Last week, Hizballah brought a group of journalists on a tour of its positions along the Israel-Lebanon border, pointing out the defenses set up by the IDF on the other side and claiming that these are evidence that the Jewish state is now on the defensive. This display—under the noses of both the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers—constituted a particularly brazen flouting of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and required both Israel and Hizballah to remove their forces from southern Lebanon. Tony Badran comments:
The [tour’s] message is specifically about the power dynamic in Lebanon and about European—as well as American—acquiescence in this dynamic. Hizballah quite plainly laid out for all to see its position at the head of the table, while also assigning to the Lebanese government the task of interacting with the U.S. and international players. [The tour] occurred while a delegation of Lebanese parliamentarians and officials were in Washington, [attending] meetings at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and also on Capitol Hill and with U.S. officials. The Lebanese delegation’s goal was to plead against harsher sanctions and to rattle the can for more aid to Lebanon. . . .
In the same vein, it was also notable that two days before the Hizballah tour, the landing in northeastern Lebanon of a U.S. military plane carrying aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) was highly publicized. This was a first, and the military air field where the cargo plane landed is in Hizballah territory in the Bekaa Valley. The optics of the delivery and the coverage in the Lebanese media underscored the aforementioned Hizballah message—that the U.S. priority is fighting Sunni groups, while winking at the reality of LAF-Hizballah synergy.
This, in short, is the Obama legacy. President Obama openly recognized Syria and Lebanon as Iranian spheres, and used the anti-Islamic State campaign to cement this recognition and the broader realignment with Iran. The cover was to partner with Iran-dominated “state institutions” in places like Iraq and Lebanon. . . .
Hizballah knows full well that the U.S. and Europe [rather than admitting to Hizballah’s de-facto dominance in Lebanon], are eager to seize on a fig leaf in order to maintain the status quo. Hizballah has dropped all pretenses and laid bare the joke that is UNSCR 1701 and the “Lebanese government.” And the joke is on the United States if it continues with a policy the foundation of which is not only a complete farce, but one which the previous administration deliberately conceived as part of its pro-Iran regional strategy.
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/230941/hezbollahs-farcical-media-tour-at-israel-lebanon-border