Shebaa still simmering

  In a recent conversation with a Hezbollah fighter, up popped the subject of the Shebaa Farms, that sparsely populated mountainside tucked into Lebanon’s southeast corner. The fighter hinted that attacks against the Israeli troops manning a handful of outposts on the lofty peaks of the Farms could soon resume after a hiatus of more than four years. “We just have to deal with the internal front first,” he said, referring to the looming crisis over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the expected, possibly imminent, indictments against members of Hezbollah. There was a time when the Shebaa Farms was viewed as a possible catalyst for a regional war between Hezbollah, Israel and Syria. Ironic, really, given that before Israel withdrew its forces from South Lebanon in May 2000, few Lebanese even knew where the Shebaa Farms lay. The area was occupied in 1967 when Israel took the adjacent Golan