UNITED NATIONS — In its rush to create an international force to support the Lebanese army on the Israel-Lebanon border, the United Nations is neglecting the real flashpoint in Lebanon: the border with Syria.

Speaking on Beirut TV, Secretary-General Annan’s envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, addressed Saturday’s Israeli commando raid on Baalbek: “If what has been reported is correct, it is, of course, a clear violation of the cease-fire.” The United Nations has no way to verify the facts, he added.

Incredibly, the alphabet soup of Turtle Bay’s presence in Lebanon — running refugee camps through UNRWA, monitoring a cease-fire since 1949 through UNTSO, maintaining an interim force known as UNIFIL since 1979,etc.— is totally absent in the Bekaa Valley, which, with its capital of Baalbek, is terror central: IRA, PKK, Red Army Brigades, Bader-Meinhoff, any Palestinian Arab acronym you ever heard of.

Name the group and, with the possible exception of Timothy McVeigh, it was based at the Bekaa at one point. With its arable land, where hashish and opium grow, the secluded area near the Syrian border is perfectly placed for shadowy activity, complete with its own built-in illicit economy.

Hezbollah now maintains control and command spots in the valley, where the Iranian- and Syrian-backed rearming efforts are concentrated. When the Israel Defense Force’s elite special forces unit, Sayeret Matkal, raided the area near Baalbek on Saturday, it was trying to interrupt those efforts, as well as signal to Lebanon, the United Nations, and anyone else interested enough to listen that the usual rearming will be allowed there.

Adept at misreading the situation, U.N. types assumed their familiar role of referee, with Mr. Annan expressing “deep concern” about what he defined as Israel’s violation of the cease-fire.

Last week, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni ventured on an unprecedented trip, for a top Israeli official, solely to meet Mr. Annan. Much to Turtle Bay’s delight, she used terms like “international community” and “process” as if she had grown up on them. (Ms. Livni is a Beitar “princess” who was raised on slogans like “there are two banks to the Jordan River; this is ours, and so is that one.”)

Jerusalem decided to impress upon the Arab world, as well as Europe, that Hezbollah is everybody’s problem, and that the Jewish state alone should not face the growing Shiite menace it represents. Although polls show that most Israelis are uneasy with the government’s appeal to the vaunted “international community,” the Olmert-Peretz-Livni government is sticking with it for now.

But even that government is not blindingly adhering to U.N.-based dictates; rather, as Ms. Livni put it, it is presenting “a test for the international community.” One of the first tests, she told Israeli reporters last week, will be whether the weapons embargo imposed on Hezbollah is implemented.

Mr. Annan’s deputy, Mark Malloch Brown, appealed to Europeans last week to “harden up their commitments” and send troops to balance out the ones already pledged for southern Lebanon by Muslim countries with no diplomatic relations with Israel.

But the widely hailed “cessation of hostilities” will end quickly if the Lebanese army, backed by international troops, continues to enforce a “political agreement” that strips Hezbollah of pistols but allows it to build fortifications for housing long-range missiles.

Even after the Israeli raid Saturday, I am told, the government of Prime Minister Siniora declined to ask for international help in enforcing the arms embargo that is required by U.N. Security Council resolution 1701.

Germany has volunteered naval assets to cover the waterfront, as well as custom agents for the Syrian border. But everyone else has overlooked the arms embargo. In an attempt to address the elusive “rules of engagement,” the United Nations made a PowerPoint presentation last week that created new confusion for potential troop contributors. France, once envisioned as the “backbone” of the international force but so far has pledged a mere 200 engineers, yesterday “urged” other Europeans to contribute.

And as everyone bickers about keeping Israel and Lebanon apart, it is business as usual at the Bekaa, where the next Hezbollah war against Israel is being hatched.