. A ladder of sorts, such as an Israeli concession on Shaba Farms.”
The delegation drafted a non-paper, or unofficial document, outlining the desired solution to the crisis along those lines. A few hours later, on Sunday morning, the diplomats left Cairo for Cyprus, where a British helicopter flew them to Beirut. Siniora and his advisers told the delegation they would accept the non-paper only if it included a more binding clause regarding Shaba. They raised the possibility of Israel expressing its willingness to place Shaba under UN custody.
“The Lebanese agreed in principle to the Israeli soldiers’ being transfered to their care,” one diplomat said. “But ultimately, they emphasized, the decision was not theirs to make, but was at the discretion of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.”
The diplomats’ next stop was the office of Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Beri, who heads the Shi’ite Amal movement and mediated on Nasrallah’s behalf.
To their surprise, Beri did not reject outright the proposal to transfer the Israeli hostages to Siniora, but said he must check with Hezbollah first.
During the ensuing hours, the delegation received further encouragement: UN envoy to Lebanon Geir Pedersen had met with Hezbollah leaders, and reported that the organization would agree to the emerging deal, including transfering the hostages to Siniora.
Pedersen stressed that Hezbollah wanted an immediate cease-fire, and that at a later stage, they would ask that in return for the soldiers’ transfer to Israel, Israel release only the three Lebanese prisoners and not include Palestinian prisoners in the deal.
On Monday, July 17, the UN delegation went back to Siniora and Beri.
“We received confirmation from Siniora that he would accept our offer, and it was agreed that we would not demand from Israel binding language on Shaba, but would request to work on finding a solution,” one diplomat said.
The meeting with Beri was more complicated. He had spoken with Hezbollah leaders, and was now treading cautiously.
“He refrained from responding to the offer to transfer the soldiers to Siniora,” one diplomat said. “Beri said he was not prepared to commit so long as we had not heard from Israel how it stands regarding the agreement. We agreed that immediately after visiting Jerusalem, we would return to Beirut to continue the talks, if we get an Israeli consent to the principles of the deal in the works.”
Livni nearly jumped out of her seat
The delegation felt optimistic as it headed to Israel.
“We had succeeded in reaching a document that was acceptable to Siniora, that was not rejected by Hezbollah, and had a pretty good chance of being accepted in Israel,” one member said.
On the morning of Tuesday, July 18, the delegation met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to present the deal in detail.
“When Livni heard the word ‘Shaba,’ she nearly jumped out of her seat,” one diplomat recalled. “She argued that ‘if history books say that Hezbollah attacked Israel, kidnapped soldiers and in return got Shaba, the entire Israeli deterrence is lost for good.’ Livni refused even to discuss the matter, claiming that the negotiations over the agreement would wind up focusing on Shaba.”
In view of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s refusal to meet with the delegation, “the three wise men” were supposed to meet only with his chief of staff, Yoram Turbowicz, and political adviser Shalom Turjeman. But shortly after the diplomats arrived at Turbowicz’s office, Olmert joined them.
According to one person who was present, “Olmert said he didn’t like the idea. He added: ‘We have no problem with Siniora. We think he’s good news overall. The kidnapped soldiers would likely even be treated well by him. But we don’t want Siniora, once he has the soldiers, to become a target from our standpoint.'”
Delegation members said that everyone they spoke to in Israel made it clear that the Lebanon offensive would not be suspended.
“In Israel, unlike Lebanon, they were not willing to hear about cooperating with us on the agreement,” a senior diplomat said. “It was made clear to us on several occasions that the issue is not freeing the soldiers, but changing the political arena. Olmert made it clear he had no intention of negotiating over any issue related to the war, and the same goes for the rest of the Israeli representatives we met. They were confident of their victory.”
The diplomats insist they received no Israeli okay for sending out additional feelers to Hezbollah.
“We were supposed to return straight to Beirut, but when we understood that Olmert’s office was rejecting any negotiation over an immediate political settlement that included a cease-fire, we canceled the trip,” one said.
“At the height of the pressure, Nasrallah agreed to transfer the kidnapped soldiers to Siniora, but the mechanism for arranging this was not found,” one officer said.
Said a UN official, “We saw that Hezbollah was interested in a cease-fire, but the attitude we encountered in Jerusalem was: ‘Forget it. We’re going to win.’ It was a once-only chance to end the war, under better terms for Israel.” Senior IDF officers have provided support for the UN’s version, stating that at every situation assessment between July 16 and 18, they said Hezbollah was ready for a cease-fire.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/942535.html
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