Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2006, pages 12-15

Four Views

With U.S. Support, Israel Attacks Lebanon and Gaza—Again

Israel Responded to an Unprovoked Attack by Hezbollah, Right? Wrong.

By George Monbiot

WHATEVER WE think of Israel’s assault on Lebanon, all of us seem to agree about one fact: that it was a response, however disproportionate, to an unprovoked attack by Hezbollah. I repeated this “fact” in my last column, when I wrote that “Hezbollah fired the first shots.” This being so, the Israeli government’s supporters ask peaceniks like me, what would you have done? It’s an important question. But its premise, I have now discovered, is flawed.

Since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the “blue line” between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line “on an almost daily basis” between 2001 and 2003, and “persistently” until 2006. These incursions “caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas.” On some occasions, Hezbollah tried to shoot them down with anti-aircraft guns.

In October 2000, the Israel Defense Forces shot at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on the border, killing three and wounding 20. In response, Hezbollah crossed the line and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. On several occasions, Hezbollah fired missiles and mortar rounds at IDF positions, and the IDF responded with heavy artillery and sometimes aerial bombardment. Incidents like this killed three Israelis and three Lebanese in 2003; one Israeli soldier and two Hezbollah fighters in 2005; and two Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers in February 2006. Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006, on some occasions by Hezbollah. But, the U.N. records, “none of the incidents resulted in a military escalation.”

On May 26 this year, two officials of Islamic Jihad—Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub—were killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese city of Sidon. This was widely assumed in Lebanon and Israel to be the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. In June, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh confessed to the killings and admitted that he had been working for Mossad since 1994. Militants in southern Lebanon responded, on the day of the bombing, by launching eight rockets into Israel. One soldier was lightly wounded. There was a major bust-up on the border, during which one member of Hezbollah was killed and several wounded, and one Israeli soldier wounded. But while the border region “remained tense and volatile,” UNIFIL says it was “generally quiet” until July 12.

The assault on Lebanon was premeditated—the soldiers’ capture simply provided the excuse.

There has been a heated debate on the Internet about whether the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah that day were captured in Israel or in Lebanon, but it now seems pretty clear that they were seized in Israel. This is what the U.N. says, and even Hezbollah seems to have forgotten that they were supposed to have been found sneaking around the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab. Now it simply states that “the Islamic resistance captured two Israeli soldiers at the border with occupied Palestine.” Three other Israeli soldiers were killed by the militants. There is also some dispute about when, on July 12, Hezbollah first fired its rockets; but UNIFIL makes it clear that the firing took place at the same time as the raid—9 a.m. Its purpose seems to have been to create a diversion. No one was hit.

But there is no serious debate about why the two soldiers were captured: Hezbollah was seeking to exchange them for the 15 prisoners of war taken by the Israelis during the occupation of Lebanon and (in breach of Article 118 of the Third Geneva Convention) never released. It seems clear that if Israel had handed over the prisoners, it would—without the spillage of any more blood—have retrieved its men and reduced the likelihood of further kidnappings. But the Israeli government refused to negotiate. Instead—well, we all know what happened instead. Almost 1,000 Lebanese and 33 Israeli civilians have been killed so far, and a million Lebanese displaced from their homes.

On July 12, in other words, Hezbollah fired the first shots. But that act of aggression was simply one instance in a long sequence of small incursions and attacks over the past six years by both sides. So why was the Israeli response so different from all that preceded it? The answer is that it was not a reaction to the events of that day. The assault had been planned for months.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that “more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and thinktanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.” The attack, he said, would last for three weeks. It would begin with bombing and culminate in a ground invasion. Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that “of all of Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared...By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we’re seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board.”

A “senior Israeli official” told The Washington Post that the raid by Hezbollah provided Israel with a “unique moment” for wiping out the organization. The New Statesman’s editor, John Kampfner, says he was told by more than one official source that the U.S. government knew in advance of Israel’s intention to take military action in Lebanon. The Bush administration told the British government.

Israel’s assault, then, was premeditated: it was simply waiting for an appropriate excuse. It was also unnecessary. It is true that Hezbollah had been building up munitions close to the border, as its current rocket attacks show. But so had Israel. Just as Israel could assert that it was seeking to deter incursions by Hezbollah, Hezbollah could claim—also with justification—that it was trying to deter incursions by Israel. The Lebanese army is certainly incapable of doing so. Yes, Hezbollah should have been pulled back from the Israeli border by the Lebanese government and disarmed. Yes, the raid and the rocket attack on July 12 were unjustified, stupid and provocative, like just about everything that has taken place around the border for the past six years. But the suggestion that Hezbollah could launch an invasion of Israel or that it constitutes an existential threat to the state is preposterous. Since the occupation ended, all its acts of war have been minor ones, and nearly all of them reactive.

So it is not hard to answer the question of what we would have done. First, stop recruiting enemies, by withdrawing from the occupied territories in Palestine and Syria. Second, stop provoking the armed groups in Lebanon with violations of the blue line—in particular the persistent flights across the border. Third, release the prisoners of war who remain unlawfully incarcerated in Israel. Fourth, continue to defend the border, while maintaining the diplomatic pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah (as anyone can see, this would be much more feasible if the occupations were to end). Here then is my challenge to the supporters of the Israeli government: do you dare to contend that this program would have caused more death and destruction than the current adventure has done?

This commentary first appeared in The Guardian on Aug. 8, 2006. Copyright Guardian Newspapers Ltd. 2006. Reprinted with permission.

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U.S. Should Not Abet Violence In Lebanon

By Saree Makdisi

Never has the gulf between U.S. and Israeli interests been clearer than during the present crisis. And not since the shameful coverup of the 1967 Israeli bombing of the USS Liberty—in which 34 Navy crewmen were killed—have our politicians done so much to protect Israel’s interests at the expense of our own.

We have not been standing idly by as Israel destroys Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, obliterates entire neighborhoods and kills dozens of innocent people.

Not only has our government provided Israel with the weapons with which it is now bombarding Lebanon, it also has provided virtually unlimited financial, military, political and diplomatic support to enable—even encourage—Israel to continue.

Our government intervened to remove criticism of Israel from the G-8 Summit statement on the crisis. It stymied European efforts to call for a cease-fire to protect civilian life. It vetoed a U.N. resolution calling on Israel to stop its attack on Gaza’s civilians. It rushed an additional $210 million of aviation fuel to Israel to help it “keep peace and security in the region.” And it even granted Israel an additional week to continue its unrestrained pounding of Lebanon, according to diplomatic reports.

Lebanon is facing a humanitarian catastrophe; 335 people have been killed. The United Nations estimates that up to half a million people have been displaced from their homes. With Israel having reduced Lebanon to a large-scale version of Gaza—cut off from the outside world, denied water and electricity, unable to import essential supplies of food and medicine—the country is on its knees. Four million people are now not merely terrified, but increasingly hungry and thirsty.

It is absurd to consider this level of violence a legitimate act of self-defense. During its war with the IRA, Britain could have used the same argument to destroy Ireland’s roads, bridges, ports and airports on the pretext that they were being used by the IRA to move weapons and supplies; it could have used it to launch massive bombardments of Catholic neighborhoods both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland.

The absurdity of the justification aside, Israel has bombed targets in Lebanon that have no possible connection to Hezbollah. It has killed sleeping Lebanese army soldiers in the north of the country, even though the Lebanese army is not involved in the conflict and is, moreover, supposed to be the key to the solution, according to Israel itself. It has bombed milk factories, cutting off the supply of a vital nutrient to Lebanon’s babies and children. It has bombed a desperately needed aid convoy heading toward Beirut from the United Arab Emirates. It has bombed hospitals, schools and ambulances. All of this, of course, is in blatant violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, under which our weapons are provided to Israel.

Why is our country supporting Israel’s unlimited violence not only against an entire population, but a population that has historically been the most friendly to the United States in the entire Arab world? For decades, America has been a beacon of hope and liberty to the people of Lebanon. Its foremost university is an American institution. Its people have emigrated in tens of thousands to America (the majority of Arab-Americans are Lebanese), tying our two nations together.

Justice aside, what do we gain from the bombing of these people?

Are we really to believe that this attack will destroy Hezbollah? Israel enforced a draconian military occupation of Lebanon for over two decades; just as it failed to destroy Hezbollah then, it will fail again now.

Are we then to believe that this attack constitutes a slap in the face for Iran and Syria? The destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure hurts neither of them. On the contrary, it will provide them another chance to give generously during reconstruction.

This attack has nothing to do with Israel’s self-defense. Preparing for eventual negotiations, it is showing how it deals with those who dare question it: It reduces their country to rubble. In the name of combating one form of extremism, we are backing another—Israel’s.

We gain nothing in the process. But we will pay a price.

Three hundred million Arabs and one billion Muslims are watching as one rational and peaceful and moral argument after another to restore peace is either denied or deflected or contemptuously spurned by our leaders in order to allow Israel to continue its bombardment. The next time one or three or 10 of them take it in their heads to launch a horrific attack on the United States—which they will regard as justified retribution—no one need bother to ask why they hate us. We will all know the answer.

Saree Makdisi, a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California-Los Angeles, writes frequently on the Middle East. This op-ed first appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer July 22, 2006. Copyright © 2006 The Plain Dealer. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.

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Where Are Those Voices of Reason Now?

By Khaled Almaeena

The rumble of cannon, the thumping blades of helicopters, the piercing whistles of fighter bombers and the chest-rattling thuds of bombs and rockets will grace Gaza and southern Lebanon for the seventh day today. 

The sound that will be missing is that of opposing voices seeking compromise and a way forward through reasoned discussion; instead, gunfire barks out. No mother or father wants to fear for a child; no one wants destruction to rain down from above on what is called home, yet children will die, and homes will be destroyed. 

So where are these voices of reason now that the onslaught of war ensues? We talk about creating a bright future and rebuilding what was destroyed, but now the devastation begins anew. 

Lebanon had been a great sign of hope around the world with the city of Beirut regaining its earlier glory and again becoming a bustling hub of commerce. Today the airport is in cinders and the city in rubble, and tomorrow seems more like a trip to the dark past than one to a bright future. 

As military leaders carve up Gaza and Lebanon into chessboards for strategy and tactics, nobody seems to worry about the collateral damage. 

Collateral damage is defined as unintended damage sustained during a military campaign, and the people of this region are discovering that it means a son’s leg, a daughter’s arm or a spouse’s life, a home or a friend. 

When you put it in those terms, it is clear that it should be unacceptable in a civilized world. The great nations of the world should be stepping up—and in, if need be—to put a halt to this brutal carnage. To do otherwise is to declare Gaza and Lebanon expendable and to declare their peoples unworthy of civility in this so-called “civilized” world. 

I hear voices from the West calling for reform and democracy, but those voices seem strangely silent now that mothers’ weeping is drowned out by what seems to be a widening conflict. Does dropping thousands of fliers on a neighborhood suggesting that the residents leave before the bombs start dropping on their homes make it all right? What bizarre stretches of reason could justify such a thing? The populaces of Palestine and Lebanon should be thrust into bitter war because three soldiers are captured? Where are all those voices so quick to call for reason, tolerance and understanding in this region? It is a bitter irony that some of those voices are the same ones who are supplying the equipment, supposedly given for defense, that are now on the offensive. 

I received a message from Europe from a Jewish man apologizing for Israel’s apparent plunge into madness, but the European leaders dawdle while people are dying. 

“No one now will dare question Israeli actions,” said a young journalism student from Columbia University. “I am half-Jewish, but I am a seeker of the truth.” Yet the Americans are willing to stand on the sidelines instead of intervening to stop this. 

The American people are among the world’s finest. They embrace their cherished tenets of “liberty and justice for all,” but the media and a powerful Israeli lobby mislead them on the nature of this conflict. 

The American Jewish Committee’s David Harris worked feverishly to garner support for Israel. “The way they were working, one would think that the United States itself was under attack,” said a congressional staff member who demanded anonymity. Not to be outdone, a large segment of the American media with ideological connections to Israel embarked on a campaign of vilification and obscuring of the facts. One CBS broadcaster went as far as to inquire “why fundamentalists in Gaza and Lebanon chose to provoke this war makes no sense.” 

The result is an American public being misled as to the true nature of this unimaginable setback for the Middle East. That is evidenced by some of the hate mail we are now receiving. 

One letter from Miami promised to annihilate us; somebody else wants to put us in incinerators. Another called for an assassination campaign. Others kept on repeating the old mantra about Syria and Iran. It seems that every American institution is now being utilized by the pro-Israeli lobby. 

“Well, the more shrill your voice becomes in favor of Israel, the higher profile you gain in media circles here,” said a retired American editor. “I have the longer interest of America at heart, and I am totally upset…about a minority trying to drag us into a swamp and mire us there.” 

He does not speak strictly about the long-range interests of America; he is also speaking about the long-range interests of all of us to find lasting peace between nations and an end to the rumble of guns. We should be building a 21st century economic future instead of reliving the past. 

The spineless behavior of the Europeans and others has made many wonder what hold these people have that terrifies them and prevents them from speaking the truth. 

It was an Israeli of conscience who exposed Facility 1391—Israel’s torture prison. It houses Lebanese abducted by Israelis, scores of Palestinians—men, women, and even children—and makes the Soviet gulags seem like picnic spots. 

An Israeli MP, Zahava Galon, described Facility 1391 as “one of the signs of totalitarian regimes and of the Third World.” 

“I don’t think such an institution should exist in a democracy,” said Ami Ayalar, a former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s intelligence service. 

Although we value his words, the world can rightfully ask what democracy imprisons a people, blows to smithereens hundreds of others while using the latest weaponry and gadgetry—freely supplied by a superpower? 

To have peace, the world should see that the real problem is occupation and the nonimplementation of U.N. Resolutions No. 242 and No. 338, both of which are gathering dust. The same nation that so often seeks our support on its initiatives stands as a roadblock to those U.N. resolutions. The only way real peace will come is when the U.N. seriously implements these programs. 

It is ironic that, in a world supposedly moving forward with a matrix of globalized, interconnected economies, for half a century the Palestinian issue has been allowed to fester like a bleeding sore; what is more ironic is that now Israel is plunging Lebanon back into the same pit of hell in which it has sought to leave the Palestinians. Are these the acts of a civilized people in a civilized world? 

I don’t think so. 

Where are those voices of reason now?

Khaled Almaeena is editor-in-chief of the Jeddah-based daily Arab News, in which this editorial first appeared July 20. Copyright 2006 Arab News. Reprinted with permission.

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Time for a Clean Break—From Israel

By Paul Findley

The ghastly human carnage at Qana, Lebanon, should awaken everyone to the grim reality that our nation’s attachment to Israel is bad news. It entangles America in one awful mess after another: first 9/11, then Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now Lebanon. None would have occurred if our government had refused to support Israel’s long subjugation of the Palestinians.

Instead of continuing to ignore this entanglement with near-total silence, our citizens should now seek a way out through civilized open debate and discussion. If so, Qana will be a silver lining—although a bloody one—in this otherwise engulfing cloud.

Striving as usual to live by the sword, Israelis seem unwilling to face the stark fact that they will never be truly secure until Palestinians feel secure in an independent state of their own. Hezbollah’s recent border skirmish was motivated partly by leader Hassan Nasrallah’s desire to show solidarity with the Palestinians in their lonely, desperate struggle for survival in Gaza.

Using the skirmish as a pretext for war, Israel is now trying to wipe out northern resistance to its colonialism. The initial goal is the destruction of the Hezbollah, a popular Lebanese Shi’i organization that has long provided social services for local citizens, along with armed resistance to Israeli occupation policies. Six years ago, Hezbollah handed Israel its only battlefield defeat in history by forcing it to withdraw its forces from south Lebanon. Perhaps Israelis believe that bombing Hezbollah and much of Lebanon back to the Stone Ages will ease the memory of defeat. Israel’s major objective in its latest war-making is the installation of a compliant new regime in Beirut.

The U.S. government is not a bystander in this gruesome enterprise. President George W. Bush strongly supports Israel’s invasion and publicly opposes an immediate cease-fire until Israel finishes its long-planned schedule of killings and destruction. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice smilingly calls these horrors the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.”

If past is prologue, with the help of Congress Bush will provide further evidence of U.S. complicity by sending Israel a U.S. Treasury check big enough to cover Israel’s expenses in this latest of seven invasions of Lebanon. Our government has already expedited a new supply of laser-guided missiles to Israel and donated $150 million worth of aviation fuel, a gift that will help finance, among other ugly missions, the deliberate recurrent terrifying sonic booms that deny sleep for hapless Palestinians in Gaza.

The Bush team may seriously view Hezbollah as a bunch of evil terrorists, but the organization rides high as heroes in the Arab/Muslim world and far beyond. Polls show close to 90 percent support throughout Lebanon, even in government circles and among Christians, and strong majority “street” support in other Arab/Muslim countries. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas, a similar group recently elected to leadership in Palestine, are broadly admired for standing tall against Israel, the United States and other Western powers.

In the wake of the ghastly tide of blood at Qana, the people of the Middle East—except in Israel—view Israel and Washington as the real terrorists. In recent years, anti-American passions have focused mainly against President Bush and his team, but the recent near-unanimous approval of congressional resolutions endorsing Israel’s war in Lebanon now put Americans generally on the hate list. Only eight of the 435 members in the U.S. House of Representatives—self-styled as “the people’s” branch of government—had the courage and decency to vote no. No wonder Americans are hated as never before.

Surely, the American people are wise and resolute enough to elect a government that will suspend all government aid until Israel sheathes its sword, lives by the rule of law, and vacates all Arab territory it has illegally held since the June 1967 Israeli-Arab war.  

America’s dangerous attachment to Israel must end. We should have made a clean break from this warrior state years ago, but better late than never.

Former Congressman Paul Findley (R-IL) is the author of They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby; Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts about the U.S.-Israeli Relationship; and Silent No More: Confronting America’s False Images of Islam, all available from the AET Book Club. This article was first published Aug. 3, 2006 in the Springfield, IL State Journal-Register. Reprinted with permission.

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