A. There is no evidence of a guiding hand somehow coordinating the Lebanon event with the rocket attacks in the south that preceded it. But the Lebanon clash did reflect a potential for deterioration in the Israel-Lebanon equation.

The incident apparently stemmed from a misunderstanding or miscommunication between UNIFIL and the Lebanese army concerning the status of land located north of the Israel-Lebanon border fence but nevertheless under Israeli sovereignty. The IDF coordinated its entry into this land (to clear a tree that hindered CCTV surveillance of the border) with UNIFIL, but the latter apparently either failed to transmit this to the Lebanese army or Lebanese officers simply disputed the determination that this is Israeli land as sanctioned by the UN. The attack was apparently ordered by relatively low level Lebanese officers on the scene. That Israel's border fence does not encompass the land involved is related to topographic considerations.

The Lebanese army response--sniper fire on Israeli officers who were clearly on the Israeli side of both the border and the fence, killing one and wounding another--was unusually aggressive and totally unexpected. In retrospect, however, it is evident that the Lebanese army central command in Beirut had been issuing bellicose statements and that someone in Lebanon summoned TV and still photographers in advance of the shooting. We recall that after the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel insisted the Lebanese army deploy in the south of the country alongside UNIFIL, on the assumption that the Lebanese army shared Israel's goal of preventing Hezbollah from redeploying in the south. Since 2006, the IDF and Lebanese army have also renewed direct and regular meetings, at UN HQ in Nakura on the Lebanon side of the border, for the first time since 1967. 

Israel has traditionally looked upon the Lebanese army as a relatively impotent but benign force, reflecting the dysfunctional nature of the Lebanese state system. "They were supposed to be the good guys," lamented IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi after the incident. But in recent years, the Lebanese have received an influx of modern weaponry from the US and France, and the army's brigades, which used to be composed exclusively along sectarian lines (separate Shi'ite, Sunni, Christian and Druze units), have become integrated. The idea, following the 2006 Hariri assassination and Syrian withdrawal, was to beef up Lebanon as a democratic and pro-western state. Instead, Syrian influence has been renewed and Hezbollah, despite losing the last elections, has gained veto power over all strategic government decisions. 

Israel has objected to some of the western ordnance supply on the grounds that the Lebanese state and army lack the cohesion required to use the arms responsibly, and the arms could find their way to Hezbollah's hands. In recent months a number of alleged Israeli spy rings have been rounded up in Lebanon, reportedly in part through the use of sophisticated communications monitoring equipment provided to Lebanese intelligence by the US. Israeli intelligence activities in Lebanon are a response to ongoing Iranian and Syrian rocket supply to Hezbollah and Tehran's and Damascus' growing influence over the Lebanese government. Sources in the Lebanese army, which is increasingly manned by Shi'ites, have reportedly openly acknowledged that army intelligence units transmit sensitive information to Hezbollah.

That the Lebanese army attack was against legitimate Israeli army activity on Israeli soil was noted by the United States and the UN. But in Lebanon and much of the Middle East, particularly among radicals, it was heralded as an act of Arab patriotism. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah saluted the army and offered his services. Al-Quds al-Arabi's radical editor Abdelbari Atwan noted that "Lebanese military commanders took everyone by surprise with their honorable national dignity because they hail from a vigorous and living society, a democratic state, and an elected coalition government. In this, they differ from most other Arab armies. . . ". Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki threatened that Iran "maintains its right and that of the government of Lebanon, its people and army to stop any Israeli provocation. . . ". 

With all of Lebanon poised to hear a UN investigator's anticipated accusations against Hezbollah activists involved in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafic Hariri, nerves are frayed. And not just on the border with Israel. Last week, in an unprecedented step, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Assad of Syria visited Beirut together to reassure the Lebanese leadership that they will not allow accusations against Hezbollah to further fragment the country's fragile unity. After all, only in Lebanon do the sons of senior politicians (Hariri, Jumblatt) who were almost certainly murdered by Syria or its allies feel it necessary to make the pilgrimage to Damascus and pay homage to Bashar Assad. Now Nasrallah has begun deflecting the anticipated criticism by accusing Israel of the Hariri murder.

On the other hand, this was a localized incident that all sides took pains to contain. Even Hezbollah's verbal response, to the effect that Israel was actually trying to escalate and draw the Shi'ite Islamist movement into the fray, can be understood as reflecting a desire on Nasrallah's part to avoid being drawn into a new war with Israel. The IDF's response to Lebanese army sniper fire last week was harsh but localized: a helicopter gunship attack on an army regional HQ, leaving several dead. The idea was to restore deterrence, following which the Netanyahu government elected to declare this a local incident and call for peace and quiet. 

A few weeks ago, I visited the Israeli-Lebanese border at exactly the spot where the incident took place. I had rarely seen the Lebanese (or, for that matter, the nearby Syrian) border so quiet, with so few troops evident on either side. In northern Israel, the tourist season is at its height; no one is packing up and going home to Tel Aviv because of one brief clash. The Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire remains relatively stable. No one on either side has an obvious reason to violate it on a large scale. Yet last week's incident, precisely because it involved the Lebanese army and not Hezbollah, is particularly worrisome, especially with everyone anticipating a major destabilizing event if and when the UN inquiry accuses Hezbollah of murdering Hariri.

A. This is the first instance in which Israel has openly agreed to be investigated by the United Nations and, indeed, to take part in that investigation. One of the factors that persuaded the Netanyahu government to concur in the inquiry after waffling for two months was the opportunity given Israel by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to contribute to drafting the terms of reference. Another was the fact that the investigation is sponsored by Ban and not the notorious UN Human Rights Council with its overarching anti-Israel agenda. The chair and vice-chair of the panel, former New Zealand PM Geoffrey Palmer and outgoing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, are considered not hostile to Israel. 

A third factor is the determination that the inquiry will look not only at Israel's role in intercepting the flotilla but at Turkey's involvement in launching it. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman chose as their representative on the international review panel Yosef Chechanover, a former director general of the Foreign Ministry.

The primary reasons for Israel's concurrence in the investigation, however, have little to do with the mandate, sponsorship and composition of the panel. Rather, they reflect two increasingly pressing regional realities. 

First, Turkey's declared condition for ending the crisis engendered by the flotilla interception and reverting to status quo ante in its relations with Israel is that Jerusalem either apologize to Ankara or agree to an international inquiry. The Netanyahu government has no intention of apologizing to Turkey; but the Ban commission appears to answer Ankara's alternative demand. While the Israeli establishment has few illusions regarding the general negative direction of Turkish policy toward Jerusalem under the Erdogan government, there are nevertheless huge economic and security investments at stake in the two countries' bilateral relations that Israel has a major interest in maintaining.

Second, when looked at within the context of Israel's war with non-state militant Islamist movements like Hamas in Gaza, the flotilla event falls within what is perhaps Israel's greatest current strategic dilemma. In the course of two limited wars, with Hezbollah in 2006 and with Hamas in 2008-9, Israel has failed to come up with truly effective military (or, for that matter, political) strategies for dealing with the two Islamist movements on its borders. Hence it has increasingly agreed to rely at least in part on the intervention of the international community. This was first evident in the course of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, when the Sharon government worked closely with the World Bank and the European Union. And it was glaringly evident in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when for the first time an official war aim of the IDF was to introduce an international force (UNIFIL II) to conquered territory (southern Lebanon),  rather than Israel reoccupying that land.

Seen in this context, reliance on a UN-sponsored tribunal to end the controversy over the flotilla interception corresponds with Israel's recognition that it increasingly needs international partners and involvement in its dealings with militant Islam. In this sense, to the extent the inquiry points the finger at Turkey for abetting the Islamist IHH organization in its plans to turn the interception into a violent and volatile event (and that is plainly the Netanyahu government's hope), this might at least temporarily cool Erdogan's ardor in supporting militant Islamists.

For at the end of the day, the greatest danger embodied in the flotilla event is that Turkey's government could move closer to the Islamist-resistance ("muqawama") camp along with Iran, Syria and the militant Islamist Hamas and Hezbollah.