The war in Lebanon has produced some surprising outcomes
More than a month after Israel started pounding Lebanon for the kidnap of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah, a ceasefire has been brought to the table.It is a miserable fact of this whole miserable episode that while the ceasefire is vital, it could have been put into effect weeks ago, were it not for the singularly short-sighted foreign policy of the United States.
At the meeting of the United Nations Security Council which approved the ceasefire resolution last Friday, UN Secretary General Kofi Anan said, “All members of this Council must be aware that its inability to act sooner has badly shaken the world s faith in its authority and integrity.
Spoken like a diplomat. It isn’t so much that the world’s faith in the Security Council’s “integrity and authority has been badly shaken. That faith was already weak, battered by decades of one ignored resolution after another and successive U.S. vetoes to bolster Israel. It’s since been dealt a blow that will be extremely difficult to recover from. The war has brought into question the effectiveness of the UN as a legislative international force.
Like all wars, there have been winners and losers and in this case, some of them were more expected than others.
When Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers a month ago, it was hardly an unprecedented move. Kidnapped Israeli soldiers are used as bargaining chips for the return of Lebanese soldiers and Hezbollah militia men that have been kidnapped by the Israelis in equally illegal incursions into Lebanon. This is a fact that Israel (and U.S. reports) conveniently forgets to mention. What started off as business as usual rapidly turned into a nightmare of civilian casualties of endemic proportions.
Israel saw it as an opportunity to break Hezbollah, a thorn in their side for over two decades. The fact that Hezbollah owes its existence to Israel’s brutal invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982 is, again, one of those facts that it is more convenient to ignore. And indeed, history is sometimes merely a collection of burdensome details. In this case, it wasn’t Hezbollah’s history that bothered Israel, it was its future.
Accordingly, Israel girded its loins and leapt into military action, bombing Lebanon in an effort to weed out and destroy the organization. It did so with the full approval of the United States, which actually said that it was giving Israel time to finish off (or greatly disable) Hezbollah.
Seymour Hersh’s article in the New Yorker last week claims that the U.S. went further than merely giving approval. He says the U.S. consulted with Israel on such a plan back in May and that was part of a greater effort to attack Iran. While the U.S. Administration has denied this, there are few in the Middle East who would disagree with Mr. Hersh on Iran’s being the ultimate target in this whole fiasco.
Be that as it may, the U.S did announce that it would allow time for Israel to get on with it. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire was “premature. It appears, however, that no one in the Israeli Cabinet or the U.S. Administration has ever read Robert Burns. The best laid plans of mice and men often do go awry.
Hezbollah stubbornly refused to lie down and die. In fact, the organization just kept lobbing rockets over at Israel, driving Israelis into shelters and the myth of Israeli military invincibility deep into the ground. Israelis woke in the morning to an enemy that fought back and the realization that war could be conducted on their own doorsteps.
The ferocity and intensity of the bombing on Lebanon, the attacks on civilian areas, the number of refugees fleeing their homes in panic all rose, while the rest of the world looked on.
The continuing massacre of Lebanese civilians was made possible (or at least facilitated) by the U.S. administration, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair providing background support, but the rest of the world stood by. While most nations tut-tutted in disapproval, they satisfied themselves by merely voicing their concerns.The Arab countries, to whom the Lebanese should have been able to turn, hurried to provide financial support and food and medical supplies, but did little else.
Egypt, the leader of the Arab world, sent support, a ship laden with essential supplies and our president’s son to Lebanon. But we failed to recall our Ambassador to Israel. We have a peace treaty with Israel and military operations are out of the question, but the recall of our ambassador should have been the least that we could bring to the table. To our shame, that was left to Venezuela, which recalled its ambassador to Israel almost two weeks ago
Matters came to a head after the Israelis bombed Qana. The Israelis seem to have a fondness for Qana. They bombed the hell out of it back in 1996, killing over 100 civilians. This time, it was almost 60 civilians, mostly members of two extended families and more than half of them children. The images on television, of one tiny body bag after another being carried away from the rubble by rescue workers who couldn’t control their tears, was too much for people to bear.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora effectively told Secretary Rice, scheduled to visit Beirut, that she was not welcome unless there was a ceasefire.
The massacre in Qana was a turning point and helped bring about Resolution 1701, which deals with the ceasefire. It was approved by the Israelis, which means that it favors them, but the final form came about after Lebanon, backed by the Arab States, who refused to accept the original draft.
The resolution calls for a multinational peace-keeping force to patrol what is effectively a buffer zone between Lebanon and Israel, but in cooperation with the Lebanese army.
Israel has not been able to claim a victory. In fact, it was solidly unable to deliver the gains it promised and it is likely that the government’s shelf-life has been considerably shortened. The in-fighting has started already and the army claims that the government did not give it full rein to operate as it saw fit and the government claims that the army promised a quick, air-dominated victory. Israelis are left with the realization that they are not invincible.
Unfortunately, the Palestinians will bear the brunt of this awakening. The two-state solution and the fence have suddenly become an alarming liability. Fences do not stop missiles.
It is difficult to overestimate the damage that has been caused to the credibility of U.S. foreign policy. Already highly suspect in the region, the role of the U.S. in this debacle has cemented its image as a blind supporter of Israel’s policies and interests. Nor does that support appear to be particularly incisive as the Administration has made one error of judgment after another and it’s continuing to compound the problem. At press time, Secretary Rice was still talking about ‘the unconditional surrender of the Israeli soldiers’ an issue that is incorporated into the resolution. The Israelis are already talking about negotiating the release of prisoners. The Israeli, it seems, know when to go running to their friends, but also when to be pragmatic. The image of the world’s only remaining superpower hobbled at the ankle to a small Middle East country, oblivious to all other considerations is not an attractive or reassuring one.
Conversely, the war has been an unexpected boon to Hezbollah. From being a local nuisance to the Israelis (and a U.S. bogeyman) the organization has developed into a regional hero. Feelings have run so high that priests in churches in Egypt were asking their congregations to pray for its victory. It’s probable, of course, that once the Lebanese have caught their breath, they will be keen to ensure that Hezbollah never puts them in this position again. Then again, the UN resolution might be just what the organization needs, to develop from an inconvenient militia into a bona fide army.And of course, we have Iran.
Despite Israel’s ceaseless and increasingly desperate efforts to point the fin
ger at Iran and drag it into the circle of responsibility, Iran has managed to sit this one out. Quietly, calmly, with a kind of self-control that has entirely eluded Israel, Iran has merely taken measure of the proceedings. And the more frantically Israel and the U.S. jabbed accusing fingers, the more difficult it has become to ascertain precisely what role Iran played.
The people of Lebanon occupy an odd place in all of this. They have been bombed out of their lives and homes, their infrastructure lies around their ankles, they have lost almost 1200 citizens to Israeli bombs. The Lebanese, however, have an extraordinary ability to overcome. A people of remarkable resilience with a fierce appreciation of life, the Lebanese have already withstood an Israeli invasion, in tandem with a civil war. At time of press, the road from Qassemia in the south was already choked with people heading back to the areas that have been bombed, ready to get on with rebuilding. It’s estimated that $14 billion will be needed to rebuild the damage Israel’s bombs have caused. But that’s merely finances. A tiny nation with few resources, Lebanon has usually had to fall back on its greatest resource of all; its people.
