Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/diplomats-work-to-end-mideast-fighting Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The U.N. Security Council moved to authorize the deployment of 15,000 troops to enforce a proposed truce between Israel and Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon. Experts discuss efforts to end the violence. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. MARGARET WARNER: New developments in diplomacy and war in the Middle East. Judy Woodruff has the story. JUDY WOODRUFF, NewsHour Special Correspondent: It was a day of apparent contradictions in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.N. Security Council appears poised to approve a resolution to stop the fighting, but the shelling and the bombing accelerated.Here to assess all these developments are Hisham Melhem. He's Washington bureau chief for the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar and host of a weekly program on Al-Arabiya.And David Makovsky, he's director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy. He's a former editor and correspondent at the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz newspapers.Hisham, David, thank you both for being with us.David, let me begin with you. The latest news is that Prime Minister Olmert has decided to go along with this emerging deal coming out of the United Nations. We think there will be a vote tonight. What's behind this?DAVID MAKOVSKY, Project on the Middle East Peace Process: Well, the big question during the week was: Would the U.S.-French diplomatic initiative be watered down? And would this multinational force that is supposed to help the government of Lebanon, as it takes control of the south — which Lebanon hasn't had for 31 years — is it going to be real? Is it going to have teeth? Or is this just another UNIFIL, which in Israel is a dirty word, the U.N. force that monitors as the hostilities go on but doesn't do anything to stop it?And Olmert is taking a bet at the end of this week, really within the last hour it seems — and it could be brinkmanship, it could not be — saying that he believes that the resolution does have teeth to ensure that this multinational force of 15,000 people, working with the Lebanese government, is going to really try to stop Hezbollah from making these attacks. But there are skeptics, too. JUDY WOODRUFF: What made him — do we know what has given him the assurance that this force has teeth? DAVID MAKOVSKY: We don't know exactly. I mean, we can speculate. There have been concerns at the issue of re-supply, that the borders — they say that the missiles were coming from Syria into Lebanon, that the multinational force and Lebanese government would do nothing to stop the re-supply because of what's called Chapter Seven of the U.N. charter, which says, if you violate this resolution, we're going to sanction you, Iran, Syria, that are providing the missiles.Once that was taken out, word was that Olmert said, "No way." But apparently he got some assurances — I don't know if it was from Condoleezza Rice or the president — suggesting that this force would have teeth.I would also add one more point here: For Olmert, he went through 1982. In 1982, Israel went into Lebanon but didn't know how to get out. And I think he felt, "Give this a chance." JUDY WOODRUFF: You're saying it's about a sense of security for Israel? DAVID MAKOVSKY: Yes.