Word: truce
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is confident that both a cease-fire and a lasting settlement that prevents a resumption of fighting in Lebanon can be achieved this week. But events on the battlefield may be diminishing Washington's ability to shape the terms of the truce that will emerge - whether this week or at some point in the future...
...Israeli air operations was declared in response to the Qana tragedy, the announcement came not from the Israelis but from State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. Clearly, the U.S. is feeling pressure to retreat from its insistence that an immediate cease-fire would be detrimental. But in dealing for a truce, however, here's why the U.S. has a weaker than expected hand...
...Washington has therefore insisted that there can be no going back to the status quo of three weeks ago, and that any truce must eliminate any ability for Hizballah to threaten Israel's northern border. Because Washington lacks engagement with the only regional players able to restrain Hizballah - Syria and Iran - Washington's prime leverage against the organization has been the Israeli military campaign...
...four unarmed U.N. observers killed in the incident - from Canada, Austria, Finland and China - were members of the 50-strong Observer Group-Lebanon, part of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which has been monitoring the armistice lines along Israel's border since 1948. Their post, which consisted of a three-story whitewashed building with a bomb shelter, was only about 100 yards from a former South Lebanese Army prison that now serves as a Hizballah-run museum. There was no hiding that it was a U.N. post; "U.N." was painted in big black letters on the white walls...
...international force is needed to pull Israel's chestnuts out of the fire, then those who would constitute it - along with Hizballah and its backers - would likely have a substantial say in determining the nature of the truce it would enforce. Indeed, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, speaking in Rome, urged the inclusion of both Iran and Syria in the search for a deal to permanently end hostilities across the Israel-Lebanon border...