1. Committee: Security Council
Topic B) Midle East because Israel, Lebanon and Syria problems
Lebanon vs Israel
As with many of the conflicts in the Middle East, the ongoing war along
the Israeli-Lebanese border is a part of the longer and larger Arab-Israeli
conflict. In 1948, five Arab nations, including Lebanon, invaded Israel in a
vain attempt to prevent the birth of the Jewish nation on land that the
Arabs felt belonged to them. The Arabs called the land occupied by the
Israelis "Palestine" and those Arabs living there as "Palestinians." As a result
of this and subsequent outbreaks of war, thousands of Palestinians fled to
neighboring Arab countries. Several Palestinian guerrilla armies formed to
fight a guerrilla/terrorist war against Israel. Their attacks on Israeli targets
prompted retaliation on the host nations of Jordan and
Lebanon. Palestinian power became so great in Jordan, that a civil war
was fought in 1970, resulting in the expulsion of Palestinian forces from
that nation. At this point, the Palestinian resistance moved to Lebanon, a
small nation located on Israel's northern border.
The newly resettled Palestinian forces, led by Yasser Arafat's Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), had two important effects on
Lebanon. First, their ongoing cross-border raiding brought violent
responses from Israel. These retaliatory raids caused death and
destruction for the local inhabitants of South Lebanon.Secondly, the
large influx of mostly Muslim Palestinians upset the population balance
between Lebanon's Christians and Muslims. These two religious groups
fought a civil war in the 1950's, and an uneasy peace had existed
since. By 1975, tensions between the Lebanese Christians on one side
and the Lebanese Muslims and the PLO on the other side, erupted into a
bloody civil war. The Lebanese Army and government dissolved as rival
Christian and Muslim militias battled for control of their nation. This
conflict caused Lebanon's only two neighbors to intervene in its
affairs. Soon after the war's beginning, Syria sent a 40,000 man-strong
"peace-keeping" force into Eastern Lebanon. Though officially a force for
peace, the Syrians soon took the side of the Muslims and PLO and
actively battled the Lebanese Christian forces.Israel began aiding the
anti-Muslim forces with weapons and other assistance.

2. As the Lebanese Civil War raged on, the PLO continued attacks on
northern Israel. By 1978, Israel decided to invade Southern Lebanon,
which was now almost fully controlled by the PLO.
Israeli Invasions and Incursions into Lebanon
-- Israeli Invasion of Lebanon (1978) --25,000 Israeli troops invaded
southern Lebanon on March 14, 1978 in a campaign to drive the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) out. This attack was in response
to PLO raids into northern Israel from their bases in southern Lebanon.
After the 1970 Jordanian Civil War, in which the PLO was driven out of
Jordan, southern Lebanon came under Palestinian control, with Yasser
Arafat's forces creating a virtual 'state-within-a-state." Their control
became so dominint, that southern Lebanon was nicknamed
"Fatahland," after al-Fatah, the name of Arafat's main PLO faction.
This Israeli military offensive forced an estimated 285,000 people to
become refugees, with over 6,000 homes destroyed or badly
damaged. Between 1,100 and 2,000 Lebanese civilians were
killed. Twenty Israeli soldiers died, and an unknown number of Palestinian
fighters. The PLO forces retreated ahead of the Israelis and continued
their attacks on Israel.
Tactically, the Israeli invasion was unsuccessful. Their target, PLO military
units, left the area. Israel had failed to prevent the PLO retreat.
As the Israelis withdrew in June, 1978, they turned control of the
occupied territory over to the South Lebanon Army (SLA), led by Major
Saad Haddad, a renegade Lebanese Army officer who set up his own
militia. The SLA served as Israel's proxy in south Lebanon, often engaging
the PLO in combat.
An estimated 285,000 Lebanese and Palestininian civilians became
refugees due to Operation Litani.Estimates of civilian deaths in Lebanan
range from 1,100 to 2,000. 20 Israelis soldiers were were killed.The PLO
suffered an unknown number of casualties.
1981 --In response to PLO rocket attacks, Israeli forces began heavy
bombing of PLO targets in Lebanon. The United States negotiated a
cease-fire.
1982 -- Operation Peace in Galilee (June 6, Israel began its 1982
offensive into Lebanon in response to two specific terrorist acts; the
bombing of a bus in northern Israel, and the assassination attempt on the
life of Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov. Calling

3. this invasion "Operation Peace in Galilee," (Galillee is the biblical name
for northern Israel), Israel invaded Lebanon up to the outskirts of the
Lebanese capital, Beirut.
While eventually allowing the PLO to leave Lebanon, Israeli forces
remained in control of south Lebanon near the border until 2000, when
the troops were withdrawn in order to end the ongoing guerilla war with
the Shiite Lebanese militia called Hezbollah.
1993 --Israeli Forces launched Operation Accountability (July 25-July 31,
1993), a week-long military campaign directed at Hezbollah ( this conflict
is called The Seven-Day War by the Lebanese).
In June, 1993, Hezbollah launched rockets against a settlement in
northern Israel, and then in July, 1993, both Hezbollah and the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) launched attacks which killed
five Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in Israeli-occupied southern
Lebanon. Israel decided to respond to these attacks by making southern
Lebanon an inhospitable environment for Hezbollah.
During Operation Accountability, Israeli forces destroyed or damaged
thousands of houses and buildings, causing some 300,000 Lebanese and
Palestinian civilians from southern Lebanon to migrate towards Beirut and
other areas outside of the combat zone. Israeli forces also targeted
Lebanese infrastructure, (power stations, bridges, and roadways. This is a
tactic that would be repeated in future Israeli attacks on Hezbollah and
Lebanon. Hezbollah responded with more rocket attacks on Israeli
civilian targets.
At least 118 Lebanese civilians and two Israeli civilians died during this
operation.
1996 -- Operation Grapes of Wrath (April 11-April 27, 1996) --Israel's
massive air and artillery attack on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon
which attempted to end shelling of northern Israel by the Iranian and
Syrian-backed Lebanese Islamic militia. Israel forces launched 1,100 air
raids and fired nearly 25,132 shells at Hezbollah targets during the sixteen-
day offensive. A United Nations camp at Qana, Lebanon, was hit by
Israeli shelling, killing 118 Lebanese civilians who sought shelter
there. Nearly 640 Hezbollah rockets hit northern Israel in this time period,
particularly the often-hit settlement of Kiryat ShemonaIsrael's ally and
proxy force, the South Lebanon Army (a mixed Christian and Shiite
Muslim militia under the command of renegade Lebanese Major Saad
Haddad), also engaged in ground fighting with Hezbollah. At least 350
civilians were wounded in Lebanon , and 62 Israeli civilians were
wounded in Israel.

4. 2006 --In response to the killing of three Israeli soldiers and the capture of
two others in July, 2006 Israel found itself immersed in yet another
Lebanese war
Lebanon vs Syria
It dominates Lebanon's foreign policy and has effectively occupied
large sections of its smaller neighbor for nearly 30 years. There are
currently some 15,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon, and Hezbollah --a
militant Shiite group supported by Syria and Iran--has long operated in
southern Lebanon. The United States has repeatedly demanded that
Syria withdraw its troops and refrain from interfering in Lebanese politics.
Was Syria responsible for the assassination of Rafik Hariri?
There are many suspicions that it was, but no proof. On February 14, a
massive car bomb in Beirut killed Hariri and more than a dozen others
and wounded more than 100. Syrian officials deny involvement. In
September 2004, the Baathist government of Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad pressured Lebanon's parliament to amend the constitution and
extend the presidential term of Emile Lahoud, a Maronite Christian widely
seen as a Syrian puppet. Then-Prime Minister Hariri, a billionaire
businessman who had led the post-civil war rebuilding of Lebanon,
resigned in protest in October.
How long have Syrian troops been in Lebanon?
Since 1976. Full-scale civil war broke out in April 1975 between the
Maronite Christian groups of the Lebanese Front and the Lebanese
National Movement, which was made up of left-leaning Muslims who
wanted a greater share of political power.Fighting was intense, and in
June 1976 the Maronite-dominated government asked for support from
Syria.
Syria had previously mounted several failed diplomatic efforts to stop the
war. For then-Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad--the current president's
father--the Lebanese conflict presented a range of possibilities, all of
them unappealing: sectarian strife spilling over into Syria, which had its
own Christian-Muslim tensions; an Israeli invasion of Lebanon; or the
establishment of a radical, left-wing Muslim state, if the Lebanese
National Movement won. Assad sent in troops to strengthen the Maronite
government, which he calculated he could manipulate, many Mideast
analysts say.Assad's move earned the wrath of the Muslim world,
because he backed the Christian side. Still, small contingents of troops
from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Sudan later joined the Syrian-
dominated Arab Deterrent Force. The war lasted 15 years.
What caused the war?
Tensions among Lebanon's Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and
the Druze Muslim sect. Those groups had long jockeyed for power and

5. influence. Under the French occupation, which lasted from the end of
World War I until independence in 1943, a "confessional" system evolved
that reserved certain government posts for each religious group. Under
this system, Christians had the upper hand in the national assembly--the
Chamber of Deputies--that chooses the president. This arrangement
bred resentment among Lebanese Muslims, especially as they grew to
outnumber Christians.
In the early 1970s, the arrival of Yasir Arafat and thousands of his fellow
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) militants exacerbated Christian-
Muslim strains and swelled the Muslim ranks with thousands of
experienced gunmen. Lebanese Muslim groups supported the PLO
fighters, recently expelled from Jordan, while Maronite Christian groups
worried that PLO raids against Israel would invite retaliation and
destabilize Lebanon. Throughout the 1970s, the PLO increasingly used
Lebanon as a base from which to attack Israel. Israeli forces invaded in
1978 and 1982; after the second invasion, they remained and occupied
a strip of southern Lebanon for nearly 20 years. Egypt, Iraq, and Libya
supported Muslim factions in the civil war, while the United States and
Israel backed Christian groups. During the long course of the conflict,
Syria alternately supported the Christian amd Muslim sides.
What ended the war?
The October 1989 Taif Accords , an agreement brokered by Arab
nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, that gave Lebanese Muslims a greater
share of political power in Lebanon and formalized "preferred relations"
between Lebanon and Syria.Syria's internationally recognized role as "the
guarantor of Lebanon's security" was also established in these accords,
says Murhaf Jouejati , director of the Middle East Studies program at
George Washington University.
What impact did the Taif Accords have on the Syria-Lebanon
relationship?
Experts say the agreement gave Hafez al-Assad effective control over
most of Lebanon in return for a promise to maintain internal stability. The
Syrians were supposed to set a timetable for a withdrawal of their troops
to the Bekaa Valley, a strategic security zone between Syria and
Lebanon, by 1992 or another date negotiated with the Lebanese
government. Lebanon has never asked Syria to leave.Syria maintains
that its troops--whose numbers reached a high of 35,000-40,000 in 2000--
are a stabilizing factor and claims it would withdraw them immediately if
Lebanon asked.
What has happened in Lebanon since the war ended in 1990?
The country has been rebuilding. Hariri, who became prime minister in
1992, spearheaded an ambitious public-private partnership that rebuilt
Beirut, which was known as "the Paris of the Middle East" before the civil
war. The skyscrapers and luxury hotels in the city's downtown reflected
an economic resurgence that steadily erased some of the evidence of
the devastating war. The war also decimated Lebanon's security forces;

6. it rebuilt them with Syrian help, Jouejati says, to its current troop strength
of some 70,000. Politically, there has been "a slow mending of the
fences--yet you could feel that there was no sense of a Lebanese
national unity. Sectarianism remained the primary definer of identity,"
Jouejati says.
What is the US position on Syria?
The US government has long said Damascus is a state sponsor of terrorism
and has banned foreign aid, American investment, and the sale of
military equipment or dual-use items to Syria.
What has the United Nations' attitude been toward Syria?
The United Nations has a long history of urging foreign troops, including
Israeli, Syrian, and Palestinian fighters, out of Lebanon. In 1978, UN
Resolutions 425-427called for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanon; in
1982, after the second Israeli invasion, the Security Council passed a raft
of resolutions, including 508 , 509 , and 515-521, deploring the violence of
that year and asking all parties to cease fighting and withdraw their
troops. Since Israel pulled out in 2000, attention has focused again on
Syrian troops. UN Resolution 1559 , passed in September 2004, is the latest
Security Council action on foreign presence in Lebanon.
What does Resolution 1559 say?
Resolution 1559, sponsored by the United States and France and
supported by Lebanese reformers like Hariri, calls for "foreign forces" to
leave Lebanon and end their interference in Lebanese affairs. It does not
refer to Syria by name.
It also calls for the disarmament of militias. All militias were supposed to
be disarmed after the civil war, but the Lebanese exempted Hezbollah,
which they call a national Lebanese resistance movement aimed at
fighting Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. In January, UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan appointed a special envoy for the implementation
of Resolution 1559. Terje Roed-Larsen, formerly UN special coordinator for
the Middle East peace process, began meeting with Lebanese and
Syrian officials in early February.
What impact will Hariri's assassination have on the Syria-Lebanon
relationship?
Experts say the killing has focused both national and international
attention on the Syrian occupation and revealed deep anti-Syrian
feeling in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of mourners at Hariri's Beirut
funeral February 15 called for Syria to leave Lebanon. Angry mobs
attacked Baath Party headquarters in Beirut and Syrian workers and
trucks in other cities, including Tripoli and Hariri's hometown of Sidon. "The
majority opinion in Lebanon is that Syrian troops should leave," says
Richard Murphy, a former US ambassador to Syria. Expelling all the Syrians
from Lebanon won't be easy: in addition to the soldiers, there are more
than 1 million Syrian workers in Lebanon, a country of roughly 4 million
people, and thousands of undercover Syrian intelligence agents, experts

7. say. "The Syrians are deeply integrated into the fabric of Lebanese
society," Murphy says.
Was Hariri's death the main cause of anti-Syrian agitation?
No; experts say anti-Syrian sentiment had been slowly building. "In the last
year or so, as the economic resurgence continued, Lebanese voices
were getting louder about the need to redefine the relationship with
Syria--namely, to modify or end completely the Syrian occupation," says
Hussein Ibish, the Lebanese-born vice chair of the Progressive Muslim
Union and former Washington, DC, correspondent of the Beirut-
based Daily Star . Syria's interference with the Lebanese Constitution last
fall angered many Lebanese. The constitution states that a presidential
term is six years, and candidates are required to wait six years before
running again. But in September, Syria forced through a change that
extends current President Emile Lahoud's term by three years. "It was a
very crude and totally gratuitous display of power by the Syrian regime,"
Ibish says.
What role did Hariri play in the opposition?
Before last fall, Ibish says, the opposition had been mostly limited to
supporters of Michel Aoun--a Christian general who declared himself
president of a divided Lebanon in the late 1980s and was later
deposed--and other disparate groups. As anger over Syria's interference
with the constitution spread, though, experts say the opposition
coalesced into a more vocal, organized movement. It attracted the
support of high-profile Lebanese like Walid Jumblatt, a longtime leader
of the country's Druze community, as well as Maronite Christian
leaders. Hariri, who provided financial support to the opposition and had
hinted at a return to politics, would have made a formidable opposition
candidate: a charismatic, experienced, wealthy, urban Sunni who
appealed to all of Lebanon's distinct communities, experts say. "This is
why people are not hesitating to blame the Syrians" for Hariri's death,
Ibish says."They're the obvious beneficiaries." He says Lebanese anger
over these two events--the Constitutional interference and Hariri's killing--
could mark a tipping point that might cause "a dramatic change in the
relationship between Syria and Lebanon."
What are the chances of another civil war if Syria pulls out?
This is a concern, experts say. Some see parallels with Iraq, where most
Iraqis want the United States forces to leave--but not immediately, for
fear of the instability that would result. "Some people say the Syrian iron
fist is keeping all these groups together, and if you remove the fist they'll
be at each other's throats again," Jouejati says. "I get the sense that the
rehabilitation of Lebanon has been mostly physical--infrastructure and
such--but the social structures have not been rehabilitated."Other
experts agree that the country's deep ethnic and religious divisions still
exist."In Lebanon, people have been traumatized by [the experience of
the] civil war," Ibish says. "The only thing that ended that war was Syrian
control, and people don't forget that."

8. What's next on the political agenda?
Lebanon will hold parliamentary elections in May, which experts say will
test the strength of the pro-Syrian and opposition factions. Lebanese
officials announced after Hariri's death that the elections would take
place as scheduled. Jouejati and other experts say this election will likely
show strong gains by opposition leaders energized by recent events.