http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/20/stories/2006072003250800.htm
Opinion  -  Leader Page Articles    
Turning the clock back on Lebanon

 Anjali Kamat

 With Gaza as one model of Israeli collective punishment and Lebanon's own
past another, the Lebanese have little to look forward to especially by way
of international support.

 THE STORY of the city that emerged, phoenix-like, from 15 years of a brutal
civil war, to regain its position as an economic and cultural centre of the
Arab world, has come to a grinding halt with Israel's continuous bombardment
of Beirut and cities and villages in southern, northern, and eastern Lebanon
since last week. Some say the tide began to turn against the Lebanese with
the string of assassinations of well-known anti-Syrian politicians and
journalists, starting with that of the former Prime Minister, Rafiq
al-Hariri, the Saudi-made czar of Beirut's reconstruction, on February 14,
2005. But any residual hopes of Lebanese unity that the brief "Beirut
spring" of last March might have carried have been completely shattered with
Israeli bombs destroying lives, homes, and critical infrastructure across
the country. Beirut is under siege and major cities are being attacked by
air, sea, and land. For a people who have tried so hard to forget it, the
events of the past week are a devastating flashback to the carnage of the
civil war years, particularly to the three-month-long Israeli siege of
Beirut in the summer of 1982.

 Lebanese opinion is divided over Hizbollah's responsibility for initiating
the violence and plunging their country into war. Hizbollah, an armed
Islamist political party in Lebanon with representation in the government
and 14 MPs in Parliament, launched an exclusively military campaign by
kidnapping two Israeli soldiers on July 11 to negotiate the release of
Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel. In the subsequent clashes on
July 12, it killed eight Israeli soldiers. Israel's response, on the other
hand ‹ in line with its policy towards the Palestinians in Gaza and the West
Bank ‹ has been one of collective punishment towards Lebanese civilians. The
Lebanese Daily Star reports that the toll in less than a week included more
than 200 civilians dead, over 58,000 displaced, and the destruction of basic
infrastructure across the country.

 With every airport, major bridge, highway, seaport, and main electrical
station under attack by Israel's relentless air strikes, Lebanon's isolation
from the outside world is complete. People fleeing the bombing have nowhere
to escape. Nothing captures this humanitarian crisis more agonisingly than
the Associated Press images circulated on Sunday by an editor of Lebanon's
Al-Safir newspaper: a highway littered with the charred bodies of children
burnt by Israeli aerial bombing. The children and their families were
fleeing their village of Tayr Harfa in south Lebanon, two hours after it was
leafleted by Israeli planes warning that it would be bombed next. This is
not an isolated case; on Saturday, July 15, Reuters reported that Israeli
air strikes incinerated a van carrying 20 civilians, 15 of them children.
They were fleeing their village of Marwaheen on the border with Israel after
warnings over the loudspeaker to leave their homes.

 The extent of civilian casualties in Lebanon ‹ as in Gaza ‹ is particularly
important to remember in the light of constant Israeli attempts to cash in
on the U.S.-led `war on terror' and cast its own soldiers as the "most moral
army in the world." This was recently expressed in Sunday's comments from
the former Israeli Defence Minister, Shaul Mofaz, who called Hizbullah
"Israel's Al-Qaeda" and compared Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to Osama
bin Laden.

 The worst hit areas, described as "Hizbollah strongholds" by the Israeli
military and the Western media, also happen to be where the most
impoverished and dispossessed Lebanese reside. The sprawling suburbs of
southern Beirut, known as the "Dahiya," houses the poor Shi'ites from
southern and eastern Lebanon, and was called the "belt of misery," before
the birth and rise of Hizbollah, following the Israeli invasion of 1982.
Rather than simply imagining these neighbourhoods and villages as terrorist
breeding grounds, it is important to recall that Hizbollah's appeal partly
resides on its history of providing social services to Lebanon's 1.5 million
Shi'ites, long disenfranchised by the Lebanese state.

 Furthermore, in a region marked by the partition of Palestine in 1948, the
1967 Arab defeat leading to the ongoing Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the
brutal Israeli repression of the Palestinian resistance at every point
creating an unending narrative of Palestinian death and displacement, the
emotional appeal of what is widely considered to be the only Arab resistance
group to have successfully defeated the Israelis (resulting in the Israeli
withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000) cannot be underestimated.

 Of course, Hizbollah, while respected in certain circles in Lebanon, is
treated with much suspicion by many in the country, particularly those who
are sceptical of its links to Syria and Iran, its Islamist politics, and its
overtly militarised culture. Yet, as noted by several commentators in the
Arabic media, however angry Hizbollah's detractors might be about its role
in precipitating the current crisis, and however anachronistic an armed
resistance group protecting Lebanon from Israeli attacks might have seemed
to some Lebanese groups just a few weeks ago, Israel's disproportionate
response has only strengthened Hizbollah's raison d'etre. As a friend in
Beirut watching the air strikes next to his apartment commented: "Israel is
real. It bombs cities. Terrifies millions of people. Holds them under siege,
cuts them off from the outside world by bombing airports, surrounding
seaports and destroying main-roads to neighbouring countries. This is not
TV."

 In this context, the tepid response from U.S.-allied Arab states such as
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, and their harsh condemnation of what they
called Hizbollah's Iranian influenced "irresponsible adventurism," rather
than of Israel's bombing campaign against civilians, has infuriated many
inside Lebanon, who have taken a dim view of these cynical attempts to curry
favour with the United States. The G8 countries and the majority of the
international community have done little but wring their hands at the
current crisis, blame Hizbollah, and ask Israel to exercise "restraint." A
recent Washington Post article quotes a senior U.S. official saying that the
Israeli military "has to run its course" in Lebanon and "[has] space to
operate for a period of time."

 While speculation is rife about possible Syrian and Iranian support or
direction of Hizbollah's current operation ‹ for which no evidence has been
offered ‹ Hasan Nasrallah claims the abduction was planned at least five
months ago. Since the last prisoner exchange with Israel in 2004 ‹
negotiated following Hizbollah's use of captured Israeli soldiers as
bargaining chips ‹ he has publicly stated his intent to continue to press
for the release of the remaining prisoners in Israel. However, regardless of
one's position on Hizbollah's policies and tactics, constant assertions by
the U.S. and Israel that Hizbollah was directed by Syria and Iran is cause
for serious concern ‹ particularly in light of recent neoconservative calls
for a U.S. attack on Iran and the nuclear stalemate with Iran. The
Washington Post reported on Sunday that a senior U.S. official underscored a
"concern among conservative Arab allies that there is a hegemonic Persian
threat [running] through Damascus, through the southern suburbs of Beirut
and to the Palestinians in Hamas."

 Israel's intentions with respect to Syria and Iran remain unclear, but
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert emphasised that Israeli bombardment of Lebanon
will stop only when the two soldiers are returned and the conditions of the
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 are implemented ‹
particularly the complete disarmament of Hizbollah and the deployment of the
Lebanese army in southern Lebanon. Israel's insistence on disarming
Hizbollah echoes the conditions it set during its 1982 bombing of Beirut,
when it refused to stop the attack until all the Palestinian militias were
disarmed. As in 1982, this could become the pretext for a massive ground
invasion, which according to Reuters, Israel's Deputy Army Chief Moshe
Klapinsky does not rule out.

 Although Israel demands Lebanese army presence in the south, it bombed
Lebanese army barracks in the north on Monday, killing eight, and injuring
12, at a time when the Lebanese government has repeatedly called for a
ceasefire. The Lebanese government's relative hesitation at deploying its
army in the south is part of its strategy of distancing itself from
Hizbollah's actions, as well as fears of igniting the real sectarian
tensions below the surface of Lebanese unity that could well erupt if the
army was perceived to be pitted against Hizbollah.

 Gaza might have fallen off the radar of the media with Lebanon taking
centre stage, but it continues to burn under the daily fire of Israeli
shells and the humanitarian crisis grows worse with every passing day ‹
receiving only the mildest of condemnations from the international
community. With Gaza as one model of Israeli collective punishment and
Lebanon's own past another, the Lebanese have little to look forward to,
especially by way of international support. Shockingly, it appears that IDF
Chief Lt. General Dan Halutz's threat of July 12 to "turn the clock back on
Lebanon 20 years," as reported in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, might slowly
and sadly be coming true.

 

 

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.........................................................
Sujatha Byravan Ph. D.
President, Council for Responsible Genetics
5 Upland Road, Suite 3
Cambridge, MA 02140
Tel: (617) 868 0870
http://www.gene-watch.org