Israel’s reaction makes sense but local rockets
must not boom regionally
S P Singh
The Gaza crisis spills over. Right now the world can hear the steady boom of rockets being fired from Lebanon and watch Israel fending off attacks on its northern and southern borders. But be very very clear. This time the conflict is not local as it may seem initially. It is very much regional. The psychological barrier which prevented the frequent clashes between Israel and Hezbollah over the last few years has been crossed.
Events in the last few days have shaken everyone awake. Rockets may sound distant, the daily headlines may denote an escalation at a hitherto dormant border, but be warned. It could be war at the world's doorsteps. The millions that crawl into bunkers and those who are dying denote what life is made up of, currently for them, soon for many others in the Middle East. And anything that happens there affects you.
While it can be argued for the moment that justification for Hezbollah's aggression is totally lacking, that the counter attack launched by Israel is fully justified, that the Lebanese government has clearly avoided a confrontation with Hezbollah for years, it is also true that realising real politics, Israel too refrained from moving against Hezbollah. Now that the provocation is here, clear and present, there is only one mistake that Israel can make. And it is already doing that.
Israel is now acting against Lebanon, because Lebanon is officially responsible for Hezbollah. Israel can state simply that it is attacking the address from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are being launched. But wait a minute! When Hezbollas fired the rockets, what did it expect? It expected a certain Israeli reaction; and Israel did not disappoint.
But failure is interwoven into the subtext if Israel leaves aside real politics and goes after the Lebanese government. Hezbollah's designs are diabolic. The enemy always wants you to do the predictable. The trick lies in being innovative. Someone wants to halt peace initiative by provoking Israel. The trick lies in thwarting such an entity and still save the peace.
Lebanese government is weak. Israel's counter attack may ensure Lebanon collapses again. A civil war there will enlarge the local rocket exchange and soldier kidnappings into a regional war. And consequences of such a war are unpredictable. Hezbollah cannot achieve such an aim on its own. It's getting Israel to do it. Israel must make sure that it is not doing the enemy's dirty task.
Also, it has to desist from its intention of custom-designing the Arab world according to its needs. So far it has failed. It has to have reasonable goals. Achievable goals. Breaking Hezbollah's power and ending its influence is an unachievable goal. Do not forget the experiments with Palestine Liberation Organisation. At one time, Israel wanted to finish it off. Superior weaponry and force did not succeed. The proven short sightedness of 1982 must not be forgotten.
True that the French President Jacques Chirac has expressed concern about “will to destroy Lebanon”. But there are other reasons.
Hezbollah is not PLO. It is a mini-Iran. And Iran's commitment is towards more than mere Palestinian cause. It will fight Israel after the Israel-Palestine peace too.
Iran’s president has famously denied the Holocaust. Iran has committed itself to undermining any prospect of real peace between Israel and the Palestinians through its agents like the Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
Israel has to realise that its fate is intertwined with Palestine and peaceful coexistence with Palestine only strengthens it to deal with Hezbollah. A disproportionate attack on Lebanon will harm Israeli-Palestine solution seeking efforts. This is what Hezbollah's aim is.
Please bear in mind that the latest provocation has come just when the Hamas government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya was in the process of wrapping up negotiations with the more moderate Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, on a political document that might have allowed the renewal of negotiations with Israel. As Abbas and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert met on June 22, the hugs and the kisses did seem reluctant at the breakfast as hosts King Abdullah II of Jordan and Elie Wiesel, a Nobel laureate, watched.
But the signs were positive. The two promised to meet in two weeks. Mr. Olmert promised an important release of Palestinian prisoners to celebrate a new relationship. It was at this juncture that the soldier crisis drowned that initiative. Just as it drowned the internal Palestinian negotiations, and reduced Mr. Abbas, at least for the moment, to near irrelevance.
This is where the success for those who provoke a strongman lies. This is where the strongman has to act with the strength of a statesman too. And this is where the world's strongman also has to be seen as acting the way a strongman should. George W Bush has to be seen doing his job as a superpower leader. Many of the killed in Lebanon were Canadian citizens. Tomorrow they may be of the U.S. too. Bush has to do more than calling Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Jordanian King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about the violence.
If nothing else, then the fact that we are talking about a region with the world’s one-third fuel stocks should be enough inspiration for more innovative intervention.
As air strike sirens pierce the peace of the night in Beirut and in Haifa, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and in the Israeli Galilee, Israel and Lebanon must do all they can to help ameliorate the pain of children and adults facing the horrors of war.
Cynics will say the current scenario underlines the end of the acumen of those who thought diplomatic innovativeness had a chance. But remember; every time the world has reached such a stage, talks have been the only way out. International crisis cannot be left to an alchemist's lore.
July 18, 2006