MIDDLE EAST: The militant group's seizure of two Israeli soldiers was more than a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians, writes Michael Jansen
Lebanon's Shia Hizbullah movement opened up a second Arab front against Israel yesterday because the movement could not ignore the challenge posed by Israel's escalating offensive in Gaza.
On the pan-Arab level, Hizbullah cannot claim to be a resistance organisation and sit tight while Israeli troops and tanks operate in Gaza.
Hizbullah's operation was more than a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians: for some time it has been co-ordinating attacks against Israel with Palestinian factions based in Lebanon.
By mounting a dramatic raid across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier and capturing two Israeli soldiers, Hizbullah increased pressure on the Israeli government to negotiate an exchange of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel for the movement's captives and Cpl Gilad Shalit, snatched by Palestinian on the Gaza border on June 25th.
Israel has rejected the offer made by the head of Hamas's politburo, Khaled Mishaal, and Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh to release Cpl Shalit if Israel frees minor, female and elderly Palestinian prisoners, ends its offensive and halts assassinations of Palestinian activists.
Mr Mishaal, a hardliner based in Damascus, may have agreed to the deal under pressure from Syria. When the offer was rebuffed, Damascus may have encouraged Hizbullah to mount its operation.
Syria's ally, Iran, which founded Hizbullah during Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon and funded the movement for many years, would also back action.
Syria and Iran would like to see Israel humbled by forcing it to deal with Hamas, shunned by Israel and the international community since it formed a government, and to negotiate a second exchange with Hizbullah.
Syria allows radical Palestinian figures, including Mr Mishaal, to reside and maintain offices in its capital. Iran has a long-standing connection with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and has recently cultivated relations with Hamas.
On the Lebanese level, Hizbullah has to act to justify its defiance of a September 2004 UN resolution calling for the movement to disarm and dissolve its armed wing. Anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians have pressed Hizbullah to submit and Damascus has been censured by the US, France and the UN for failing to secure Hizbullah's compliance.
By mounting this dramatic raid, Hizbullah also seized the initiative from Israel which is accused of masterminding assassinations of two Hizbullah officials and three Palestinian activists in Lebanon.
The latest, the murder at the end of May of an Islamic Jihad member and his brother, precipitated an exchange of fire.
Following Israel's military withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hizbullah said it would maintain pressure on Israel for the return to Lebanon of farmland belonging to the village of Shebaa and the repatriation of Lebanese in Israeli jails.
In October 2000, Hizbullah captured three Israeli soldiers on routine patrol and seized in mysterious circumstances an Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tannenbaum.
Although the soldiers died in the raid, Israel agreed in 2004 to exchange 340 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners for the bodies and Mr Tannenbaum.
One prisoner Israel refused to swap however was Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese involved in a 1979 guerrilla operation in the Israeli town of Nahariya during which three Israelis died.
At the time of the exchange, Hizbullah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said that Mr Kuntar would be returned in the "next exchange."
Hizbullah has designated 2006 as the year of the prisoner and has pledged to work for the release of all Arab detainees.
Mr Kuntar's freedom was Hizbullah's initial demand after yesterday's operation and Sheikh Nasrallah proclaimed that a prisoner exchange was the only means of securing the soldiers' freedom.
The Lebanese government, which formally supports the Arab right of resistance to Israeli occupation and demands the release of prisoners and the return of the Shebaa farms, has tried to put distance between it and Hizbullah, which is a mainstream political party with deputies in parliament and a minister in the cabinet.
In an effort to counter Israeli and US accusations that Damascus was involved, vice president Farouk Sharaa said Israel had prompted the attack by "provoking" Palestinians and Lebanese by occupying their territory and stated that "the resistance in South Lebanon and among the Palestinian people decides solely what to do and why."