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Analysis: Crisis in Lebanon | ||
Pamela Olson July 27, 2006 | ||
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The Situation
On July 12, 2006, Lebanese Shia Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others on the northern Israeli border. Their professed goals were to swap the soldiers for three Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails and to support the besieged Palestinians. Such raids and prisoner swaps have been successful in the past, and indeed have been the only way to obtain concessions from Israel, because otherwise Israel prefers a unilateral approach: to dictate the terms of political agreements without talking to the other side and then back it up with overwhelming fire power or the threat of it. Hezbollah expected a strong Israeli response aimed at Hezbollah leaders, fighters, and areas followed by negotiations, and minimal civilian casualties on both sides. This is how things had happened in the past, under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Instead, the new Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, without warning or discussion, bombarded Lebanon with aerial attacks from the Shia south to the Christian north, targeting civilian areas and infrastructure including villages and suburbs, roads, bridges, ports, Beirut’s civilian airport, a dairy farm, cell phone towers, homes, apartment buildings, and fleeing vehicles. The destruction and devastation came during a bumper tourist season for the relatively liberal, cosmopolitan country struggling to rebuild itself after a decades-long civil war and crippling invasions by Israel and Syria. 25,000 Americans were among the millions of innocent people trapped and terrified by the shocking and indiscriminate attacks. In response to the attacks, Hezbollah began shooting rockets toward Israeli towns and cities, including Haifa, Israel’s third largest city. As of July 27, Israel has killed over 437 Lebanese, overwhelmingly mostly civilians, about a third of them children (according to the UN). Scores more are known to be buried under the rubble of bombed houses and apartment buildings. Hezbollah rockets have killed 19 Israeli civilians, and Hezbollah has killed 33 Israeli soldiers. Over half a million Lebanese have been displaced inside Lebanon, fleeing the relentless bombardments. Tens of thousands more are believed still trapped in the south, with bombs falling on their villages but unable to leave because of Israel's indiscriminate shelling of fleeing vehicles and even ambulances and aid convoys. Israel has also hit at least one UN observer post repeatedly and killed four UN peacekeepers and two civilian UN workers. Lebanese politics and Hezbollah Lebanon is composed of about 40% Shia Muslims (Hezbollah is a Shia organization) and the rest are Sunni Muslims, Maronite Christians, Druze, and Palestinian refugees. Shia are generally recognized to be under-represented in the political landscape, and Palestinian refugees have severely curtailed civil rights. Hezbollah is credited with driving the Israeli army out of southern Lebanon after 18 years of Israeli occupation there, which ended in 2000. As such, they are regarded as heroes by everyone. They also provide much-needed social services and other community works in Shia areas. Yet they are now almost an occupation unto themselves in the south with a stronger army than the regular Lebanese army even though their raison d'etre, the Israeli occupation of the south, has ended except for three grievances that Hezbollah is not shy to trot out: the Shebaa Farms border area is still under dispute (Israel says it belongs to Syria, and thus is part of the Golan Heights, which Israel still occupies, whereas both Syria and Lebanon claim it belongs to Lebanon), Israel has refused to negotiate for the release of Lebanese prisoners incarcerated in Israel, and the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza continues unabated. Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, uses these grievances as prime justifications for his continued armament. Hezbollah in Lebanon are unpredictable and uncontrollable by the dominant Sunni and Christian populations, and they represent a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. As such, many in Lebanon, particularly the glitterati of Beirut, were, before this latest conflict, hoping to quietly disarm them at some point. The reason they couldn’t get rid of them before now is because the central government is still fairly weak, and fighting Hezbollah, the only force credibly able to protect the south against Israel, would likely initiate another civil war -- something most Lebanese would do almost anything to avoid. Also, because Hezbollah unquestionably drove out the Israelis and provides social services, they are genuine representatives of a large proportion of the population of Lebanon. But since Israel over-reacted so extraordinarily to Hezbollah’s capture of the two Israeli soldiers, and attacked Sunnis and Christians and their civilian infrastructure as well as Hezbollah and Shias, and so indiscriminately (again, 90% of the people they killed were innocents, one-third children), Israel handed Hezbollah a victory. Israel showed all Lebanese that Israel can hit anyone it chooses, at any time, with little or no worldwide backlash or accountability. America has blocked any censure by the UN or other bodies, and although most Europeans condemn the assault, their ability to do anything about it without American backing is depressingly small. Thus Hezbollah is the only force in the world willing and able to mount any protest to Israel's overwhelming force. Israel has also violated Lebanon's sovereignty in several ways, big and small, since its withdrawal in 2000, something the Lebanese have been completely helpless to defend themselves against -- this is rather humiliating to all Lebanese. Southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and the Bekaa Valley in the east are Hezbollah (and Shia) strongholds, but anything else that Israel bombed seems difficult to justify, because before Israel's assaults, there was very little support for Hezbollah in the Sunni and Christian communities. As Israel's attacks got more and more extreme last week, a lot of anti-Hezbollah, pro-peace public opinion (even among completely secular people and the younger generation who grew up without knowing war) turned guardedly pro-Hezbollah and decidedly anti-Israel. A lot of people were furious at Hezbollah for acting from Lebanese territory without giving the Lebanese a real say in it, and giving Israel an excuse to do what it did. But Israel w ent so far beyond the pale that most of the rage in the country is directed at Israel now (and by extension, America, because we give arms, aid, and diplomatic cover to Israel). And the Lebanese, from what I understand, feel not divided, as Israel had hoped, but more unified. As for Arab public opinion in general, Hezbollah's star has just risen past the heavens. Arab regimes like Jordan and Egypt and Saudi (the so-called "moderate" Arab regimes because they have accepted American financial and political support in order to consolidate their undemocratic holds on power and make peace with Israel absent a fair and legal political settlement with the Palestinians) rarely stand up to Israel no matter how severe its violations of Palestinian and Lebanese human rights. Many sore points with the Arab public, including massacres in Sabra and Chatila (1982) and Qana (1996), have never been brought to justice, and the heavy-handed occupation of the Palestinian territories is a never-ending sore point. So anyone who does stand up to Israel (Nasrallah claimed to be acting in solidarity with his Palestinian brothers, among other things) gets massive kudos on the Arab street. Someone who actually defeats Israel obtains mythical status, not because (most) Arabs dislike Israelis as such but because they perceive Israelis not to respect the human rights, dignity, security, or sovereignty of Arabs, and Israel has the overwhelming power to enforce that lack of respect and turn reality into a nightmare for Palestinians and now for Lebanese beyond all sense of proportionality. This lack of proportionality indicates that America and Israel consider Arab blood cheaper than American or Israeli blood, and this is deeply resented. People are people. If Israel would talk to her neighbors with respect and recognize that not only Israel but also the people around it have a stake in the destiny of the region and a right to self-determination and security, there would be much less public opinion against Israel and less perceived need to support radical Muslim organizations. Such organizations are the only ones brave/suicidal/with nothing to lose enough to fight Israel and claim to champion Arab self-determination and the human rights of Palestinians in the absence of anyone else’s willingness or ability to do so. (Whether they actually care about Palestinians or Arab self-determination is another matter, but the important point is that they are perceived to be the only ones who do.) The fact that guerrilla wars are so hideously ugly for everyone, and that they are practically unwinnable by either side, are, I believe, good reasons to work hard to find an alternative to fighting them. Both the Lebanon and the Palestine questions have fairly clear solutions under international law that can and should to be negotiated in good faith in order to define the final, agreed-upon, universally-recognized borders for all concerned. These solutions, though not easy, will be a lot less painful for all concerned than what's going on now and where it looks like it's headed in the future. Israel has shown that unilateralism -- i.e. dictating the terms of every settlement (as in southern Lebanon and Gaza and, if Olmert has his way, the West Bank) without talking to the other party and then enforcing those terms with overwhelming fire power -- has been a disastrous choice. The only solution to the conflicts in the Middle East is a political one, not a military one. (Never mind Iraq -- we messed that one up so bad I don't know if there is any solution anymore. I hope we wise up before we get to the point where the whole Middle East looks like Iraq.) If there is a bright point to the horrors of the past couple of weeks, it might be that some commentators, even in America, are starting to come around to this inevitable (IMHO) conclusion. And in a couple of years, if we wind up with a competent president, he may take heed and finally force everyone to the table, and iron this thing out once and for all in a reasonably fair and legal way, as moderate parties tried to do in Madrid in 1991 until they got sidelined by the secretly-negotiated Oslo Accords. Hizbollah is in the wrong as well, and its targeting of Israeli civilian areas in retaliation for Israeli assaults on Lebanese civilian areas is illegal under international law as well. But one might reasonably expect Israel, a strong and modern Western democratic nation, to hold itself to a higher standard than a resistance/terrorist militia. In my best analysis, holding oneself to a higher standard of ethics in warfare is generally an asset rather than a liability, particularly against an insurgency-style enemy. For example, I don’t think Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo helped our efforts in Iraq on balance, to say nothing of our global credibility. Imagine if Northern Irish militants raided London and killed eight British soldiers and captured two, and in response Britain bombed every road and bridge and airport and grain silo and fuel storage tank in southern Ireland, flattened several suburbs in Dublin that were sympathetic to Sinn Fein, and destroyed entire villages as well as civilian cars as they fled them in Sinn Fein-sympathetic areas, and killed 400+ Irish, 90% of them civilians, one-third of them children. This is what Israel is doing to Lebanon. It will be precisely as effective. If Israel had been smart, they could have told Hezbollah, "We'll give you 24 hours to give our soldiers back. Then we'll start bombing the south. Then we'll start bombing the Bekaa Valley. Then we'll hit southern Beirut. Then we'll take out villages around Sour (Tyre) and Sidon. And meanwhile, every rocket you launch at Israel will be answered with one of our much stronger missiles." Etc. Israel could have upped the ante every day in clearly-defined terms. This might have turned Lebanese public opinion (even Shia public opinion) into pressuring Hezbollah to give up the soldiers and de-escalate what looked like a losing situation. Sure, Hezbollah would be left in the south. (They will be in any case.) But they would have had egg on their face and been weakened instead of coming out like heroes, and Israel would look smart and restrained and legitimate and legal and like statesmen. Any bombing they did, even if it was pretty harsh, would be seen by a lot more people as Hezbollah's fault for refusing extremely clear and fairly reasonable terms after a clear violation of Israeli sovereignty. Instead, Israel destroyed Lebanon without saying a word. Israel’s crime so far outstrips Hezbollah’s (Hezbollah attacked a military target, after all, not a civilian one) that Hezbollah’s original crime seems practically irrelevant, certainly among Lebanese and other Arab public opinion. And now Israel has nowhere left to go. They have nothing left to threaten. They’ve already destroyed the country. Hezbollah is smelling like a rose in the Arab world, Israel looks like it’s having an incomprehensible fit, and Israel will pretty soon have to back down, because they know they can't win. And that will hurt them in many ways. Instead of wisely paving the way for regional integration, which is necessary for Israel's survival in the long-term, Israel just sowed another generation of sorrow and hatred. Israel knew Hezbollah could never inflict the kind of pain on Israel that Israel has already inflicted on Lebanon, so there's no credible pretense of proportionality. Meanwhile, justifications for Israel’s behavior are being assiduously promulgated by most commentators and politicians in America, who largely subscribe to the Likud / Kadima (Likud lite) / neo-con-style Israeli narrative -- even Democrats, especially in an election year. (This article explores the neo-cons’ ties to Israel and their devotion to a hard-line, hawkish, and ultimately self-defeating approach to Israeli (and American) security. This article discusses the Israel lobby’s disproportionate influence on American politics.) But despite its American patronage and overwhelming military superiority, Israel can't win this war, even in the short-term. Israel couldn't subdue Hezbollah during 18 years of heavy-handed occupation. There's almost nothing they can do in the next few weeks (if they're given that long) that will significantly weaken Hezbollah, and another long-term Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon will be seen as a failure and a disaster by all Israelis. In the end there will be a prisoner swap, Hezbollah will declare victory, and Israel will look more like a rogue state in the eyes of European and Arab public opinion than ever. Israel will also look weak, much like America looks rather feckless in Iraq at the moment. Everyone concerned will hopefully learn an important lesson: that there are some problems in life that can't be solved by violence. Additionally, Bush's democratization plan for the Middle East has been undermined for several reasons. The so-called Cedar Revolution, which helped get Syria out of Lebanon, was hailed by Bush as one of the few victories in his Democracy Crusade. Yet last week the world overheard him telling Blair to tell Kofi to tell Syria to tell Hezbollah to "stop doing that s#!t." This indicates that not only does Bush have very little grasp of the underlying causes of this conflict, he also doesn’t mind Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs after all. Worse, he completely failed to help his democratic ally, the Lebanese central government, in its darkest hour, showing the rest of the Arab world how much value Bush places on democratic Arab allies. Also, Bush has offered Egypt and Saudi the following incentive if they will help rein in Hezbollah: He will ease up on pressuring them to undertake democratic reforms. A final point: an Israeli friend of mine pointed out that the Israeli government is probably not trying to neutralize Hezbollah or get its soldiers back right now, as this cannot be achieved with the methods they are employing. Instead, he said, it appears as though they are systematically destroying Lebanon for some reason he can't work out, but which may have to do with Syria or Iran or something else. On this matter, I don't know enough to have an opinion. I’m only commenting on stated goals and public actions. | ||