LONDON, July 18 (UPI) -- The current conflict in the Middle East is "directly connected" to the actions of Iran and Syria, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday.
Hezbollah and Hamas militants sponsored by Damascus and Tehran had abducted three Israeli soldiers and launched rocket attacks against Israel as a deliberate strategy "designed to provoke the response that followed," he told parliament.
"We should be in no doubt about the immediate cause of this situation," he said. Hamas and Hezbollah and "those that support them" had planned the abductions as "a deliberate strategy in order to make sure this conflict is widened."
The crisis could not be resolved without addressing its root causes, he said, which were "directly connected in an arc from Iran right across the Middle East."
In response to suggestions that Israel's failure to withdraw to 1967 borders as required by United Nations Resolution 242 was at the root of the conflict, Blair said it was in fact the Palestinians who had defaulted on the resolution by rejecting the peace deal offered at Camp David.
He urged Israel to show restraint, but insisted its response was "understandable."
But Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies Campbell said that while Israel had a legal and moral right to exist, it did not have the right to act in a manner that was "disproportionate" and amounted to "collective punishment in Lebanon and Gaza."
Blair reiterated his call for the deployment of an international force in Lebanon, saying: "Even if we manage to stabilize the existing situation ... we are still going to be at risk, unless there is some force there, of what happened recently happening again."
The ultimate objective had to be the dismantling of militia groups in southern Lebanon in line with U.N. Resolution 1559, he added.
Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Kim Howells said Monday that British troops would not take part in any deployment to the region.
