Observation: Efficacy of Lebanon Deal Question For Lawyers Not Defense
Experts
Dr. Aaron Lerner 11 October 2022

The efficacy of the Lebanon deal, in particular the status of the swath of
area off our northern coast which we unilaterally hold for vital security
reasons, is a question of international law and thus not in the bailiwick of
defense experts.

A defense expert can proclaim that this critical area is secured by the deal
for all kinds of reasons which are driven by their assessment of the
deterrent effect that implementation of the deal may have on Hizbullah
rather than any definitive rights which the deal gives to the Jewish State.

And that’s an extremely reckless assumption.

I daresay that most of the very same talking heads now explaining that the
existence of a Lebanese gas rig serves as our guaranty of good behavior on
the part of the Lebanese will explain with the same or more vigor, should
things go terribly wrong, that WE CANNOT DESTROY THE GAS RIG OF A FRENCH
COMPANY.

I write with an extremely heavy heart that many of the defense experts now
talking about deterrence have for years embraced the self serving illusion
that Hizbullah has not fired its huge arsenal of rockets at us because it is
deterred rather than patient.

A reminder: while we frequently bomb Syrian locations associated with the
Iranian program to supply Hizbullah with guided rockets, the Israel Air
Force takes no action once these same rockets reach Lebanon (and/or if they
are assembled in Lebanon). So who is the deterred party?

And when you take the French gas rig of the board we find ourselves
threatening to bomb Lebanon back to the stone age when the Lebanese already
managed to put themselves in the stone age.

We have a long history of screwing up on the wording of agreements and
written understandings because we thought that the dynamics of the situation
were more important than the texts.

And time and again we have found ourselves plagued by errors and omissions.

An example: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 was the crowning
achievement of then FM Tzipi Livni. It turned out that its wording
effectively neutered the UN force created to implement it in Lebanon.

It is reported that Naftali Bennett will decide how to vote on the deal
after consulting with defense experts and reads the text himself. I
sincerely hope that he sits down with an experienced international law
expert before making his decision.
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