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August 4th 2006 – in The Japan
Times
Article for The Japan Times
By David Howell
Disaster in the Middle East
LONDON- This time Israel has surely gone too far.
Of course this small and courageous nation has a perfect right to defend itself
against unprovoked attack, and to do so with the utmost vigour, and of course
the murderous Hezbollah faction in southern Lebanon must be flushed out, as the
leaders of Israel keep insisting, supported strongly by both George Bush in
Washington and Tony Blair in London.
Furthermore it is impossible not to admire the endless resilience and
determination of the Israeli people, who have carved out a modern and dynamic
nation from the unpromising soil of the land to which they believe fervently
they have an ancient right, have made the desert bloom and have seen off
countless enemies with decisive ferocity .
But in deciding this time to respond to Hezbollah’s kidnappings and unending
missile attacks not just by bombing and assaulting Hezbollah strongholds, but by
treating the whole of neighbouring Lebanon, its fragile Government and its
people, as the enemy which must be destroyed the Israelis have made a dreadful
error, an error so bad that this time it could lead to their own destruction.
Most of the Lebanese hate the Hezbollah organization as much as the Israelis.
They have lived in agonising fear of this monster within their own heartland, a
would-be state within a state , longing to be rid out of it, trying patiently to
woo away the more moderate elements and to build up some sort of dialogue with
its leaders. They have gone to the lengths of bringing Hezbollah figures into
the Government of Lebanon as they have tried to build a new national unity after
the happy ejection of their bullying neighbours, the Syrians, eighteen months
ago.
Even now, many Lebanese, as they shelter from Israeli bombs and struggle to find
food and basic services amidst the smashed infrastructure of their country, want
to see the Hezbollah finally destroyed and reject the idea of any ceasefire
which would leave the Hezbollah leaders in place . They know that this would
lead not just to Hezbollah survival but to its triumph in finally devouring
Lebanon and turning it into a fanatical Islamic satrapy of Iran and the Syrians.
Like a badly wounded individual with a smashed limb they are reluctantly ready
to allow amputation to prevent the gangrene of Hezbollah killing them.
Yet it is these brave people whom the Israelis have given themselves the green
light to go ahead and pulverise to destruction. They seem to have become utterly
blinded in their fury to the prospect of collapse by the struggling Lebanese
Government collapse – the only other democracy in the region - and to the
opening up of a lethal vacuum on their northern border .
Into that vacuum will flow first civil war, of the kind which paralysed Lebanon
back in the nineteen-eighties, and then Iranian and Syrian influence and with
military personnel, missiles, tanks and all the other instruments of renewed
aggression following on behind. A new extreme Islamic state will then emerge
from the corpse of gentle Lebanon right on the Mediterranean shore.
Israel will then have succeeded in destroying a good neighbour and friend and
re-creating on its border an even deadlier force than the existing Hezbollah .
And it will have done so unnecessarily. Another huge step will have been taken
by the forces of Islam in achieving the declared and common objectives of Al-Qaeda,
of the Iranian leaders, of the Hamas government in Palestine, and of countless
other Arab fanatical groups – which is to drive ‘the West’, in which they
include Israel, out of the Middle East for ever.
What the Israelis ought to have done, when their soldiers were first kidnapped
and the missiles first fell on their towns, was to befriend the Lebanese
Government and to work with it in every possible way, open and covert, to
isolate and target the Hezbollah leaders in their hide-outs. What the
international community should have done is to have stopped wringing its hands
and uttering platitudes about the slaughter of Lebanese women and children,
while cheering the Israelis on.
Instead it should have backed Lebanese efforts to the full and insisted on the
closest co-operation with Israel – and in due course with international forces
as well if they can be found – in rooting out Hezbollah and establishing a
thriving Lebanese state as a bulwark against Islamic fanaticism and a protective
neighbour for Israel.
The American decision, while of course mouthing sympathy for all those, both
Lebanese and Israeli, who have been murdered , to give open support to Israel,
to approve its over-the-top strategy of virtual Lebanese annihilation, and to
ship fresh weapons to Israel so that it can carry on bombing , is surely the
final crashing misjudgement of George Bush’s foreign policy. And Tony Blair’s
decision to go along with all this, including approval for America
weapons-carrying cargo planes to be re-fuelled at British airports, will surely
hasten his own departure.
But for the rest of us – whether in Europe, in America or in Japan - who
certainly want Israel to survive, who want Lebanon to hold together, who want
Palestine to emerge and prosper and all the violent anti-Western factions to be
contained (and in due course to turn on each other), the Middle-Eastern tragedy
will continue to unfold, maybe slowly but now with new inevitability. Whoever
appears to win out of the immediate violence, in fact extremism will have won
and darker forces will come out on top. And for that we will all pay an even
greater price.
ENDS
(howelld@parliament.uk. www.lordhowell.com)
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