The U.N. Security
Council adopted a resolution Friday that calls for an end to
the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and authorizes the
deployment of 15,000 U.N.
peacekeepers to help Lebanese troops take control of south
Lebanon as Israel withdraws.
The draft, adopted unanimously, offers the best chance yet
for peace after more than four weeks of war in the Middle
East. It was the first significant action by the Security
Council, the most powerful U.N. body, to address the crisis.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said hundreds of millions
of people around the world shared his frustration that the
council had taken so long to act. That inaction has “badly
shaken the world’s faith in its authority and integrity,” he
said.
“I would be remiss if I did not tell you how profoundly
disappointed I am that the council did not reach this point
much, much earlier,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert endorsed the resolution
late Friday, after a day of dramatic day brinksmanship
including a threat to expand the ground war in Lebanon. But
Israeli officials said Israel would not halt fighting until
Israel’s Cabinet has approved the cease-fire deal in its
weekly meeting Sunday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora also assured Rice that
his country backed the resolution.
Rice said the “hard work of diplomacy” was only beginning
with the passage of the resolution and that it would be
unrealistic to expect an immediate end to all violence. She
said the United States would increase its assistance to
Lebanon to $50 million, and demanded other nations stay out
of its affairs.
“Today we call upon every state, especially Iran and Syria,
to respect the sovereignty of the Lebanese government and the
will of the international community,” Rice told the council.
The Security Council, repeatedly accused of taking too long
to come up with a response to the fighting, left out several
key demands from both Israel and Lebanon in efforts to come
up with a workable arrangement.
“You never get a deal like this with everybody getting
everything that they want,” Britain’s Foreign Secretary
Margaret Beckett said. “The question is, has everybody got
enough for this to stick and for it to be enforceable? Nobody
wants to go back to where we were before this last episode
started.”
