Le Monde diplomatique
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August 2006
AFTER
HIZBULLAH AND HAMAS ..
Middle East: what will emerge
from the ruins?
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A month into war in the Middle East, the United States and
France have come together to formulate a way out of the crisis
in Lebanon, based on United Nations resolutions. They propose an
end to the violence, followed by the deployment of an
international force. Failure to gain Lebanese and Arab agreement
has allowed Israel more time to pursue its military objectives.
by
Alain Gresh
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Killers daily slaughter dozens of civilians in Iraq just
because they are Sunni Muslims, a crime not seen in the
Middle East since the civil war in Lebanon in 1975-76, when
Falangist militants executed Muslims because of their faith.
According to the United Nations, almost 6,000 Iraqis were
killed in May and June.
In the south of Afghanistan, 100 civilians have been
collateral victims of an offensive by coalition forces, led
by the United States, to prevent the return of the Taliban.
Suicide attacks are increasingly common in Afghanistan, where
before they were unknown.
On the Gaza Strip, 1.5 million Palestinians are caught in a
trap, hemmed in by the Israeli offensive and the decision by
the US and the European Union to freeze all direct aid. The
sudden escalation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon,
with indiscriminate bombing of towns, villages and
infrastructure, may drag Syria and Iran into a regional
conflict. Meanwhile, Hizbullah's rockets have paralysed the
north of Israel. And the Iran nuclear crisis remains
unresolved: Tehran is threatening to withdraw from the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
It is just three years since President George Bush landed
triumphantly on a US aircraft carrier and announced "mission
accomplished", signifying an end to the hostilities in Iraq,
where the full scale of the disaster unleashed by the allied
invasion is now apparent. Not since 1967 has the Middle East
suffered so many simultaneous high-intensity crises. Though
each has its own rationale, they are all linked by many
threads, making partial solutions more difficult and dragging
the region ever faster into the abyss.
For many western observers there is no doubt about the
culprit; they believe Hizbullah aims to destroy Israel and to
unsettle the whole western camp; Hizbullah and its backers
are trying to "establish a universal Islamist
dictatorship" (1). This analysis, currently predominant among
politicians and the media, is close to that of the US
neo-conservatives: a new world war has started.
Michael Leeden, a researcher at the American Enterprise
Institute, wrote: "It's war, and it now runs from Gaza into
Israel, through Lebanon and thence to Iraq via Syria. There
are different instruments, ranging from Hamas in Gaza to
Hizbullah in Syria and Lebanon and on to the multifaceted
insurgency in Iraq. But there is a common prime mover, and
that is the Iranian mullahcracy, the revolutionary Islamic
fascist state that declared war on us 27 years ago and has
yet to be held accountable" (2).
A neo-con war
One of the leading US neocon ideologists, William Kristol,
proudly proclaims "It's our war" (3), since he believes that
in the face of an across-the-board attempt to destabilise the
western world, the Israeli government, led by Ehud Olmert, is
undoubtedly "on the right side". Even as Lebanon was being
bombed, the Group of Eight issued a statement from its
meeting in St Petersburg, signed by France (4), proclaiming
Israel's "right to defend itself ".
True, the initial Hizbullah attack on 12 July on an Israeli
patrol led to six deaths and the capture of two soldiers.
This was hardly an isolated incident since skirmishes are
commonplace along the Israel-Lebanon border, especially in
the disputed area around the Sheba farms, which the Lebanese
government considers to be Israeli-occupied territory.
Israeli jets also violated Lebanese air space every day
before the present war. On 26 May Israel had a leader of the
Islamic Jihad assassinated. Lebanese militants, including
Samir Qantar, Nassim Nisr and Yehia Skaf, are still held in
Israeli prisons (Qantar since 1978, the others since 1982).
Even if we accept that the Hizbullah incursion was illegal,
how do we regard the systematic destruction of Lebanon?
Attacks targeting towns, villages and civilian infrastructure
have forced some 600,000 people out of their homes. Under
international law such actions count as war crimes. The 1977
Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention clearly defines
the principle of proportionality: "An attack which may be
expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to
civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination
thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete
and direct military advantage anticipated" (5). Who could
ever imagine that the stated objective, to rescue two
soldiers, justifies the death and destruction caused by the
Israeli bombardment? Is a Lebanese life is worth less than an
Israeli life?
The outcome of the Israeli offensive remains uncertain.
Hizbullah is Lebanon's largest political party, with 12
members of parliament. It is deeply rooted in the Shia
community, the country's largest, and enjoys enormous
prestige for having liberated the south of Lebanon in 2000.
It is allied with major political forces, such as General
Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Communist
party, the Syrian Social Nationalist party, and with
influential figures including Sunnis Usama Saad and Omar
Karami, and the Maronite Sleiman Frangié. To claim that
Hizbullah is a pawn in the hands of Iran or Syria is absurd.
Anthony Cordesman, an influential researcher at Washington's
Centre for Strategic and International Studies and therefore
unlikely to be suspected of harbouring Islamist sympathies,
wrote: "Analysts and reporters need to be careful to stick to
the facts in covering Iran's role in the current fighting. A
number of sources, including Israeli officials and officers,
have begun to use the Lebanon crisis to find new reasons to
attack Iran, partly because of the nuclear issue and partly
because it is now seen as Israel's most serious enemy. The
end result is blowing up suspicions and limited facts into
full-blown conspiracies. US intelligence has not seen
evidence that Iran dominated or controlled Hizbullah, but for
most of Hizbullah's existence, it has seen Iran as a major
source of money and weapons" (6).
Beirut's civilian airport was one of the first targets for
Israeli bombing, a sad rerun of past events. By the end of
1968 the Middle East had still not recovered from the war in
June 1967, but Palestinian resistance was starting to take
shape. On 26 December the radical Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine attacked an El Al jet at Athens
airport, killing a retired officer. One of the group was from
Lebanon and a statement claiming responsibility was issued
there. Two days later Israeli commandos destroyed 13
airliners at Beirut airport.
The UN condemns
The UN Security Council unanimously condemned the attack and
demanded that Israel pay for the damage. It never complied.
France stated the principle of reprisals was unacceptable and
General de Gaulle embargoed arms sales to Israel, refusing to
deliver 50 Mirage jets for which Israel had already paid (7).
A communiqué issued by the French cabinet on 8 January 1969
read: "Comparisons have been made between the attack on an
Israeli aircraft at Athens and the operation against Beirut
airport, but in fact the two operations were not comparable.
The Athens attack involved men belonging to an underground
organisation. The Beirut operation was mounted by a state,
using its own military equipment, in particular French-built
Super Frelon and Alouette aircraft, against civil facilities
belonging to another state." The statement highlighted the
"Israeli influence on the media" (8). Gaullists in those days
were not afraid to speak their minds.
The occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and
parts of the Golan Heights has lasted almost 40 years.
Despite so many UN Security Council resolutions and
optimistic statements - the roadmap, approved by the Quartet
(US, Russia, EU and UN) claimed that the Palestinian state
would be set up before the end of 2005 - conditions in
Palestine are steadily deteriorating.
No progress was made in 2005. The authorities in Tel Aviv
repeatedly explained to the world that Yasser Arafat was an
obstacle to peace, but his death and replacement by Mahmoud
Abbas (Abu Mazen) did not force Ariel Sharon to give up his
unilateral policies.
The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, hailed by political
leaders and the media as a courageous act, destroyed what
remained of the Oslo accords: the principle that peace would
be achieved through bilateral negotiation. For the
Palestinian population of Gaza the evacuation did nothing to
improve their predicament; it worsened their position.
The pace of the Israeli settlement of the West Bank quickens
and the "peace process" is no more than an empty phrase in
statements by the international community. Under these
circumstances it is hardly surprising that Hamas should have
won the general election in January. Yet the West promptly
punished the Palestinians for making the wrong choice. With
French backing, the EU deprived the Palestinian Authority of
its direct aid, worsening living conditions and further
hampering already enfeebled administrative bodies.
About the rockets fired from Gaza into the Israeli town of
Sderot, Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist who writes for
Haaretz, asked: "What would have happened if the Palestinians
had not fired Qassams? Would Israel have lifted the economic
siege that it imposed on Gaza? Would it open the border to
Palestinian labourers? Free prisoners? Meet with the elected
leadership and conduct negotiations? Encourage investment in
Gaza? Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel
expects them to do, their case would disappear from the
agenda here and around the world. Nobody would have given any
thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they did not
behave violently" (9).
Agreement unwelcome
After considerable tension, all the Palestinian organisations
except the Islamic Jihad signed a text on 27 June calling for
a political solution based on the creation of a Palestinian
state beside the state of Israel. It also restricted armed
resistance to the occupied territories. This agreement opened
the way for the formation of a government of national unity
in a position to open peace negotiations. The next day the
Israeli army invaded Gaza, on the pretext that a soldier had
been taken hostage, but in fact to destroy Hamas (10).
This Israeli incursion, with its bombing of power stations
and ministry buildings, arrests of political leaders,
destruction of homes, and the use of civilians as human
shields (11), also qualifies as a war crime. The Swiss
government, the custodian of the Geneva Conventions, issued a
communiqué on 4 July in which it noted that there is "no
doubt Israel has not taken the precautions required of it in
international law to protect the civilian population and
infrastructure".
The wars against the Palestinians and Lebanon are both part
of the same strategy, which seeks to impose a solution that
only satisfies Israeli interests. Yet never in the past 40
years has Israeli policy received such unanimous western
support. We have heard only a few voices of dissent, notably
from the Vatican.
Again the Arab world has demonstrated its inability to
intervene - so far. Arab states allied with the US feel
unable to exert any pressure on Washington. What they have
done, noteworthy in itself, is to condemn Hizbullah and
Hamas, implicitly justifying Israeli incursions. The Saudi
foreign minister Saud al-Faisal asked non-Arab parties to
keep out of the conflict, obviously not referring to the US,
but to Iran.
Abd al-Wahab Badrakhan, the Al Hayat columnist, wrote: "All
the Arabs, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, know that the peace
process is well and truly dead and that the Arabs have been
fooled once, twice and a thousand times. However, the Arabs
have never acknowledged that the peace process was dead, out
of obstinacy and because they do not know how to get out of
the swamp they have sunk into. Therefore, whether we like it
nor not, the final word has been left to those whom we call
extremists or adventurers" (12).
Hamas began in Gaza in 1987, after 20 years of Israeli
occupation, surfing on the tidal wave of the first intifada.
Hizbullah emerged from the fight against occupation forces
after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. What new
extremist organisation will rise from the fresh ruins of
Lebanon?
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(1) Gérard Dupuy, "G8 hors-jeu", Libération, 17 July 2006.
(2) Michael Leeden, "The same war", National Review Online,
13 July 2006.
(3) The Weekly Standard, Washington, 24 July 2006.
(4) See "Middle East: France rejoins the pack", Le Monde
diplomatique, English language edition, June 2006.
(5) Collectif, Crimes de guerre. Ce que nous devons savoir,
Autrement, Paris, 2002.
(6) "Iran's support of the Hizbollah in Lebanon", 14 July
2006, www.csis.org.
(7) See Xavier Baron, Les Palestiniens: Genèse d'une nation,
Seuil, Paris, 2003.
(8) Quoted by Samy Cohen in De Gaulle, les gaullistes et
Israël, Alain Moreau, Paris, 1974.
(9) Gideon Levy, "Who started?", Haaretz, Tel Aviv, 9 July
2006.
(10) Hamas observed a ceasefire with Israel from February
2005 to 10 June 2006. It only breached the agreement after an
increase in the number of targeted killings and the deaths of
a Palestinian family on the beach at Gaza on 10 June.
(11) See the report by the Israeli organisation B'Tselem,
www.btselem.org/English
(12) Al Hayat, Beirut, 17 July 2006.
Translated by Harry Forster
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