Waiting for the Inevitable up North

Hizbollah rearming and regrouping for another war

MALKIA - The far northern regions of Israel, in the crook of Lebanon’s southern border, have been the subject of much speculation in the two years since the Second Lebanon War and the weeks since a prisoner swap with the Islamic terrorist group Hizbollah as to whether there will be a renewal of violence. For everyone except local residents.

“You live in Jerusalem?” several residents of Kibbutz Malkia asked with a touch of fearful respect. “Watch out for bulldozers,” they invariably warned referring to recent terror attacks in the capital.

Jerusalem is still viewed with more steady uneasiness than other regions of Israel, despite the month-long pounding of 4,000 Hizbollah rockets in the North in the summer of 2006. However, the winds of war are shifting up North again. Despite being pushed back from the border and weakened militarily during the war, Hizbollah is rearming and has amassed 40,000 rockets according to Israeli military intelligence—more than triple the number it had before the war.

Hizbollah’s rearmament is largely due to UNIFIL’s failure to carry out its mandate of patrolling the Lebanese-Syrian border to prevent weapons smuggling. UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, was strengthened to 13,000 peacekeeping troops under UN cease-fire Resolution 1701 which ended the 34-day war.

“Resolution 1701 was supposed to limit [the] actions of Hizbollah, and prevent it from rearming,” said Israel’s former UN Ambassador Danny Gillerman. “It did not achieve that…The resolution also imposed an embargo on arms shipments to militias in Lebanon—namely Hizbollah—which was a huge achievement, but that wasn’t implemented either.”

Farmers who work the land have a good intuition for events in the region. “It’s quiet, but under the quietness, you hear and feel things and see movement,” Eitan Oren, a farmer at the kibbutz and a tour guide, said. “They are building underground tunnels and are rearming.”

With typical Israeli bravado, Oren stayed in the kibbutz during the war and even continued to harvest peaches and apricots while rockets whistled overhead. He wouldn’t leave in the event of another conflict. “It is a necessity to stay and not give up,” he said. “With every light that turns off, we are losing the game here.”

New Boarders at the Border

Northern Israel is geologically different from the rest of the country. Deep green pines and firs line the hilltops. Windy roads, vineyards, grazing cows, neat rows of crops and army bases dot the landscape. Forests blanket the Upper Galilee, in comparison to the stark Golan Heights that run parallel to the fertile Hula Valley below. But across the border, the southern Lebanon hills are barren and brown.

From Adir Mountain, 2,952 feet (900 meters) high, Colonel (reserves) Kobi Marom pointed out Lebanese towns that were household names during the Second Lebanon War: Bint Jabeil, Maroun A Rass; and the spot on the border road where the abduction that sparked the conflict took place on July 12, 2006. The road dips behind a mountain and the blind spot enabled Hizbollah guerrillas to ambush a convoy and kidnap two Israeli soldiers.

“The quiet is unstable. Hizbollah has rebuilt its capabilities and is a real threat,” Marom said, sweeping his hand over the landscape and the Lebanese towns across the valley. “They don’t sit on the frontline, but a couple of kilometers [1.2 miles] behind now.”

He says UNIFIL is not strong enough to oppose Hizbollah forcibly and that “it is just a question of time before Hizbollah tries to attack Israeli targets along the Israeli border. The response to this must be a big-time response. If they kidnap one soldier Israel must attack 100 Hizbollah targets.”

A State within a State

South Lebanon is effectively a Hizbollah state. While the group may be far less visible in the South than it was before the war, it is also much stronger. It has not only rearmed but also strengthened its political position in Beirut. In July, Lebanon formed a new government in which Hizbollah and its allies hold 11 seats and effective veto power. Hizbollah is now the main opposition force.

“This achievement represents success for Hizbollah’s campaign of civil disobedience over the last 18 months,” says Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliyah. “Veto power will enable Hizbollah to protect the independent military infrastructure that it has developed with Iranian and Syrian help—for use against Israel at some future date.”

Indeed, Hizbollah has already been given the right to bear, and use, arms against Israel. The Beirut government approved “the right of Lebanon, its people, its army and the resistance [i.e., Hizbollah] to liberate its land in the Shebaa Farms, Kfarshuba Hill and Ghajar,” all located on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon.

Israel’s Northernmost Town

Metulla, Israel’s northernmost town, stood in the shadow of a converted Hizbollah base during the Second Lebanon War. The town absorbed 153 rockets, 43 landing on homes and more than 100 in the surrounding orchards. Fortunately for Metulla residents, they were, ironically, too close to the border and most rockets sailed over the town toward targets further south, such as nearby Kiryat Shmona which became a ghost town.

From the Dodo Lookout above, Metulla unfolds in a burst of houses and greenery next to a valley. Swaths of crops and orchards fan out to the south, while to the north, residents can look eye to eye at their Lebanese neighbors. A road on the Lebanese side of the border, separated by a chain-link fence, features a flagpole flying the Lebanese, Hizbollah and Palestinian flags.

The town was founded in 1896 by Baron Rothschild who purchased the land, enabling Jewish immigrants from Russia and other areas to settle there. When Britain and France carved up boundaries, Metulla’s houses remained inside Palestine, while 400 dunams (100 acres) of its farmland were transferred to Lebanon. Metulla farmers were permitted to cross over and work their lands until 1952 when they were cut off for good. Now they see their untouched land across the ambiguous border.

In 1976, Israel opened the Good Fence, a border crossing between Metulla and Lebanon, allowing southern Lebanon residents enter the country to work, see a doctor, attend school and transport goods. The fence closed after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, an economic blow to residents on both sides of the border. Lebanese who labored in the orchards lost their jobs, and the Israeli farmers who employed them have now turned to Thai workers who only get five-year visas.

Metulla’s proximity to the border has also cost the tourism industry. Israel’s only permanent ice skating rink is located in the town in a state of the art facility called the Canada Center. But with fewer tourists venturing up to the border town, losses are inevitable.

But tempered by decades of conflict, Metulla residents are tough. During the rocket barrages of 2006, 60 percent of the town’s 1,500 residents stayed home.

“The people that live in Metulla will never be afraid,” the town’s mayor Jacob Katz told us, while conceding later: “I don’t think you can ever feel secure.”

The Shebaa Farms and Ghajar

Tucked into the controversy are two plots of land, the Shebaa Farms, a 12-square-mile (31 sq. km.) mountainside running along Lebanon’s southeast border, and Ghajar, a formerly Syrian village at the foot of the Shebaa Farms that has been under Israeli control since the Six Day War in 1967.

Cease-fire Resolution 1701 called for the UN secretary-general to draw a border demarcation for the Shebaa Farms, which was recognized by the UN in 1974 as part of the Syrian Golan Heights “occupied” by Israel. Hizbollah claims Shebaa is actually Lebanese—not Syrian—territory, giving it an excuse to continue fighting against the Israeli “occupier.” Israel insists that any negotiations over the Shebaa Farms must take place with Syria, not Lebanon.

“Up until 1967 it was Syrian territory, there is no question about it,” Colonel Marom said. “After the [Israeli] withdrawal [from Lebanon] in 2000 there have been many incidents here. In my point of view it is just a question of time before [Hizbollah] attacks again. Shebaa Farms are a good option for them.”

Marom believes Israel should keep the territory for its strategic vantage point, even if it isn’t as vital as the Golan Heights.

“There is no reason to give it up. It has become part of Israel,” he said. “It does not cost anything to keep it up. There is no Israeli civilian presence in the area.”

“It is a great observation point to protect this valley,” he said, as he pointed out nearby Shiite villages in Lebanon, likely Hizbollah strongholds. Then Marom identified Druze, Christian and Sunni villages in sight, also controlled, he said, by Hizbollah: “They control all the educational, social and economic services. Even for the Christians.”