So what was this war all about, again?

Aluf Benn, writes in today’s Haaretz:

    Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday met with the parents of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser and told them that Israel will negotiate with Hezbollah over their release. Defense Minister Amir Peretz also attended the meeting.
    Olmert gave the parents an update on the UN resolution and on the steps Israel is taking in order to release the three abducted soldiers (including IDF soldier Gilad Shalit abducted on the Gaza-Israel border). The prime minister said that Israel is doing its utmost to bring about the release of the two, who were kidnapped by Hezbollah on July 12 on Israel’s northern border.
    The UN resolution on cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon calls for the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers, but is not included as a binding section in the resolution.
    A senior diplomatic source said Israel has no information on the fate of Regev and Goldwasser, but it is assumed they are still alive. The source said the IDF has launched high-risk operations to obtain information on the abductees, but they were all unsuccessful.
    The source said also that Israel did not condition the cease-fire on the release of the soldiers because it would have led to the continuation of the fighting and the loss of more life…

Olmert the humanitarian. (Irony alert, there.)
Well, I am delighted he has decided to subscribe to the UN ceasefire– even if only in his own very unsweet time. But imagine how much death, devastation, heartache, and hatred he could have avoided if he had decided to negotiate with Hizbullah on July 12 not August 12.
The tragedy of this is beyond words.
(There’s a lot more to say about today’s news. But I’m using my friend Ann Kerr’s landline to connect. I’m blocking her phone, and need to stop doing so. I rely on commenters to flesh out the picture here– thanks!)

Al-Qaeda regroups in Pakistan/Afghanistan…

The revelations Thursday about the British and Pakistani intel services having uncovered and “taken down” a plot to blow many western airliners up over the highseas came as Bill and I were flying to California. We heard nothing of the plot before boarding the small plane in Charlottesville. But when we boarded the big transcontinental flight from Dulles to LA, passengers coming into Dulles were already having to go through extensive security checks.
As someone who flies quite frequently and whose loved ones and friends also fly frequently, I am extremely happy that all necessary and sensible steps are taken to safeguard the security of the air travel system around the world. None of us has yet had the opportunity to examine in full the evidence the British and Pakistanis had against the alleged authors of those plots, but they sounded very, very scary.
It is notable that it was solid police work that succeeded in preventing those murderous acts from being committed.
What a contrast with the situations in Iraq and Lebanon, where the UK, US, their allies, and Israel have all tried to use massive military force against opponents while claiming that these opponents either were terrorists or gave support to terrorists… And far from bringing an end to violence and threats of violence, those military acts had these features:

    (1) They were themselves acts of massive, and wildly indiscriminate violence that murdered hundreds of civilians(in Lebanon) and many thousands (in Iraq),
    (2) They significantly distracted the attention and resources of decisionmakers away from pursuing the very necessary tasks of stabilizing post-Taliban Afghanistan and its quite unctrolled border area with Pakistan, and
    (3) They also sowed the seeds for radically increased anti-western hatred among the very community– the worldwide Muslim community– where, as western leaders must surely understand, an important battle of ideas against the proponents of Al-Qaeda violence must be fought and won.

The US, UK, their allies, and Israel have all seemed addicted to the use of militaristic violence. In the UK, there are also those who pursue the smarter path using solid police work to investigate reports of terrorist planning… But how much less inclination to join those plots would there have been if the Blair government had not also joined the US in its military adventure in Iraq, and had not supported the Israeli government in so many of its oppressive and violent acts in palestine and Lebanon– but if instead, he had coolly pursued a policy stressing nonviolent resolution of conflicts and human equality?
Well, recourse to military force to “solve” outstanding problems should surely have gotten a bad reputation by now, after all we have witnessed in Iraq and Lebanon. I believe it’s time to stress that point as hard and as fast as we can…
(I’ll be flying home on Sunday night. Let’s hope the air travel system stays safe.)

Ceasefire resolution for Lebanon

Lebanon has a ceasefire resolution. I am happy that there is a chance of the killing being ended soon because of it– But this is clearly only a chance, since the Israeli government has said it won’t stop its military operations that are now pushing ever deeper into Lebanon until 7 a.m. local time Monday, at the earliest, and Hizbullah’s leader has said that Hizbullah will continue fighting as long as Israeli soldiers remained in Lebanon.
The Israeli forces don’t seem to be doing too well. Eleven have been killed inside Lebanon so far today, and “dozens” wounded. It looks as if the ground operations they’ve been undertaking have taken them into a series of well-prepared Hizbullah traps.
A poll conducted by Haaretz on Wednesday found that,

    Only 20 percent of respondents said that if the war ended today, it would be possible to declare Israel the winner. Some 30 percent said that Israel is losing, while 44 percent said that neither side is winning.
    However, many people said that they had trouble answering this question, as they lacked relevant data.
    Only 39 percent of the respondents backed the cabinet’s decision to expand the ground operation.

This does not look like good news for Olmert, to say the least.
Meanwhile, the popularity of Hizbullah and its leader Sayed Hassan Nasrullah, has continued to increase throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds– mainly because of Hizbullah’s ability to keep fighting despite the month of extremely lethal Israeli assaults.
The text of the ceasefire resolution as passed still looks to me to be very favorable to Israel. One very good aspect of it is, of course, the call for a “full cessation of hostilities”– even if, in Israel’s case that is then described only as, “the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.” But as we all know, everything Israel has done in Lebanon over the past month has been fully “defensive”– right? (Irony alert.)
The resolution, number 1701, also calls for a total Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, which is excellent. But again, it qualifies this by saying that upon full cessation of hostilities the government of Lebanon and Unifil should deploy their forces together throughout the South, and the government of Israel should, “as that deployment begins, … withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon in parallel.” In other words, it doesn’t call (as resolution 425 did, back in 1978) for Israel to withdraw “forthwith”… but it allows Israel to stay in Lebanon until UNIFIL is ready to deploy, alongside the Lebanese Army, into the south. Beefing up UNIFIL from its present troop level of 2,000 to its projected level of 15,000 will take some weeks.
For all that time the IOF is in Lebanon, there will be a very high risk of renewed fighting. Plus, what on earth further havoc might they wreak on the infrastructure in the areas under their control?
One of the many other problems with the resolution (as I read it on the BBC website) is that in clause 15 (a) it seems to forbid “the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned, whether or not originating in their territories… ” So not only Hizbullah but also the Government of Lebanon is apparently to be starved of any new arms supply? So how are the government forces supposed to act effectively in South Lebanon or anywhere else in the coming period?
Israel, of course, is subject to no such arms embargo, even as it proceeds with its evidently very lethal operations inside and against Lebanon…
Again, one good aspect of the resolution is that it does now (clause 18) “[Stress] the importance of, and the need to achieve, a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all its relevant resolutions including its resolutions 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973.”
This is a very positive provision to include in the resolution. Not nearly as strong as what I’d advocated for in my CSM column of last Thursday. But it is important that the resolution has given at least some recognition to the fact that the violencebetween Lebanon and Israel is integrally linked to the broader Arab-Israeli peace process.
Let’s hope that future resolutions related to this region go much further in mandating a speedy resolution of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of those wellknown resolutions.

My CSM column on the need for speedy, comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace

The Christian Science Monitor of Thursday carries my column on what to do about Lebanon (also here.) The editors there titled it For a lasting Middle East peace, look back to 1967 UN plan. That’s not quite how I would have titled it, but I guess it’s okay…
In the most operational part of the column I write:

    Israel’s government and people need to find a way other than coercive military force to build a relationship that is sustainable over the long term with these neighbors [i.e., the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples] and thus to enjoy at last the sense of security that they (and all the peoples of the region) so deeply crave. And Americans, who have a long and close relationship with Israel and aspire to have good relations with the Lebanese and Palestinians, should understand that the region’s most urgent needs are to win a complete and fully monitored cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon (and, if possible, between Israel and the militants in Gaza), and to link that cease-fire to an explicit plan to have the United Nations convene an authoritative peace conference within, say, two weeks that aims to find a speedy resolution to all the unresolved strands of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In the draft I sent to my editor there Monday, I had the “plan” part there organized under two separate “bullet points”. But I guess that space considerations prompted her to consolidate the lines of text. So what I would have preferred is this:

    the region’s most urgent needs are:
    * to win a complete and fully monitored cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon (and, if possible, between Israel and the militants in Gaza), and
    * to link that cease-fire to an explicit plan to have the United Nations convene an authoritative peace conference within, say, two weeks that aims to find a speedy resolution to all the unresolved strands of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Is this pie-in-the-sky? I think not. It strikes me firstly that it would be infinitely preferable to the endless prolongation of the violent conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and the Lebanese, and secondly– as I argue in the column– that nailing down final peace agreements on all three remaining fronts really is quite do-able once you get your head around the possibility.
Think how close the Israelis and Syrians– and therefore also Israel and the Lebanese– came to resolving their conflict back in 1996 or 2000. (You can read my 2000 book about much of that diplomacy, to get all the fascinating details.) Or think how close the Israelis and Palestinians came in late 2000. Nailing down these agreements really is a much closer proposition than it might appear… and nearly everyone realizes what– if they are to be sustainable over the long term– they would look like… That is, very close to a total “land for peace” deal on all fronts. Which, yes, was indeed the content of the security Council’s famous resolution 242 of 1967.
So what I am arguing is Yes, let’s go for the very speedy, very complete ceasefire, as called for in the Siniora plan. But let’s tie that ceasefire not just to a promise to resolve the Lebanon issue– an issue that, quite frankly, is just about impossible to resolve sustainably on its own, given the country’s chronic political fragility… But let’s tie it instead to a firm promise to resolve the Syria-Israel dispute and the Palestine-Israel dispute as well as the Lebanon-Israel dispute. Why not pursue such a bold vision?
What on earth is there to stop all these strands of the Arab-Israeli conflict from being resolved in very short order???
Back in 1991, an earlier round of very committed diplomats and world leaders pledged themselves to just that goal. (And yes, before that, in 1973, as well… though with– on Henry Kissinger’s part– notably less sincerity.) The diplomacy that flowed from the Madrid Peace conference of 1991 did not succeed, it is true, in resolving all outstanding strands of the Arab-Israeli dispute. But it did resolve the Jordanian-Israeli dispute; and, as noted above, the post-Madrid diplomacy laid a considerable amount of the groundwork for a final peace settlement on both the Palestinian and the Syrian fronts, too.
I assure you: If the Syrian-Israeli conflict is resolved and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is resolved, Lebanon will make peace with Israel in a jiffy.
So okay, maybe you have concerns with my approach. You may say, “Wouldn’t it overload the Lebanese ceasefire to have it organically linked (as per my formulation above) to the promise to convene a speedy conference dedicated to negotiating a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace?” Yes, it might– a little. But right now, the ceasefire doesn’t look as though it’s going to be happening terrifically soon, anyway. So as we sit out the agonzing wait for it, why not start planning how it can be tied to an effort to build a really worthwhile regional peace, rather than a Lebanon-only stabilization effort that– especially in the absence of any incentives for the Syrians– is anyway almost certainly doomed to be short-lived?
You may say, “Wouldn’t promising a speedy and comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace effort somehow reward the Hizbullah and Hamas militants for their intransigence and use of violence, and reward Syria for having supported them?”
I would say a couple of things to this: First: the real hardliners in Hamas and Hizbullah would certainly not feel “rewarded” by such a peace effort. These are the people who hate the idea of any peace that leaves a thriving Israel in place at all, and would want to fight to the end. But the majority of supporters and fighters within these organizations could be won over to supporting a regional peace effort– provided it were sufficiently balanced to give independent Palestine and independent lebanon a real chance to thrive (alongside the thriving Israel.)
Surely, the idea should be to try to structure the incentives so that as many Palestinians, lebanese, and Syrians as possible want to make peace, rather than to continue to fight??
Secondly, I’d say we have to get completely away from the idea that securing a comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace is something that is only in the interests of the Arabs. Of course it is not! It is something that’s in the interests of the vast majority of Israelis, as well. Yes, some proportion of those Israelis who have been living as (illegal) settlers on occupied Arab land, whether in Golan or the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, would have to be prepared to see those homes coming under (or, in the case of Golan, returning to) the soveriengty of an Arab state. The fate of all those settlers would certainly be part of the peace negotiations… But all those issues have already been extensively negotiated before, back in the 1990s… No need to re-invent the wheel there…
Anyway, that’s the big outline of my argument. A few other people– Brent Scowcroft, Jimmy Carter, etc– have already started to argue in the US discourse that this current crisis should prompt the world to renew its search for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. I applaud the boldness of their vision and willingness to speak out and articulate it! I think that what I add to the argument is the idea that the promise of the very rapid convening of the regnional peace conference should be embedded within the ceasefire resolution itself.
Oh, and I also make the point in the column that the US faces quite enough challenges elsewhere in the world right now– including in Iraq and Afghanistan– that surely it should welcome any move that promises the speedy de-escalation of Arab-Israeli tensions… Plus, I draw out an extended comparison of the current crisis, as it faces the US, with the Suez crisis of 1956, as it affected Britain. I don’t recall that either Scowcroft or Jimmy Carter did that…
Anyway, I’m off to California in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. Tell me (courteously, as always!) what you think of the column.

Israel’s attack force: woes and goals

I know that in every war, the soldiers like to kvetch and complain. But it strikes me the complaining is notably loud, notably early among Israel’s attack force going into Lebanon.
HaAretz’s Roni Singer-Heruti writes in Thursday’s paper:

    “I feel like we’ve been thrown into the field and told to get along,” Ram Dagan, who serves with a combat unit called up to the Lebanese border 10 days ago, said on his first leave. “I’m not talking about showers, not even about the food that’s lacking, but about basic equipment to protect us. The helmets we’ve been issued are old-fashioned and hardly can be closed, and the body armor is 30 years old. It doesn’t close on the sides or on the neck. We don’t have a place to take shelter from rocket attack, and we are under fire all the time. We’ve been told that when we come under fire we should go into the APCs. But there are too many soldiers and not enough APCs. And anyway, they’re not missile-proof,” he said…

There’s more.
This is yet more evidence to me that the current assault against Lebanon was not long pre-planned but is being conducted by the strategically illiterate Olmert and Peretz almost completely on-the-fly and day-to-day.
I’ve been trying to define what the IDF/IOF’s actual war aims are as they conduct their horrendously lethal business in Lebanon. I think that, inasmuch as Olmert and Peretz are not merely acting out of childish pique and machismo (though let’s not misunderestimate that portion of their motivation) they probably are determined to try to “re-establish the credibility of the Israeli deterrent”. But they’ve already notably failed in doing so. The battering they gave Lebanon on July 12 did not cause Hizbullah to hold its fire on Juoly 13; and so on and on and on, every day since then.
Hizbullah, of course, is equally determined to to makes its point about not being deterred by Israel’s much greater display and use of lethal might.
Personally, I think Hizbullah has amply made its point by now and could simply retire from the battlefield with good grace, having proven that it is not beaten and not cowed, and therefore that the fates of Israel and its Arab neighbors are indeed tied together in interdependence rather than the region being in a situation where Israel can exercize its colonial domination as it desires over all its neighbors, quite unchecked from any quarter.
Israel, I believe, has failed to make its point. But that uncomfortable fact likely won’t stop Olmert and Peretz from proceeding and proceeding, digging themselves deeper into the mud of the Lebanese quagmire and the opprobrium of the civilized world with each week that passes.
There is a model for this, of course: the Bush administration “staying the course” on a road headed for a quite evident brick wall in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Hizbullah continues to say that it supports Fouad Siniora’s very sensible seven-point peace plan. Siniora spelled out the plan— once again– for a Washington readership in today’s WaPo.
Here’s what he wrote:

    The plan, which also received the full support of the 56 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, included an immediate, unconditional and comprehensive cease-fire and called for:
    * The release of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners and detainees through the International Committee of the Red Cross.
    * The withdrawal of the Israeli army behind the “blue line.”
    * A commitment from the U.N. Security Council to place the Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shouba Hills areas under U.N. jurisdiction until border delineation and Lebanese sovereignty over them are fully settled. Further, Israel must surrender all maps of remaining land mines in southern Lebanon to the United Nations.
    * Extension of the Lebanese government’s authority over its territory through its legitimate armed forces, with no weapons or authority other than that of the Lebanese state, as stipulated in the Taif accord. We have indicated that the Lebanese armed forces are ready and able to deploy in southern Lebanon, alongside the U.N. forces there, the moment Israel pulls back to the international border.
    * The supplementing of the U.N. international force operating in southern Lebanon and its enhancement in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operation, as needed, to undertake urgent humanitarian and relief work and guarantee stability and security in the south so that those who fled their homes can return.
    * Action by the United Nations on the necessary measures to once again put into effect the 1949 armistice agreement signed by Lebanon and Israel and to ensure adherence to its provisions, as well as to explore possible amendments to or development of those provisions as necessary.
    * The commitment of the international community to support Lebanon on all levels, including relief, reconstruction and development needs.
    As part of this comprehensive plan, and empowered by strong domestic political support and the unanimous backing of the cabinet, the Lebanese government decided to deploy the Lebanese armed forces in southern Lebanon as the sole domestic military force in the area, alongside U.N. forces there, the moment Israel pulls back to the international border.
    Israel responded by slaughtering more civilians in the biblical town of Qana. Such horrible scenes have been repeated daily for nearly four weeks and continue even as I write these words.
    The resolution to this war must respect international law and U.N. resolutions, not just those selected by Israel, a state that deserves its reputation as a pariah because of its consistent disdain for and rejection of international law and the wishes of the international community for over half a century…

What on earth is there to object to in any of the seven points, or in the call for an “immediate, unconditional and comprehensive cease-fire”? I believe the Siniora plan and the Siniora government should receive strong and immediate backing from all who want the suffering– on both sides of the international border– to end.
(And then all those suffering Israeli soldiers can finally return to the comforts of their homes…. While the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese whose neighborhoods and infrastructure have been obliterated by the IDF/IOF soldiers’ work get to return to– what? Well, at least to an opportunity to rebuild their homes and their lives.)

My upcoming book: paperback and hardcover

I’ve been working with the good folks at Paradigm Publishers who will be releasing the hardcover edition of my book Amnesty after Atrocity?: Healing Nations after Genocide and War Crimes NEXT MONTH, here in the US. This is so exciting.
I received a confirmation from them yesterday that they will be releasing the paperback in January. It will cost a fraction of the hardcover price of $70. Here is Paradigm’s web-page about the book. (I’m not sure what the $63.75 figure there means– it must be some kind of a trade-discounted price for the hardcover. The paperback will be under $25.)
The book deals with important issues in transitional justice and post-conflict peacebuilding, and includes the first ever comparative study of the utility of international war-crimes courts. If any JWN readers would like to write or commission reviews of the book– or even better, to organize some kind of a discussion event at which its main themes and arguments can be examined and discussed– please contact Patricia Giminez at Paradigm. You can click on a form to do that if you go here.

Creating space for humanitarian and nonviolent action in S. Lebanon

Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has taken the heroic step of putting his life on the line in order to go visit the besieged city of Tyre in south Lebanon.

    “Our main concern is access to south Lebanon,” he told reporters in the southern city of Tyre, which he could only reach after walking along a thin log to cross the Litani River after two bridges were destroyed by Israeli strikes.
    Desperately needed humanitarian aid has not been able to reach those in the south after Israeli strikes destroyed dozens of roads and bridges in the area.
    “Our other main concern is the respect of basic rules of humanitarian law in the conduct of hostilities,” he said, noting that 100,000 people in Lebanon were living in dire conditions.
    You cannot rid yourself of your responsibility by dropping leaflets,” he said.
    The Israeli military on Tuesday dropped flyers on south Lebanon, warning it would strike any vehicle travelling south of the Litani river, an area that includes the port of Tyre.
    Kellenberger insisted that all sides should make the “distinction between civilians and combatants, between civilian objectives and military objectives.”

You can learn more about the ICRC’s efforts in Lebanon by following the links on this page.
The ICRC is a key actor in internationational humanitarian affairs since it has been the “depositary body” for the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, and many other crucial treaties in the field of international humanitarian law. Very often, it works quietly and behind the scenes, careful to keep its ability to gain access to vulnerable populations, including POWs, by not angering the governments who control access to these persons.
Kellenberger and his secretariat must have decided that the need for humanitarian access to the scores or hundreds of thousands of beleaguered south Lebanese citizens whose entire region has now been declared a “free-fire zone” by Israel has become so dire that heroic, demonstrative action is necessary.
Another group seeking to create space for nonviolent, humanitarian action in south Lebanon is the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which has sponsored many previous heroic acts of witness in Palestine.
Today, a respected friend in Beirut sent me this important announcement:

    Press Release-Lebanon: An Open Country for Civil Resistance
    Beirut August 7, 2006
    Press Contacts:
    Rasha Salti, +961 3 970855
    Huwaida Arraf, +961 70 974452
    Samah Idriss, +961 3 381349
    Wadih Al Asmar, +961 70 950780
    On August 12, at 7 am, Lebanese from throughout the country and international supporters who have come to Lebanon to express solidarity will gather in Martyr’s Square in Beirut to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will express their solidarity with the inhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravely withstanding the assault of the Israeli military. This campaign is endorsed by more than 200 Lebanese and international organizations. This growing coalition of national and international non-governmental organizations hereby launches a campaign of civil resistance for the purpose of challenging the cruel and ruthless use of massive military force by Israel, the regional superpower, upon the people of Lebanon.
    August 12 marks the start of this Campaign of Resistance, declaring Lebanon an Open Country for Civil Resistance. August 12 also marks both the international day of protest against the Israeli aggression.
    “In the face of Israel’s systematic killing of our people, the indiscriminate bombing of our towns, the scorching of our villages, and the attempted destruction of our civil infrastructure, we say No! In the face of the forced expulsion of a quarter of our population from their homes throughout Lebanon, and the complicity of governments and international bodies, we re-affirm the acts of civil resistance that began from the first day of the Israeli assault, and we stress and add the urgent need to act!,” said Rasha Salti, one of the organizers of this national event.
    After August 12, the campaign will continue with a series of civil actions, leading to an August 19 civilian march to reclaim the South. “Working together, in solidarity, we will overcome the complacency, inaction, and complicity of the international community and we will deny Israel its goal of removing Lebanese from their land and destroying the fabric of our country,” explained Samah Idriss, writer and co-organizer of this campaign.
    “An international civilian presence in Lebanon is not only an act of solidarity with the Lebanese people in the face of unparalleled Israeli aggression, it is an act of moral courage to defy the will of those who would seek to alienate the West from the rest and create a new Middle East out of the rubble and blood of the region,” said Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement and campaign co-organizer. “After having witnessed the wholesale destruction of villages by Israel’s air force and navy and having visited the victims (so-called displaced) of Israel’s policy of cleansing Lebanese civilians from their homes,” continued Arraf, “it is imperative to go south and reach those who have stayed behind to resist by steadfastly remaining on their land.”
    If you are in Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, contact either:
    Rasha Salti. Email: convois.citoyens.sud.liban@gmail.com. Tel: +961 3 970 855
    Rania Masri. Email: rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb. Tel: +961 3 135 279
    or +961 6 930 250 xt. 5683 or xt. 3933
    If you are outside Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, you should know:
    1) You need to obtain a visa for Lebanon and for Syria if your plan is to enter Lebanon from Syria.
    2) We don’t have the funds to cover for the cost of your travel, however we can help with finding accomodations.
    For questions and help for all internationals please contact Adam Shapiro at: adamsop@hotmail.com
    You can also sign up on our website: www.lebanonsolidarity.org [They have Arabic and Spanish versions of their announcement there, too. ~HC]
    This campaign is thus far endorsed by more than 200 organizations,
    including: The Arab NGOs Network for Development (ANND), International
    Solidarity Movement (ISM), Cultural Center for Southern Lebanon, Norwegian
    People’s Aid, Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanese Association for
    Democratic Elections, Frontiers, Kafa, Nahwa al-Muwatiniya, Spring Hints,
    Hayya Bina, Lebanese Transparency Association, Amam05, Lebanese Center for
    Civic Education, Let’s Build Trust, CRTD-A, Solida, National Association
    for Vocational Training and Social Services, Lebanese Development Pioneers,
    Nadi Li Koul Alnas, and Lecorvaw.

This looks like an extremely important initiative. Well-organized, nonviolent nationalist mass action is the very best way for Lebanon to win its liberation while guarding its national unity and building the basis for a sustainable, robust national society. I am going to find out what else all of us can do to help this initiative.

Do Israel and the US really want the Lebanese Army in the south?

On Monday, Lebanese PM Fuad Siniora annopunced his cabinet’s intention of sending 15,000 Lebanese Army troops to south Lebanon, and the call-up of reservists in order to constitute this force. President Bush has said that he welcomes both the general strengthening of the central Lebanese government and– more cautiously– the plans for the forward deployment into the south. But his snow-jobber Tony Snow has been at pains to argue that the Lebanese army will need a lot of help if they are to undertake this deployment, “and we’re working with allies to try to figure out the proper way to do it.”
Is this “working with allies” business really just about winning more time for the Israelis to continue their military actions in Lebanon? Is it about trying to ensure that the Lebanese army comes under even more intense western tutelage as it deploys down near the Israeli border? Or is it that, despite the rhetoric, the Bushites really sympathize a lot with the feelings of those Israeli strategists who would prefer not to have any meaningful Lebanese-and-UN force deployed in south Lebanon at all, since that would constrain Israel’s ability to act just as it wants to in and over Lebanon?
The largest U.N. force that’s in south Lebanon today is UNIFIL, which was deployed there in March 1978, in the wake of Israel’s first sustained ground-force movement into Lebanon. (In the resolution that established UNIFIL, resolution 425, the Security Council called on Israel to withdraw the forces it had sent into Lebanon “forthwith.” It took Israel a further, um, 22 years to comply. So you can just imagine what Israel might do this year, if the Lebanese government is not even able to get a demand for Israel to withdraw “forthwith”– i.e., immediately– into the text of the ceasefire resolution… )
Anyway, 425 also called for the deployment of Lebanese army units into the south alongside the UNIFIL troops. On July 31, 1978, the army sent a first detachment of 500 troops southward down the Bekaa Valley to enter the south– and guess what, Israel’s puppet forces of the so-called “South Lebanon Army” shelled the soldiers as they approached. And they haven’t been back there since.
Now, Haaretz has an AP piece in Wednesday’s paper that it has cautiously titled: “U.S. says doesn’t consider Lebanese deployment proposal a setback”. In it, the reporter writes that Tony Snow, “said the White House did not consider the offer a setback to negotiations over a cease-fire resolution among members of the UN Security Council.” That sounds like a distinctly less-than-glowing endorsement of Siniora’s proposal, don’t you think?
And over in this article by Aluf Benn and his colleagues, they write:

    American officials are … deeply worried that other council members, such as France, might seize on the Lebanese Army’s deployment as an excuse to avoid creating [the desired kind of] international force. Israeli officials also said that they now doubt such a force will ever be established.
    …However, American officials also stressed in their talks with Israeli counterparts that the administration is committed to ensuring the survival of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government, and this commitment will be a determining factor in its decisions.
    Olmert also reacted unenthusiastically to Siniora’s offer to deploy the Lebanese Army Tuesday, saying merely that it was “interesting” and needed study. Government sources explained that Israel wants to know how the proposal will be implemented, and what the Lebanese Army actually intends to do about Hezbollah, before formulating its position. “We will not be satisfied with vague promises, like Abu Mazen’s promises to fight terror in the territories,” said one, referring to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
    Olmert stressed that Israel insists on full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament, and believes that this will require “strong military assistance from other countries.”

High command problems in Israel

Aluf Benn and two colleagues writing in Wednesday’s HaAretz tell us that:

    Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is still debating whether to approve the proposed expansion of the Israel Defense Forces’ ground operation in south Lebanon. The proposal will be brought to the diplomatic-security cabinet Wednesday morning for approval.
    Olmert fears that the plan presented by the defense establishment will result in hundreds of casualties, and therefore, wants to subject it to a careful cost-benefit analysis. In Tuesday’s fighting in Lebanon, five soldiers were killed and 23 others wounded, two of them seriously.
    According to a government source, Olmert has also asked the army to present him with several different options for a ground operation…

This, on the same day that AP’s Steve Weizman tells us of a significant, mid-war change in the command structure at Israel’s Northern Command:

    The commander of the Israeli military on Tuesday appointed his deputy to oversee Israel’s battles in Lebanon, a dramatic mid-offensive shift sidelining the head of the northern command.
    The military announced the appointment of Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinksi in a statement on Tuesday. Israeli media linked it to plans to intensify the offensive in Lebanon as well as to mounting public criticism of the army’s handling of the conflict with Hezbollah guerrillas.
    Though the military denied it, the appointment looked like a shake-up of the top command on the Lebanon front in the midst of a campaign, a highly unusual move.
    Writing in the Haaretz daily, veteran military analyst Zeev Schiff said the new appointment signaled serious command problems.
    “Clearly, the change in the command leadership is not good for Adam personally,” he wrote, referring to the head of the northern command, Maj. Gen. Udi Adam. “But it also sends a negative signal to the army and the public at large.”
    The last time a similar switch was made was during the 1973 Mideast war, when generals in the army reserves, including former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, were sent to the southern command to effectively take over from the general in charge, Shmuel Gorodish, in the battle against Egypt.
    Israel has lost 36 civilians and 65 troops since the fighting with Hezbollah began on July 12. Despite the 28-day offensive, rockets continue to pummel northern Israel. According to the Israeli police, 145 rockets exploded in Israel on Tuesday alone.
    Criticism of the conduct of the war has concentrated on the slow progression from the air campaign to a ground offensive and the failure of the military to sweep through Lebanon in a matter of days, as it did in 1982.
    However, much of the criticism has been aimed at the political leadership — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz — because the Security Cabinet they head has failed to approve the military’s plans to push forward more quickly.

Schiff’s whole piece is here.
Two quick comments. First, the facts of the military shake-up and the strategic uncertainty in the political echelon in Israel indicate to me that I was right to estimate, back in mid-July, that the early days of the Israeli assault on Lebanon were not part of some long-hatched plan against the country– but that in those days, as indeed since, Olmert and his equally untested Defense Minister Amir Peretz were deciding things on the run, in haste, and with great emotionality, rather than playing from a smoothly prepared strategic script. Weizman’s reference to the earlier comparable command shake-up, back in 1973, underscores this. That too was a war that was not one of choice– and comprehensive pre-preparation– by the Israeli high command… Unlike, say the wars of 1956 or 1982, which were chosen and extensively pre-planned by the high command long before they were launched.
A second related point: It is not necessarily good news for those of us hoping for a speedy ceasefire and a far-reaching, sustainable peace to learn of the edginess and indecision at the top of the Israeli command structure. If this whole assault up until now was driven mainly by Olmert’s emotional over-reaction to the capture of the two soldiers on July 12, then who knows what further risky decisions his cabinet might take over the weeks ahead?
(The more charitable explanation for Olmert’s actions has been that he was determined to “re-establish the credibility of Israel’s strategic deterrence”, which according to many Israeli strategic analysts on the right had been severely dented by the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon back in 2000. But the effectiveness of a strategic deterrent depends crucially on the psychology of those being deterred. So long as Israeli troops are on Lebanese soil and Lebanon’s people remain targeted by Israeli stand-off weapons on a continuing basis, then the Hizbullahis are unlikely to be “deterred” from continuing their military activities… But anyway, as noted above, I believe Olmert’s decisions have been far more emotional and less rational than this… )

Iraq: The pro-American order falling apart?

AP’s Qassim Abdul-Zahra wrote today that Nouri al-Maliki, the Daawa Party politician whom the Americans installed as PM in Iraq back in April,

    sharply criticized a U.S.-Iraqi attack Monday on a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, breaking with his American partners on security tactics as the United States launches a major operation to secure the capital.

The militia thus targeted is part of Moqtada Sadr’s movement. Sadr is a crucial ally of Daawa within the UIA alliance.
It is also quite relevant to note (but not mentioned by AP) that the Iraqi Daawa Party has longstanding links with Lebanon’s Hizbullah, and that Sadr’s most notable recent action was a large-scale rally in Baghdad in support of Hizbullah.
The situation of the US military in Iraq seems to be deteriorating fairly fast. US military commanders have been trying to sell a narrative that Iraq is “on the brink of civil war”… I’m not sure if this is intended to justify the higher profile US forces have been adopting in Baghdad, to excuse their failure to bring security to the capital and the rest of the country, or to act as a sort of early excuse for an imminent pullout (okay, more realistically, a drawdown) of of the US troop presence from the country.
A couple of things are very clear, though. One is that the US-conducted “rebuilding” of the Iraqi security forces as a single unified (and pro-US) body has failed miserably and another, that there have been numerous signs of heightened sectarian violence in and around Baghdad.
Why, in this uncertain atmosphere, did the US military decide to go in and try to attack the Sadrists? I haven’t a clue. They “accused” the Sadrists of having run death squads, etc. But my understandinbg is that SCIRI and its associated Badr Corps has been much more involved in that than the Sadrists; but that has not led the Americans to launch notable attacks against Badr offices in recent times.
I would welcome any information readers could provide on all of this.
In the meantime, I am also grateful to Gilbert Achcar for having sent along this translation of a report in today’s Al-Hayat, which shows another dimension of the collapse of the pro-US political order in Iraq:

    Excerpt from a report published in Al-Hayat, August 7, 2006:
    The president [Speaker] of the Iraqi Parliament, Dr. Mahmoud] Al-Mash’hadani spoke to Al-Hayat yesterday, at the end of an official visit to Damascus, where he met with president Bashar al-Assad… On the accusations directed at Syria and Iran of interfering in Iraq’s affairs, al-Mash’hadani said vehemently: “America installs itself between two countries like Syria and Iran that it considers as enemies and you want them to stay passive! That is not realistic at all, and if ever they intervene, it is to protect their national security. And we do not object to that, the national security of Syria and Iran is threatened by the American presence … Let’s suppose that they (the Syrians) interfere in Iraq’s affairs, why don’t you object to America’s rule over Iraq before objecting to Syria’s interference in order to protect its security? In this respect, Iraq has opened its doors to all countries, even to an Israeli presence, so has Syrian interference now become a threat to Iraq’s security? Who destroyed Iraq? Who plundered Iraq? Who stole from Iraq? Who humiliated Iraq? Who desecrated Iraq’s holy sites? Who damaged the honor of Iraqi women? It is none other than the blue jinn whose name is: the occupation.”
    Al-Mash’hadani accused the American forces of standing behind terrorist attacks in Iraq, saying: “The occupation is the first and last cause of the problem, it has overthrown the [former] regime without a plan, it has suppressed the state with no reason, it has led to the resistance and it has infiltrated it, it has brought Al-Qaeda to Iraq…” After approving the statement that “American occupation troops stand behind some of the terrorist attacks,” he described today’s Iraq as “Americastan.”

Mashhadani, who is described as a Salafi (fundamentalist) Sunni from the Islamic Accord Front, has made a number of strongly anti-US statements in the past. (See this one, for a notable example.)
I suppose Bush and all his coterie of hangers-on may be sincerely perplexed, and asking themselves, “Why on earth aren’t these Iraqi politicians more grateful (and obedient) to us?”
Of course, the way the Bush administration has given continued and fawning support to the Israeli government, even as the latter has visited horrendous devastation on important populations of Muslims– both Shiite and Sunni– in Palestine and Lebanon probably has a lot to do with this…