"There will be no authority, no one in command, no weapons other than those of the Lebanese state," Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Al-Arabiya television.

The new plan was unanimously backed by the Lebanese government, including the two Hezbollah members in Lebanon's cabinet.

The proposal differs from one drafted by the United States and France that demands a "full cessation of hostilities" on both sides, a buffer zone patrolled by Lebanese forces and UN troops, but does not specifically call for an Israeli withdrawal.

But Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani, the head of a three-man Arab League delegation and representing the only Arab nation on the Security Council, said there would be negative repercussions of adopting what he called a "a non-enforceable resolution."

He said the U.S.-France draft text would "further complicate the situation on the ground and have grave ramifications for Lebanon, Arab countries and all the countries of the region."

Lebanon's acting Foreign Minister Tarek Mitri told the Security Council that the draft resolution "falls short" of his government's expectations.

While Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman didn't comment specifically on the new Arab League ceasefire proposal, he stressed what's most important is "whether the council and international community can adopt a course of action ... which will end the threat that Hezbollah and its sponsors pose to Israel and Lebanon."

Israel has called for the deployment of Lebanese troops in the region for some time but has indicated it wants Hezbollah to be removed as a threat to Israel first.

Gillerman told the council that any resolution package requires a "strong, robust and effective international force which will ensure the dismantling and disarming of all terrorist groups."

French and German officials have expressed optimism that there could be a compromise deal that would merge the U.S.-France text and the Arab League proposal, CBC's Neil Herland reported. French officials in Paris said a vote could come as early as Thursday.

Israel has about 10,000 soldiers battling hundreds of guerrillas with the militant group Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

Israel studying ceasefire plan: Olmert

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said his government is studying the proposal to end the conflict, which has entered its fourth week.

"The faster we leave south Lebanon, the happier we will be, especially if we have achieved our goals," he said.

Olmert said the proposal is "interesting," but must include the disarming of Hezbollah guerrillas.

"I'm not familiar yet with all the details," he said. "What would be the structure of the forces that will join the Lebanese army and what will be the strength of these forces and the makeup of these forces?"

While both countries welcomed Lebanon's announcement Monday that it will deploy 15,000 soldiers to the south when
Israel withdraws, the U.S. does not believe this force and U.N. peacekeepers can prevent a vacuum without the international force, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are private.

U.S. and French diplomats had been hoping for a vote on the draft early this week. But the differences between the co-sponsors meant that a Security Council vote on the resolution to try to end the fighting would be delayed at least until Thursday.

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said he still expects a vote this week.

"Our goal is to produce a text that will be helpful, which will help to have the hostilities ending, and a text which will help to a sustainable solution," he said. "The text will be improved, and I am working to improve the text."

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton refused to comment on specifics of the negotiations but acknowledged in an interview that differences remain.

"We're still pressing for a vote on a resolution as early as we can, but we've got to reach agreement, and there are still a lot of issues that need to be considered," Bolton told The Associated Press. "So, when will the vote be? It's hard to say at this point."

Bolton and de La Sabliere were expected to continue their negotiations on Wednesday and meet with three Arab envoys who flew to New York to address the Security Council and support the Lebanese government's seven-point plan, which it wants incorporated in the resolution.

The U.S.-French draft circulated Saturday calls for "a full cessation of hostilities," with Hezbollah immediately stopping all attacks and Israel ending offensive military operations. But Israel would still be allowed to take defensive action and there is no call for the withdrawal of its 10,000 troops from southern Lebanon.

Lebanon opposed the draft, saying it favored Israel. The Lebanese government demanded that the cessation of hostilities must be complete and said all Israeli troops must leave, warning that their presence would be viewed as a new occupation and citing Hezbollah's threat to shoot at any Israeli soldiers in the country.

De La Sabliere, asked about these two demands, said "we are trying to incorporate more to take into account the concerns they have expressed about the two issues."

Lebanon also wants the resolution to include a commitment to release Lebanese and Israeli prisoners, an agreement to put the disputed Chebaa Farms area on the Lebanon-Syria-Israel border under U.N. jurisdiction, an extension of Lebanese government authority throughout the country, a beefed-up U.N. force in southern Lebanon and international help to rebuild the country.

At an open Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Qatar's Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani, speaking on behalf of the Arab delegation, warned Israel that continuing attacks on Lebanon will "sow the seeds of hatred and extremism in the area" rather than restore peace and stability.

Chirac was speaking at a televised press conference in Toulon, after a meeting with Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin to discuss French efforts to win support for a draft ceasefire resolution on Lebanon in the United Nations.

The French leader also warned that the ongoing Israeli-Hezbollah conflict was a threat to the stability of the whole Middle East, but promised that "France is fully mobilized...to secure a ceasefire and reach a durable settlement of this crisis."

The upshot of the story is that the France and US are back to being more or less on the same diplomatic page in the latest Middle East conflict, although, granted, both sides tried to hold out for different wording on that page. The broader implication behind the headline was that France and the US are over their all-out feud and back to normal levels of bickering.

If you're a faithful Expatica reader, you knew all the way back in September that the 'misunderstanding' over the Iraq war was 'behind us'. So the US ambassador to France then declared to the French press in a story we picked up.

And this is all for the good if you're an American living in France as I am.

First, it is a lovely if fragile hope that Franco-American cooperation could actually help bring a halt to the current fighting in Lebanon.

And it's also just pleasant to imagine less future snarkiness between the two nations to which many of us devote our affections and our tax monies.

But I wonder...

The politicians

There is some evidence that Rice and Douste-Blazy's earnest declarations of nose-to-the-grindstone collaboration is a classic case of protesting too much.

Just to continue focusing on this one example of Franco-American cooperation on Lebanon, we may be a long way from the Iraqi war tensions. But perhaps not really all that far.

Diplomatic gossip would have it that the only thing that the two men chiefly responsible for that resolution - American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and his French counterpart, Jean-Marc de la Sablière - have in common is how much they despise each other.

One wag at the blog Wonkette described Bolton in the same photo used here: "This is the look that comes over your face when you're staring at the two people you hate most."

In more analytical detail, but with basically the same punchline, a story from Conflicts Forum co-directors Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke said the French-American ceasefire negotiations at the UN "nearly ended in disaster".

The authors argued that the semantic parrying over the UN draft resolution masks a much deeper and possibly irreconcilable differences on Israel. The apparent victory represented by the delivery of a document to the Security Council only "papered over a deepening rift between the United States and its European partners".

And, only days after Douste-Blazy confidently predicted that the Franco-American resolution would be quickly adopted by both sides, France finds itself the target of Lebanese charges of caving in to US pressure. This after France had long cultivated the role of mediator to Lebanon and the other Middle East states that are not Israel.

So, it may not take long for France to decide 'working night and day' with the Americans is just not worth the grief.

Real people

But let's say for the sake of argument that Franco-American political relations have indeed recovered from the dispute over the Iraq war. What about your average person on the street: are both sides tired of bashing each other yet?

Not according to SuperFrenchie, a popular blog site that reflects the view of a French expat living in the US and supplier of that must-have bumper sticker: "Annoy Bill O'Reilly. Buy French Products." SuperFrenchie would point to a discussion board posting seen in late July on the MSNBC website that advocated killing all French people.

Clearly, sadly, neither side has run short of venom yet.

But if you ignore the obvious crazies and sports-inspired hysteria (this above posting seemed inspired by the Floyd Landis doping scandal), public opinion had already started thawing to some extent, at least according to The Pew Global Attitudes Project.

It released a survey back in June 2005 that said 43 percent of French people have a 'favourable opinion' of the US. This figure was up slightly from 2004's 37 percent but still lower than in 2002 when 63 percent of French respondents looked favourably on the US. Interestingly, the percentage of 'favourable views of the US' is higher in France than in Germany and much higher than in Spain.

In the other direction, 46 percent of Americans surveyed in 2005 had a positive view of France. This was up from 33 percent in 2004 but still way down from a 79 percent positive response in 2002.

My point is that things are better, but too much damage has been done in the three short years since the American invasion of Iraq to recover from easily, even if French and American political interests do indeed again start to align.

French-bashing on the part of Bush policy-makers and discussion board blowhards is less an expression of opinion than a reflex, a habit they've gotten used to indulging. Likewise, anti-Americanism in France is less a reaction to where America is headed as to where France is headed; as long as the French feel uncomfortable about the second, there's no reason to veer from the first.

(And then there's John Bolton, who got his current job on the sly because Bush sneaked him the office keys during the legislative summer recess. He has since remained relatively muzzled, but who knows what verbal bombs he'll drop if he manages to face down a real Senate confirmation hearing come September.)

In other words, it's important to notice a headline with the words "French-US cooperation". You still may not read them again for a while.

The draft "requires a careful consideration that takes into account the Arab position" as expressed in a special meeting of the League of Arab States which adopted the seven-point plan drawn up by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Al-Thani said.

He warned the council against adopting the draft in its current form because it would only complicate the crisis.

"We draw the attention of the august council to the repercussions of adopting a non-enforceable resolution that would further complicate the situation on the ground and have grave ramification for Lebanon, Arab countries and all the countries of the region," Al-Thani said.

He urged the council to include in the draft a call for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and a withdrawal of the Israeli forces behind the Blue Line, the unofficial border drawn up by the UN between Lebanon and Israel.

Al-Thani called for a draft that would support the decision of the Lebanese government to extend its authority over all its territories by deploying the army.

The draft resolution calls for "a full cessation of hostilitiesbased upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah ofall attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensivemilitary operations."

It also asks Israel and Lebanon to reach consensus on a series of principles for a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution before the Council could adopt a second resolution authorizing an international force to be deployed in Lebanon.

Lebanon has rejected the draft, accusing it of failing to call for a withdrawal of some 10,000 Israeli troops from its territory.

Israel has not formally commented on the draft. But a senior government official said his country sees it favorably, partly because it allows soldiers to stay in southern Lebanon before an international force can take over.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed-Hamid Albar said on Tuesday he was unhappy with the draft resolution, which he termed as a document in favor of "the aggressor."

Faced with strong Arab objections, Paris and Washington are revising the draft resolution. Both countries said that they might consider making changes to the draft resolution.

France's UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere on Monday promised to take into account Lebanon's concern that the draft does not seek the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

The U.S. also hinted changes would be possible. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said his country would consider changes only if they make sense.

"We're going to listen to those points of view. If they make sense, then we'll certainly consider them," the spokesman said.

No action is expected until Thursday at the earliest. The draftresolution has not yet been introduced to the 15-member Security Council, which usually happens 24 hours before a vote.

He demanded again Israel's immediate withdrawal, saying the Lebanon-Israel conflict would not stop as long as Israeli forces remained in Lebanon.

The root reason for the current crisis is that Israel has refused to return Shebaa Farms to Lebanon or put them under UN jurisdiction, he said.

The president criticized Washington for taking sides with Israel, saying the UN Security Council draft resolution, sponsored by the United States and France, was unfair.

Lahoud said any resolutions on the issue should include the seven-point proposal passed by the Lebanese government, adding that as long as the proposal was put into practice, the Lebanese people could reach an agreement on anything.

Shebaa Farms, a collection of 14 farms dotting the western slopes of Mount Hermon, cover an area of around 10 square kilometers. Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 18 years and partially withdrew its troops in 2000. But Israel remained in the Shebaa Farms area, which it seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora put forward the seven-point proposal at an international conference on the Israel-Lebanon issue in Rome on July 26, demanding Israel's immediate cease-fire and withdrawal. It also called for exchanges of prisoners of war and asked Israel to hand jurisdiction of Shebaa Farms to the United Nations.

The conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah erupted on July 12 when Israel started a retaliatory military offensive after Hezbollah staged an incursion into Israeli territory, killing several soldiers and seizing two others.
Around 1,000 Lebanese and more than 100 Israelis have been killed in the conflict.

The trauma and economic damages will continue to affect many people's lives. Even if the cease-fire agreement is closer to Israel's positions than to Lebanon's, it would still not be a victory. Israel's insistence to unilaterally lay down the rules in the region perpetuates and deepens its character as an alien element within it. Israel's future generations will continue to pay for this obstinacy.

It comes as no surprise that this war has not yet been finished in one fell swoop. For six years, the Israeli army has accustomed its soldiers to regard their assaults in the occupied territories as "fighting" and "battles." They fostered the myth that there was symmetry between the advanced regular Israeli army and groups of Palestinians armed with light weapons and homespun bombs, scurrying among the tanks and helicopters that are demolishing their houses and fields. Indeed, on a few occasions, the Palestinians succeeded in guerrilla operations that killed or wounded the troops. But these were the exception. The suicide attacks inside Israel attest to the "military" weakness of the Palestinian organizations.

Now the IDF has sent to Lebanon soldiers who have been taught to believe that warfare is running down refugees' homes with tanks and bulldozers; that a battle is firing from helicopters at fighters with Kalashnikov rifles who cannot even scratch the Israeli tank surfaces. These soldiers think that defending the homeland is preventing hundreds of thousands of people from living like human beings, by operating roadblocks in the territories.

By another twisted standard set by the Israeli army in recent years, homes in northern Israel whose occupants have left to escape the Katyushas are to be designated as "abandoned." This, after all, is how Israeli military spokesmen justified, initially, the fact that bulldozers systematically demolished the homes of civilians in Khan Yunis and Rafah - civilians who had fled massive Israeli fire.

Bulldozers will not raze the homes of Israelis in the North, but why should thieves, for example, not take from them whatever they can get their hands on? These are, after all, abandoned homes, the thieves will say in their defense, citing the precedents.

Why bring this up today? First, because the war - state cruelty - against the Palestinians is ongoing. Second, because Israel's double standard and basic contempt for anyone who isn't "us" explains better than the army's outdated equipment and faulty training why it has been receiving blows so far and will continue to receive them. Israel is convinced that in Lebanon, as in Gaza and the West Bank, its unlimited power to destroy is both a deterrent and spur to political change. It is ignoring the human factor - that the Palestinians and Lebanese' fortitude grows in lockstep with our strengthening powers of destruction.

We are justly concerned about the welfare of northern residents, proud of their fortitude, understand those who leave, are shocked by the death of each person and by every rocket hit, and identify with those suffering from anxiety. Take what the northern residents have been going through for a month, multiply it by 1,000, add an economic blockade, power and water cuts, and no wages. This is how the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been "living" for the past six years.

The Israelis allow their army to continue destroying, trampling and killing in the Palestinian territories. Here, like in Lebanon, the real intelligence and security failure is Israel's ignoring the extent of our uninhibited, unrestrained devastation and their amazing power of human endurance. This is why Israel has delusions of "victories." If the homemade rockets are still being fired at Sderot despite the Palestinians' extensive suffering, it is because they have concluded, correctly, that Israel's destruction power is not intended to stop Qassam rockets - or to free Gilad Shalit. It is intended to force them to accept a surrender arrangement, which they reject not with military victories but with their power of endurance.