Released IDF documents reveal ethnic cleansing effort in South Lebanon

HaAretz’s Amos Harel has an informative reconstruction of the decsionmaking last summer within the Israeli General Staff, over crucial aspects of the– failed– war against Hizbullah.
This reconstruction gives a lot more background and context to the chaos and indecisiveness in the decisionmaking that were evident at the time (and that I wrote about in my Boston Review article, here.)
Harel writes:

    The outgoing Chief of Staff Dan Halutz strongly opposed a broad ground operation until the very last stage of the war… even though the two General Staff members also from the air force – Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin and Major General Idan Nehushtan – supported such action. What is surprising is that the two major generals who supported a broad ground offensive at an early stage – Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplinsky and Chief of Operations Gadi Eisenkot – changed their views as the war continued and then hesitated to carry out such an offensive.
    A Haaretz probe in recent weeks has enabled, for the first time, a reconstruction of critical parts of the exchanges during a series of meetings headed by the chief of staff… The General Staff emerges from the exchanges as seemingly confused and hesitant.

Harel appears to base much of his report on actual transcripts of some of the key meetings, though he nowhere provides any sourcing or provenance, or even any comments about that matter. We have to take his account on trust.
The article is all extremely interesting. But the most disturbing part is his account of a key July 16 meeting about the possibility of trying to seize the substantial southern town of Bint Jbeil (normal population: around 30,000 souls):

    on July 16, Bint Jbail is raised for the first time as a target for a possible IDF operation. Major General Benny Gantz, head of the ground forces, makes the recommendation to the chief of staff. “Hassan Nasrallah’s victory speech [in May 2000 after the IDF’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon] was made in Bint Jbail. We must dismantle that place, it is a Shi’ite place – and they must be driven to the North. I would even consider a limited ground operation in this area, which can be held.”
    … The former chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, emphasized the need to “stamp the psyche” of the enemy. [That was favorite theme of Ya’alon’s, with regard to the Palestinians, back when he was still chief of staff… You’ll note that though his approach inflicted horrendous damage on the Palestinians, for some reason it still failed to persuade them to ‘cry uncle.’ Perhaps Ya’alon lacks any capacity to learn? ~HC] He was talking about the importance of symbolism. It turns out that in the second Lebanon war the “stamping” happened to us. The focus on the damage to symbols emerges over and over throughout the war. The fact that Bint Jbail, a Shi’ite town, became a bloody trap and the Golani Brigade suffered eight dead on the morning of July 26, only intensified the IDF’s obsession with the place.

Harel has long excerpts from what appears to be the transcript of a crucial meeting July 26– a day when the IOF suffered a particularly bloody setback in Bint Jbeil. He notes that during that meeting,

    The chief of staff reiterates the possibility of intensifying the air operation, including the targetting of civilian infrastructure in Beirut.
    “I intend to put this once more on the [government’s] table. I say that before we start moving divisions, [to the rivers] Awali, Zahrani, Litani, it does not matter. We must bring Lebanon to a different place.”

Throughout Harel’s account you can certainly see the deep indecisiveness that was reigning in the General Staff. He gives no sign of what was going on at the political level at that time, or in the interface between the two. Those meetings would be interesting to learn this much about, too.
But at the end of the day it is the frustration these guys feel that comes acorss the strongest.
He concludes with this utterance that military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin reportedly made on July 28:

    On the matter of the Katyushas, we must show that it is possible to defeat this thing, otherwise it will follow us for years. Apparently this can only be done on the ground … Come on, our fathers beat all the Arab states in six days and we are not able to go in with two divisions and finish off [the area] south of the Litani?”

54 thoughts on “Released IDF documents reveal ethnic cleansing effort in South Lebanon”

  3. Yes, Donald, I read the article. I hardly think that that single, ambiguous remark by Benny Gantz constitutes “an ethnic cleansing effort”.

  4. I wonder how JES et al. would interpret the following statement: “We must dismantle that place, it is a Jewish place – and they must be driven to the North.” Ethnic cleansing, anyone?

  6. The opposition (Hezbollah, Amal and the followers of the Christian General Aoun) have declared a general strike in Beirouth. They have cut all the streets leading to Beirouth and asked every shop, school, public services or private enterprise to close down. They are blocking the streets/roads using bricks, stones, sands, and tires. They have set fire to the tires. They say they won’t look for confrontation with the army, their movement will be pacific and they don’t want ethnic fights, but they want :
    1) New elections
    2) The resignation of Fouad Siniora
    3) They welcome the upcoming Paris conference (concerning help to Lebanon). But they are against two of the measures asked by the donors : an increase of taxes and the privatization of public enterprises.
    There has been clashes with the army nevertheless. 4-6 persons have died, among them, two were in BentJbail and were Christian partisans of the General Aoun.
    In front of them the anti-Syrians feels reinforced by the inconditional support of US and France and aren’t ready to resign. It seems that Nazrallah has now warned his followers that the fight may last for a long time. He said that the goal of the Americans was to inflame sectarians wars in the whole ME in order to control it … and that he had succeeded in Iraq, but warned his followers not to fall in that trap.
    Let’s hope that the situation won’t escalate and that Hezbollay shows as much discipline as during last august war launched by Israel.

  7. JES,
    Please check out my response to your comment on the Soldiers and Clowns item and give me a reply.
    Many tnx

  8. Well, if the statement “We must dismantle that place, it is a Jewish place – and they must be driven to the North.” does not qualify for ethnic cleansing status, then the comment about wiping Israel off the map (in the same sense that Russia was wiped off the map) certainly does not qualify.

  9. Susan,
    So you are saying that Ahmedinejad’s statement does qualify as an effort at ethnic cleansing?
    In that case, what does this statement qualify as:
    If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)
    and effort at genocide?
    Look again at the headline of this thread and at the article to which it refers and please explain to my why this is indicitive of responsible journalism.

  10. Re Gantz’s statement, JES, you claim it was merely a repulsive statement by a single person. But that completely ignores the context in which the statement was made and the position of the person making it. That is, it was an autjoritative planning meeting for the IDF General Staff, and Gantz was the Ground Fofrces commander.
    Moreover, the decisions made there had clear consequences: the IDF did indeed launch an attempt to take BJ with ground forces shortly thereafter, in line with the very next sentence uttered by Gantz.
    So what was their intent of that IDF commander in urging the taking of BJ? If it was NOT to “dismantle” BJ and to drive its population further north, but rather some intention that had a clear military (as opposed to mass-punitive) justification, then surely the onus is on you– or even more, perhaps, on him– to show that.
    At a broader level, JES, I’d like to know whether you really feel that all aspects of the IDF’s operations against lebanon last summer are defensible and should be defended?
    (Susan– I think it was the Soveit Union that got wiped off the map, not Russia as such?)

  11. Helena, would you agree that Hezbollah’s launching of missles into Israel, which forced the evacuation of entire towns and areas, was “ethnic cleansing?”

  12. Helena, you are right – it was the Soviet Union. And I don’t think the comments made by the president of Iran qualify as promoting ethnic cleansing.
    This statement:
    “If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)”
    does qualify, I think.
    The shooting of rockets into Isreal does not qualify as an attempt at ethnic cleansing. It does qualify as a crime, and so does the bombing of Lebanon. Neither one was “self-defense” in my opinion.

  13. Helena,
    In point of fact, Bint Jbeil was a Hizballah garrison town. Anyone who spent any time on the border between July 2000 and July 2006 knows this. Further, and more important, Bint Jbeil was not “ethnically cleansed” in any sense of the term. I personally know enough people who fought in Bint Jbeil and its surroundings this summer who can attest to the fact that there was no “ethnic cleansing” of the town and that, in fact, great effort was taken – in some cases at the cost of Israeli lives – to avoid harming the genuine civilian residents of the garrison town.
    I stand by my argument that your headline is not only highly misleading in relation to what Harel presents in the article you cite, it is also irrespsponsible, in my opinion, for someone claiming to be a journalist to present such a baseless banner.

  14. You are correct, Susan, Ahmedinejad’s comments do not qualify as a call for ethnic cleansing. They are an incitement to genocide.

  15. “You are correct, Susan, Ahmedinejad’s comments do not qualify as a call for ethnic cleansing. They are an incitement to genocide.”
    ridiculous. it is well known that Ahmedinejad’s remark was wrongly translated. Even JES knows that. the correct translation is something like “will disappear from the page of history”. a perfectly legitimate statement; he doesn’t think Israel will exist in 50 years time. I don’t either, the way they are going. But it doesn’t mean genocide.

  16. I really am baffled as to what “discipline” Christiane thinks Hezbollah showed in its war with the U.S.
    It launched a completely unprovoked attack on Israel. As the war continued, Hezbollah’s tactics consisted of launching rockets wherever they could. They undertook the whole exercise not to defend themeselves or the country against Israel, but purely to show strength to improve their domestic political position. The result was utterly devestating for the South of Lebanon.
    How this demonstrates discipline is beyond me.

  17. One other thing that is misrepresented here, although I believe, in this case, it is an honest mistake.
    In citing Bogey Ya’alon, I don’t believe that Amos Harel meant to imply that he (Ya’alon) was present at any of the meetings discussed in the article, or that the statement attributed to him by Harel was made at the time of the war. Therefore, it is pointless to argue about what the former chief of staff has or hasn’t learned over the past two years. Of course, to Harel and anyone else familiar with the politics and circumstances of Dan Halutz’s appointment, the fact that Ya’alon would not have been present at the discussions is obvious.

  18. Alastair,
    I think that the “translation” issue has been adequately discussed previously here, and I don’t think that it is that “well known” or agreed upon, even by native Farsi speakers, that your version is correct. That aside, I don’t base my remarks on that single statement, but on a series of statements that he has made. In fact, it seems that every time you apologists for that reactionary try to weasle him out of his own words, he manages to say something even more damaging.
    I really don’t care about your, or Ahmedinejad’s prognoses. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that the Islamic Republic of Iran will exist in another 10 years, and I quite expect Ahmedinejad to be out of a job within a year.

  20. I don’t understand the harping on the losses suffered by Lebanese civilians last summer…in war people are called upon to make sacrifices…and as we are often reminded here the war with its kidnappings and rocket barrages was costly for Israel and a huge victory for Nasrallah.

  21. JES should sleep easier knowing that a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed neighbor wants his own nation “erased from the pages of time.” So does Alastair of course, but he’s not working on any nuclear weapons (or is he?)
    Let’s hope that the situation won’t escalate and that Hezbollay shows as much discipline as during last august war launched by Israel.[sic]
    Lets hope the SSNP (the only regional party actually calling for one state from the Nile to the Euphrates) shows the same discipline.

  22. It is a source of amusement to me to observe the puzzlement of outsiders with their tendentious, polemical reactions to events in the area when Israelis themselves take a more nuanced approach with as many opinions as there are citizens to the very same events.

  23. oops…the above post was meant for the soldiers and clowns thread…where a poster was amazed that jes was disparaging of the Hebron settlers.

  24. JES should sleep easier knowing that a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed neighbor wants his own nation “erased from the pages of time.”
    vadim, Clinton and GWB, run the shows, when Iraq pushes out the IAEA team from Iraq in 1989 Iraq Bombed badly by Americans and UK, when many UN inspector were believe Iraq had no weapons at that time, Iraq was sectioned in all not like Iran!! So where is the truth about you “soon-to-be-nuclear-armed neighbour” or you are just promoting the fear here are you honest what you right vadim

  25. If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)
    …would certainly qualify as an incitement to genocide, if that were a real quote. But as it is almost certainly propaganda, it doesn’t:
    Eugene Goodheart asks whether I am familiar with two statements he attributes to Hizbullah’s secretary-general, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah (Letters, 7 September). Goodheart uses the inflammatory quotations to accuse Nasrallah of being ‘an anti-semite with fantasies of genocide’. If I am unfamiliar with the statements, it is because they are in all likelihood fabrications. The first (‘If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide’) was circulated widely on neo-con websites, which give as its original source an article by Badih Chayban in Beirut’s English-language Daily Star on 23 October 2002. It seems that Chayban left the Star three years ago and moved to Washington. The Star’s managing editor writes of Chayban’s article on Nasrallah, that ‘I have faith in neither the accuracy of the translation [from Arabic to English] nor the agenda of the translator [Chayban].’ The editor-in-chief and publisher of the Star, Jamil Mrowe, adds that Chayban was ‘a reporter and briefly local desk sub and certainly did not interview Nasrallah or anyone else.’ The account of Nasrallah’s speech in the Lebanese daily As Safir for the same day makes no reference to any anti-semitic comments. Goodheart’s second quotation – ‘They [the Jews] are a cancer which is liable to spread at any moment’ – comes from the Israeli government’s website at http://tinyurl.com/99hyz. For the record, a Hizbullah spokeswoman, Wafa Hoteit, denies that Nasrallah made either statement.
    Goodheart wonders whether, as a former captive of Hizbullah, I may have succumbed to Stockholm syndrome; may I ask in return whether he is succumbing to the disinformation that passes for scholarship and journalism in certain quarters in the United States?
    Charles Glass, Letter to the London Review of Books, 5 October 2006

  26. The editor-in-chief and publisher of the Star, Jamil Mrowe, adds that Chayban was ‘a reporter and briefly local desk sub and certainly did not interview Nasrallah or anyone else.’
    Chayban was reporting on a graduation ceremony, not transcribing a private interview. I don’t see why the managing editor let it be published if he doubted its accuracy at the time it was reported. Luckily for the Zionists, Nasrallah has dropped a few other gems over his brilliant career. My favorite:
    “Anyone who reads the Koran . . . sees what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out throughout history . . . Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer.”
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22369-2293538,00.html
    Oh wait! It was re-published by some websites friendly to Israel, ergo it must be false! Unlike ourselves, they have an ‘agenda!’ False alarm. You’d never see anyone here flogging an apocryphal soundbite to advance some ‘agenda’. That would be pretty weak.

  27. Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them,
    The history of Islam clear and approve this lie.
    Go and check history and see “acts of madness and slaughter the Jews” in western words and the land suppose to be Christians they did far harm to Jew from Islamic society.

  28. “JES should sleep easier knowing that a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed neighbor wants his own nation ‘erased from the pages of time.'”
    Vadim, you appear to believe this is a serious threat. And yet you also argue that fears about a possible preventive strike on Iran by the US and/or Israel are groundless. Have you then concluded that the State of Israel is doomed?

  29. محاضر جديدة عن تخبط قيادة الجيش الإسرائيلي في حرب لبنان: احتللنا كل البلاد العربية في 6 أيام فكيف نعجز جنوبي الليطاني؟
    http://www.assafir.com/Article.aspx?EditionId=547&articleId=2366&ChannelId=11770
    In the above link (Arabic text) translated from an Israeli writer discussed what went wrong in 33Days war, he compare it with 1967 war and “How Israeli invaded all Arab neighbours land in 6 days”
    I read some stories about 1967 war, that Israel and the Israeli writes and they proud to say that Israeli win 1967 against 7 Arab Military forces.
    I have to tell this story from Iraq side what’s gone wrong in that war.
    First Iraqi military troops travelled by military cars and truck most of the trucks are Russian made in additions you need to imagine that trip going to a war.
    All the Iraqi military troops stripped from ammunitions; they carried all their weapons without bullets, bombs…ect, their artilleries and guns without bullets!!
    Why because the regimes at that time fear that the Military turning back and through the government!! I heard same stories about other Arab troops from Saudi and others.
    When the Iraqi military troops reach near Jordan’s boarders (area called H3) Israeli Skyhooks was over them and bombing them, they can not do any thing because the Anti Aircraft Artillery had no bullet to fire back.
    This was the way that 1967 war was managed in all sides and aspect from start it was a falls war and disastrous war for Arab.
    With Hezbollah Israelis faced by real fighters prepared well and have the will to go far to defend their land that the difference not as in 1967 that Arab military troops humiliated by own regimes and send them simply to death that Israelis keep proud of A falls war from the start.

  30. Bush new brib for amaricans..

    Tax deduction of $15,000 for families and $7,500 for individuals who get private health insurance either on their own or from employers in an effort to reduce the number of Americans without health insurance, currently about 47 million.

  31. Yes Diane, that could be the case. One could also argue about the veracity of the Benny Gantz quote that is the subject of the original post.
    One might question whether it was really said, the accuracy of the translation into English, the agenda of Amos Harel in citing it, or of Ha’aretz in publishijng it, and, as a matter of fact, that of Helena in citing it to try and justify her inaccurate and libelous headline, which is, you see, what I am questioning!

  32. Just to put this all into perspective,
    Countries attacked or invaded by Iran since WW2:
    Zero
    Countries attacked or invaded or by Israel since WW2:
    Syria
    Egypt
    Jordan
    Palestine
    Iraq
    Lebanon
    Countries Attacked by US supported terrorists or invaded by the USA:
    Vietnam
    Cambodia
    Afghanistan
    Iraq
    Nicaragua
    Colombia
    Chile
    Argentina
    Grenada
    Panama
    Laos
    El Salvador
    Honduras
    I got the list above off the internet. I think they forgot a few for the American invasions.

  33. Have you then concluded that the State of Israel is doomed?
    John C., I doubt a low-yield nuclear attack would suffice to wipe Israel from the map. Which doesn’t mean it won’t happen years from now. Al Qaeda for its part stands very little chance of overthrowing the US, establishing a caliphate etc. Obviously it still poses a serious threat, mostly to the community for which it claims to speak. The material means to wage war competently in the hands of a responsible government bothers me less than the willingness to wage it ineptly in pursuit of unrealistic aims. Especially when leaders given to such fantasies can’t be voted out of office (see Nasrallah, Meshaal, Khamenei, Bin Laden etc.)

  34. Susan, they preparing for new war or they used for Training camp for Military troops who goes to Iraq!!
    The IDF unveiled an Urban Warfare Training Center (UTC) on Monday in a mock city that simulates an Arab town, four months after the second Lebanon war ended.
    The unit’s commanders firmly stated that the city was planned eight years ago and that construction began a year ago. They added that the current pace of the training was two battalions each week.
    The mock city is located in the southern Tze’elim military base. From a distance, it looks like any Arab urban center.
    Around 500 structures were built for a maximum capacity of 5,000 residents. “Just like in every real city we built mosques, a Casba and even a refugee camp,” said Lt.-Col Arik Moreh, the second in command of the Tactical Training City (TTC), part of the UTC, following a large urban warfare training exercise Monday morning.
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467790418&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

  35. Susan, the “perspective” you provide fails to note that of all the countries that Israel has “attacked” had previously attacked and/or declared war on Israel.
    And although Iran has never launched a direct attack on Israel, it has of course supported groups like Hezbollah that have carried out such attacks.
    Cute snippets that you “found on the internet” do not substitute for actually thinking about what is said.

  36. “I doubt a low-yield nuclear attack would suffice to wipe Israel from the map. Which doesn’t mean it won’t happen years from now.”
    Not sure I follow you, Vadim. Is it your judgment that the government of Iran is likely to launch an inconclusive low-yield nuclear attack on Israel, knowing that this would result in their own almost immediate annihilation?
    “The material means to wage war competently in the hands of a responsible government bothers me less than the willingness to wage it ineptly in pursuit of unrealistic aims.”
    This kind of sounds good at first, but on reflection, it doesn’t make much sense. In many respects, the Third Reich was a responsible government in its early years. It certainly had the means to wage war competently. On the other hand, why should we fear the unrealistic aims of inept people?

  37. knowing that this would result in their own almost immediate annihilation?
    I didn’t say it was likely, otherwise the US and Israel might be taking it much more seriously than they are, but it’s a possibility that’s been entertained by Iran’s highest leaders. Rafsanjani: “application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world. You and I may disagree with him on this point, but it hasn’t stopped Iran -in the judgment of most of the world’s nuclear experts- from pursuing nuclear weapons for some purpose other than decorative.
    On the other hand, why should we fear the unrealistic aims of inept people?
    We needn’t fear their ultimate success, but the ongoing damage they cause en route to failure. Bin Ladenism is dangerous in part because its goals can never be met, or negotiated. A government answering to no electorate (what I meant by ‘responsible’) is still more dangerous for similar reasons. Bush’s party has lost control of Congress, and in less than 2 years he’s not going to be president. Who on the other hand chose Hassan Nasrallah to speak for Lebanese? How and when can he be voted peacefully from office? How can the community he purports to represent ever reject once and for all his ridiculous and still dangerous ambition to annihilate Israel?

  38. John C, why do you think “this would result in their own almost immediate annihilation?” would be a deterrent for the Iranian theocratic government? Anti-Israeli and anti-Western movements have glorified the suicide attacker, who annihilates oneself to achieve their goal. I would then consider the possibility that the Iranian government would enthusiastically embrace annihilation as a suicide attack on a large scale.
    ——————————————–
    BTW: About current events in Beirut: At least in the media reports it looks like even Hezbollah has lost control of the frightening situation. I’m hopeful from hearing the calls for calm from Nasrallah along with the anti-Syrian factions. Perhaps the calming of the people can be a project where the leaders of all the factions find a means to work together.

  39. Vadim, since a nuclear first strike by Iran is unlikely, and would probably not mean the end of Israel even if it did occur (but would mean the end of Iran), and since non-state actors like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas are a greater threat to Israeli security than stable Islamic governments (even if they regard Israel as a less than fully legitimate state), and since chaos and strife are the conditions under which the most militant non-state actors thrive, perhaps we can agree that it would be better if Israel and the U.S. ratcheted down the rhetoric several notches, and started dealing with Iran through a normal diplomatic combination of incentives and deterrence, rather than confrontation.
    And I would include severe economic “sanctions” under the category of confrontation, since these tend mostly to harm the innocent, breed resentment and reinforce totalitarian tendencies within the target country.
    What do you think?

  40. I’d take issue with your claim that it’s been “Israel and the US” ratcheting up the rhetoric. Bush rhetoric has softened considerably, from 2002’s ‘axis of evil’ and ‘regime change’ to “this afternoon’s tepid “we believe we can solve our problems with Iran diplomatically”. Khamenei himself has taken critical note of Ahmadinejad’s confrontational remarks.
    I would include severe economic “sanctions” under the category of confrontation
    Sanctions aren’t always the worst option; it seems to me they were effective against South Africa & Rhodesia, and in freeing the Iranian hostages, but have proven inhumane & ineffective in other environments (Cuba, Iraq). Meanwhile ‘diplomacy and incentives’ failed horribly with North Korea, whose clandestine nuclear program outlived Albrights “Agreed Framework.” In this case I doubt comprehensive sanctions are either justified or enforceable.

  41. Vadim, we’re dangerously close to agreement here. Better be careful – don’t want to spoil the fun!

  45. Helena, have you seen Hansen and Kingston’s piece on Lebanon?
    Hezbollah and terrorism are manifestations of deeper political injustices, say
    Jens Hanssen and Paul Kingston
    Aug. 4, 2006. 01:00 AM
    SAY
    Sunday’s rebombing of Qana 10 years after Shimon Peres’s government killed more
    than 100 Lebanese civilians in a UN shelter in this biblical Lebanese village
    has raised the stakes of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The 1996 atrocity instantly
    became a symbol of national resistance in Lebanon. It ultimately led to the
    Israeli withdrawal in 2000 and to Hezbollah’s clandestine rocket stockpiling.
    Israel’s new Qana massacre of dozens of children and disabled has led to a
    belated sense of urgency in international corridors of power. As a barely
    composed Tony Blair acknowledged, the “situation cannot continue.” Indeed, he
    declared that Britain’s Middle East policy must be fundamentally rethought and
    be moved away from the self-fulfilling “war on terror” rhetoric.
    Whereas North Atlantic governments are blinded by the belief that Hezbollah is
    the root cause of the present violence, a more comprehensive and historical
    view indicates the reverse: Hezbollah and terrorism are in fact dangerous
    manifestations of deeper political injustices and diplomatic failures in the
    Middle East that date back to the 1967 war. In the absence of a comprehensive,
    just and negotiated settlement, the region’s future will remain bleak.
    Today, an indulgent North Atlantic appeasement policy has facilitated Israel’s
    destruction of its northern neighbour, the ethnic cleansing of Shia populations
    from southern Lebanon and the wanton killing of civilians. North Atlantic
    support has encouraged Israel to outdo its enemy in the use of terrorism. The
    only difference is Israel’s enormous firing power and the sophistication of its
    killing machine. Tragically, this military asymmetry endows Hezbollah with the
    aura of a resistance movement at a time when its armed presence in south
    Lebanon was being challenged by Lebanese lawmakers and the UN.
    A close reading of the apologetic statements from British and American officials
    about Israel’s second massacre at Qana shows what Arabs have known all along:
    Israel is pushing U.S. and U.K. Middle East policy under the mantra of the war
    on terrorism. The result has been a score-sheet of horror.
    The enormity of the ongoing crisis must now open a breach in the diplomatic
    impasse that has led to so much suffering since the Bush administration came to
    office.
    In 2003, the UN narrowly avoided the trap of sanctioning the American invasion
    of Iraq, thanks to a passionate defence of UN principles by the French Foreign
    Minister Dominique de Villepin. In the next few days, the UN again struggles
    with an ill-considered U.S.-imposed resolution that will allow Israel to keep
    bombing Lebanon until the multinational force physically arrives in southern
    Lebanon. This is neither practical nor does it bode well for the foreign
    soldiers’ task.
    Instead, the Bush administration should throw its weight behind the seven-point
    plan by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and U.S. Secretary of State
    Condoleezza Rice must cash in her diplomatic credit in Jerusalem in exchange
    for having held off international ceasefire calls for three weeks. The
    embattled Lebanese prime minister — who is beginning to show signs of
    statesmanship after Qana — has proposed to implement an immediate ceasefire and
    begin to address the root causes of Israeli-Lebanese hostilities: a one-to-one
    prisoner exchange; Israeli troop withdrawal to the border; a joint
    Lebanese-international force to move into southern Lebanon; the full
    implementation of the Taif Agreement that ended the Lebanese civil war of
    1975-90, including the disarmament of Hezbollah fighters and their integration
    into the Lebanese army; and a $3 billion Marshall Plan for the reconstruction
    of Lebanon.
    The disarmament of Hezbollah would meet Israel’s central security concern and
    pacify its last hostile border.
    Since the Qana massacre, Iran, Syria and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud have
    joined Hezbollah in rejecting a multinational force altogether, quietly angling
    for a Syrian return to Lebanon. This option will and should be opposed by
    everybody else. Lebanese territory must never again be a proxy battleground in
    which regional tensions are fought out.
    In this pressing context, the promise of exchanging the Israeli-occupied Golan
    Heights for peace with Syria would keep Syria out of Lebanon. This approach
    also would help to prevent disenfranchised and opportunist elements from
    holding Lebanese democracy hostage in the future.
    Beyond the Siniora Plan, Hezbollah and Israel both need to pay for the
    destruction they have wreaked on civilian infrastructure including
    investigating their leaderships’ culpability for war crimes.
    The Bush administration would do well to support the Siniora government
    diplomatically. Against the enormous political, humanitarian and environmental
    crisis, it trumps appeasement of Israel if the ceasefire is to heal Lebanon’s
    war wounds and give U.S. diplomacy back some modicum of credibility and
    manoeuvrability in the region.
    Continued failure to act in a decisive, comprehensive and just manner could
    haunt the world for decades to come.
    ——————————————————————————–
    Jens Hanssen and Paul Kingston teach Middle Eastern History and Politics at the
    University of Toronto.

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