A deadly clash on the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday strongly suggests that a period of relative calm along the Jewish state’s borders might be ending. The skirmish, the most serious since a truce ended the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, left at least four dead and one critically injured. The unnecessary loss of life is lamentable. The diplomatic fallout from the confrontation could be considerable and have far-reaching ramifications.
As is usually the case, each side blames the other for the incident. Lebanon says Israeli troops crossed into its territory to cut down a tree and then responded with artillery fire when warning shots were fired into the air. Not so, says an Israeli spokesman, who said the soldiers were inside Israeli territory and that maintenance work along the border had been cleared with United Nations peacekeeping forces.
Tuesday’s clash is the third such incident within days. Over the weekend rocket attacks hit the city of Ashkelon and a college in southern Israel. On Monday, rockets hit both the Israeli resort at Eilat and the neighboring Jordanian resort in Aqaba. It’s hard to pinpoint reasons for the renewal of attacks, but there are a couple of possibilities.
One is that Hezbollah, the militant, virulently anti-Israel group supported by Syria and Iran and the target in the 2006 war, wants to distract attention from a forthcoming ruling by an international tribune that seems likely to indict it for its role in the slaying of the Lebanese prime minister in 2005. Another is that Hezbollah and other militant Islamic groups want to derail peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The talks are gaining traction in the region, with growing support from moderate Arab nations increasingly at odds with the militant organizations.
Tuesday’s incident appears to be isolated. At this writing, there had been no additional military response. There’s always a danger, though, that the small skirmish could escalate. Syria and Iran, long intent on controlling Lebanon’s political and military life, issued statements following the skirmish that suggest continued confrontation with Israel would be welcome. That’s counterproductive. What’s needed now are cool heads and even cooler diplomacy, not incitement to more mayhem in a region already prone to violence.