The United States and UN are looking into the possibility that an international force would replace Israel in the Shebaa Farms area in exchange for Hezbollah's disarming and becoming a political party.

Meanwhile, the UN has rejected a Lebanese government appeal asking to show the UN documents and other evidence to prove Shebaa is Lebanese. The outgoing Middle East UN envoy Terje Larsen met a few days ago with Lebanese government officials in New York and told them that recognition of the Shebaa Farms area as Lebanese would require a new border agreement between Lebanon and Syria, ratified in both parliaments, and then registering the new border lines with the UN.

Lebanon's claim that Shebaa is Lebanese forms the foundation for its insistence that Hezbollah is not a foreign armed force on its soil, but rather a national liberation movement legitimately trying to liberate Lebanese territory from foreign occupation.

When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, the UN accepted Israel's claim that Shebaa is Syrian, essentially part of the Golan Heights, and declared that it had fully implemented UN resolutions demanding its withdrawal from Lebanon. Indeed, Larsen pointed out to the Lebanese officials that when he appeared at a press conference in Damascus with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara and said that Shebaa is part of Syria, Shara did not contradict him.

Arab sources in Israel say the Americans and the UN are looking into the possibility of an Israeli withdrawal from Shebaa, with the area becoming demilitarized or a UN force moving in. The Lebanese border would remain unaltered, while the Israeli border would go through the Golan beyond the Shebaa area.

Gen. Michel Aoun and Walid Jumblatt, Lebanon's two main opposition leaders, have made it clear to foreign diplomats that they would find it difficult to promote an arrangement involving a disarmament of Hezbollah, or even an understanding with Israel, as long as Shebaa is occupied. Aoun, who met recently with Likud MK Ayoub Kara in Paris, returned to Lebanon last week, and his party is expected to win a substantial number of seats in the upcoming Lebanese elections.