UPDATED: CEASE-FIRE A BAD IDEA

U.S. Opposed to Cease-Fire With Hizballah - Anne Gearan
The United States held the line Thursday against a quick cease-fire deal in the Middle East. The Bush administration is playing down expectations for Secretary of State Rice's upcoming trip to the Mideast, saying she will not shuttle among capitals to broker a deal. Administration officials also questioned whether a cease-fire between Israel and Hizballah is even feasible. "At this point, there's no indication that Hizballah intends to lay down arms," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. The Bush administration has repeatedly said that a temporary or quickly negotiated cease-fire would leave Hizballah able to regroup and rearm. Israel, and Washington as its closest ally, insist that any settlement must deal with the underlying threat posed to Israel by Hizballah's control of southern Lebanon. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 410-8 on Thursday to support Israel in its confrontation with Hizballah. (AP/ABC News)

U.S. Should Not Impose a Cease-fire Deadline on Israel - Ariel Cohen
Rising civilian casualties in Lebanon are triggering calls for the U.S. to impose a cease-fire on Israel before Secretary of State Rice travels to the region and the UN Security Council takes up the issue. However, Israel is exercising its legitimate right to defend itself after an unprovoked attack by the Hizballah terrorist organization across an internationally recognized border. Moreover, a sovereign state cannot declare a cease-fire against a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize its legitimacy - it will not hold. The U.S., for example, has not declared a cease-fire against al-Qaeda. (Heritage Foundation)

See also Why Cease-Fire Makes No Sense for Israel - Jonah Goldberg (Chicago Tribune)
If Israel agrees to a cease-fire, the story so far will have frozen in place. What does that story look like? It looks like a tale of Israel bombing civilian targets as an end in itself. It looks like the sort of "collective punishment" that Israel's critics routinely decry. It looks like an attack on a struggling democratic government in a beleaguered yet heroic Lebanon in order to punish terrorists only nominally under the Lebanese government's control. Stop now and Hezbollah not only will have been left substantially intact, but perhaps even politically strengthened, not necessarily among the Lebanese, but certainly in the region as a whole.

An acceptable ceasefire By Caroline B. Glick (JWR)
US President George W. Bush, his press secretary Tony Snow, US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, and both houses of the US Congress have made it clear over the past week of war that America is unwilling to continue to abide by the view that it is possible to deter terrorists. As Snow put it in a press briefing on Tuesday, "What we want is… the cessation of violence in a manner that is consistent with stability, peace, democracy in Lebanon, and also an end to terror. A ceasefire that would leave the status quo ante intact is absolutely unacceptable. A ceasefire that would leave intact a terrorist infrastructure is unacceptable. So what we're trying to do is work as best we can toward a ceasefire that is going to create not only the conditions, but the institutions for peace and democracy in the region."

Snow explained that from the administration's perspective, a ceasefire that leaves Hizbullah intact would effectively be rewarding it for its criminal behavior. In his words, "You do not want to engage in a ceasefire… when you say to the Israelis, 'You guys just stop firing,' when you have Hizbullah saying, 'We're going to wage total war,' because Hizballah would read that as vindication of its tactics."

It is important to recall that "the status quo ante" was a situation where Hizbullah and its state sponsors Iran and Syria pocketed Israel's ill-advised territorial and political concessions and used them to build up not only a massive arsenal of missiles, but also a complex underground bunker system that Israeli ground forces are only beginning to uncover; and a formidable, well trained paramilitary force replete with Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers as trainers and commanders. This is the threat developed under the "status quo ante," and the declared goal of Israel's current campaign in Lebanon is to eliminate this threat.

Assuming that Israel is able to achieve its military objective, what should a ceasefire that does not revert to the status quo ante look like? What should be the guiding assumptions on which it is based?

Any Israeli strategy directed towards building military and political stability has to be based on two components: decisive and continuous fighting against terrorist and other irregular forces; and the development of a system of deterrence directed against hostile regional actors whose aim will be to compel them to refrain from interfering in the Israeli-Lebanese-Palestinian area of operations.

In the case of Lebanon, this means that the Lebanese and Syrian governments must be compelled to accept that in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and the requirements of Israel's national security, Hizbullah and all other irregular forces must remain perpetually disarmed. To this end, during the course of the current military campaign, Israel must act to make clear to both governments that they will pay an enormous price if they enable the reconstitution of Hizbullah. And that price must be clear: Israel will bring down both governments if they do not ensure that in the aftermath of the current campaign Hizbullah remains disarmed.

In this vein, Israel must not accept an international force in south Lebanon. The lesson of our long and bitter experience with international forces from UNIFIL in Lebanon to the MFO in Sinai is clear: The only force willing and able to defend Israel is the IDF.

So too, Israel must end its practice of granting immunity to Syrian way stations for arming Hizbullah as well as Syrian bases for Hamas and other terror groups. It is quite reasonable to expect that in the future, the Israel-Lebanon border will remain open for one-way traffic. IDF forces will enter Lebanon any time there are signs that Hizbullah and other hostile forces are attempting to build a presence anywhere near the border.

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The activities of all factions of the PA show that as is the case in Lebanon, it will be impossible to achieve stability in Gaza, Judea and Samaria through deterrence. The only way to stabilize these fronts is by conducting a military campaign aimed at disarming all the terror groups and all 17 PA militias. That is, Israel must conduct a campaign in Gaza and Judea and Samaria that will disarm the Palestinian Authority in its entirety.

Once this operation is complete, Israel will have to establish buffer zones in Gaza along its borders with Egypt and Israel that will prevent the Palestinians from either rearming or attacking Israel.

In Judea and Samaria, in addition to reasserting its security control over all areas, based on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's intention to act in accordance with the Israeli consensus that the large settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley should remain under Israeli control in perpetuity, Israel should apply Israeli law to these areas.

Israel's steps in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria should be accompanied by a declaration of intent according to which Israel will freeze the political status of Gaza and the remaining sections of Judea and Samaria for ten years. This declaration would serve two purposes. First, it would recognize the fact that today Palestinian society is unwilling to live at peace with Israel. Second, it gives the Palestinians sufficient time to determine whether or not they wish to reform themselves and to act on that decision. If at the end of the decade the Palestinians have in fact undergone a cultural transformation, then Israel would be willing to recognize a demilitarized, democratic and anti-terrorist Palestinian state in Gaza. It would be further willing to conduct negotiations with that state and other relevant parties regarding the future status of the Palestinian areas in Judea and Samaria.

An Israeli strategy aimed at stabilizing the security and political situation in Lebanon, Gaza and Judea and Samaria is essential today to enable the international community to contend with the greatest threat to global security: Iran's nuclear weapons program. As was evidenced by last weekend's meeting of the G-8 in Russia, through its proxies' attacks against Israel, Iran was able to distract the global leaders from its nuclear program.