Ceasefire in Lebanon takes hold..or does it?

Officially, the UN brokered ceasefire in Lebanon has taken hold.

The IDF stopped all offensive action in accordance with the ceasefire this morning, but there is still no word from Hezbollah.

There have been two post ceasefire `incidents' so far, one at Banduriya in the central sector of South Lebanon and one at in Hadata. In each case, Hezbollah fighters were killed trying to attack the IDF.

Hezbollah, as I reported, has refused to disarm its soldiers south of the Litani River, contrary to the UN ceasefire agreement.Neither the Lebanese Army or UNFIL will put boiots onthe ground until they do...and the IDF troops inside Lebanon have orders to hold to their positions until UNIFIL and the Lebanese army take over.

Lebanon’s Shiite parliament speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri has a new curveball to throw that weakens an already toothless agreement even further. Now, he's asked for 48 hours to try and persuade Hassan Nasrallah to accept a new proposal for Hezballah forces to remain in the south with their arms, attached as an auxiliary force to the Lebanese army!

Needless to say, this is totally contrary to the ceasefire agreement...but who's quibbling? The Olmert government will probably go along with it.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Monday that his guerrillas achieved a "strategic, historic victory" against Israel, and that now is `not the time' to discuss disarming Hezbollah's fighters.

In view of this, Olmert's speech to the Israeli Knesset this morning was simply astounding.

In his first address to the Knesset since the cease-fire went into effect, Olmert said that Hezbollah was no longer a state within state, saying that there was no longer a situation in which "a terrorist organization is allowed to act inside a state as an arm of the axis of evil." (!)

Remember, he was saying this as the Lebanese parliament speaker was working on a proposal to allow Hezbollah to keep their arms.

Olmert admitted that there had been "shortcomings" in the way in which the conflict had been managed.

"We will have to review ourselves.... We won't sweep things under the carpet," he pledged, but warned that the country "does not have the luxury of falling into endless internal disputes."

"The overall responsibility for this operation lies with me, the prime minister. I am not asking to share this with anyone," said Olmert.

Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu was far more realistic in his speech to the Knesset.

Following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's address to the Knesset last night, Netanyahu took the stage. He was quick to criticize the government's policies.

"There were failures in identifying the threat, in managing the war, in dealing with the homefront…There is no doubt that we must learn our lesson and correct our mistakes. We were asleep and we received a wake-up call."

"In 2000, we withdrew from Lebanon without guarantees and without security agreements, and this action brought about Hizbullah's speech about spider webs, which was adopted by Hamas. The resulting Intifada made us decide, out of pain and out of good will, to withdraw unilaterally once more," Netanyahu said.

"These unilateral withdrawals deteriorate our deterrence, and lend credence to our enemies, a credence that improves their ability to bombard our cities and towns. This concept (of unilateral withdrawals) is now disappearing, and rightly so," he added.

Netanyahu also emphasized that "This is a moment of unity and a moment of self examination. I don't mean simply learning lessons from the recent conflict. I think that we need to examine our collective self as a state, based on one basic principle – every living thing must do two things in order to survive: it must identify dangers and it must arm itself sufficiently to protect itself from these dangers."

"A hundred years ago, our people did not have such capabilities. A leader, Herzl, saw the burning coals of anti-Semitism and understood that there was a threat of a fire that would threaten the Jews of Europe and eventually the Jews of the rest of the world. Today I say: we are standing before a grave danger. A new potential fire threatens our people. Not only our soldiers, citizens and economy, but our very existence."

"Yes, in each generation there are those that rise up seeking our destruction. But since Hitler, there has not risen such a bitter enemy as Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, who openly declares his desire to annihilate us and his development of nuclear weapons in order to carry out this desire. Until he carries out his scheme, he is using his covert forces: in the south, Hamas, a Sunni force, and in the north, Hizbullah, a part of the Shiite arc that extends from Tehran to Lebanon."

Netanyahu concluded by reminding his audience that this war is by no means over.He told the Knesset that "unfortunately, there will be another round [in this war] because the government's just demands weren't met" by the cease-fire agreement that went into effect Monday morning.

"The [kidnapped] soldiers weren't returned home, Hezbollah was not disarmed … Right now, we are [merely] in an interim period between wars," Netanyahu warned. "And there is no one who will prevent our enemies from rearmed and preparing for the next round."