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August 10, 2006
| The Partition Of Lebanon | Palestine/Middle East |
As Israel continues its ethnic cleansing operation to de-populate southern Lebanon, making refugees of one-quarter of Lebanon's population and turning the south into one big free-fire zone, what about the draft resolution the US, France, and Britain have offered to the UN Security Council? It is, as one might expect given its authors, weighted overhwelmingly in Israel's favor. American Leftist has an excellent post on the subject. It quotes Ran HaCohen:
According to the current resolution draft, the UN Security Council "calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations." Note the asymmetry, as well as the term "immediate." While Israel is occupying Lebanon, Hezbollah — or, as it is often called in Lebanon, "the resistance" (al-muqawama) — is not allowed to take any military action against this occupation. If it does, the resolution draft allows Israel to defend its occupation militarily, as long as it uses "non-offensive" means. Thus the UNSC, perhaps for the first time, waives the moral and internationally accepted legal principle of the right of occupied peoples to resist occupation. The resolution draft not only forbids Hezbollah resistance to the occupation, but also legitimizes Israel's right to defend its occupying forces against any Lebanese resistance. [Emphasis added]
Next, AmLeft quotes Karim Makdisi, writing from Beirut:
The draft UN resolution proposed by the US and France on Saturday...seems strangely out of place, as though Israel had won this war decisively and is in a position to dictate the terms. The draft does not reflect either the reality of a balance of terror that clearly exists between Hizbullah and Israel today, or the political unity that this war has created in Lebanon and across the Arab world. As such, it has come as a shock to many people in the region. In the words of the influential Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri (who is mediating between Hizbullah and the Lebanese government), "if Israel did not win the war and it gets all this, what would have happened if it had won the war?"Here are some preliminary observations on this draft resolution:
1. It clearly adopts the Israeli narrative that this war was begun by Hizbullah...and makes clear that to prevent the "resumption of hostilities" Hizbullah must be banned in all areas between the Blue Line and Litani River. Elsewhere, the text refers to the Sheba'a farms as "disputed or uncertain" as opposed to "occupied."
2. It calls for a "cessation of hostilities" until an international force is deployed, as opposed to the "immediate cease fire" that the Lebanese government has repeatedly demanded. This gives Israel the face-saving mechanism it needs...
3. It further calls on Hizbullah to cease all "attacks" while Israel must only cease "offensive military operations." Given that Israel has all along stated that this war is in self-defense, this phrasing clearly gives Israel the green light to continue to hit Hizbullah targets whenever it interprets the need for self defense. And since 'Hizbullah targets' apparently includes the full spectrum of civilian installations throughout the country as well as all civilians in Lebanon, Israel could interpret this to mean a green light for the continuation of its onslaught.
4. It refers to the "unconditional release" of Israeli soldiers, but only to "encouraging the efforts aimed at resolving the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel." It says nothing about the exchange of prisoners, a key Lebanese demand.
5. It does not heed Lebanon's demand for an immediate lifting of the Israeli siege of Lebanon. Rather it makes clear that airports and ports will be reopened only for "verifiably and purely civilian purposes." In other words, everyone and everything going in and out of the country will be monitored, thus turning Lebanon into a new Gaza.
6. There is no mention of an international investigation into Israel's savage attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure as Lebanon's Prime Minster has repeatedly demanded. There is moreover no reference to war crimes, international humanitarian laws or the Geneva Conventions.
7. The heart of this draft resolution calls for a permanent ceasefire based on the disarming of "all armed groups in Lebanon"...and the deployment in Lebanon (as opposed to Israel, or both countries) of an "international force"...to help implement a "long term solution." The Lebanese government has insisted that the disarming of Hizbullah must be part of Lebanon's national dialogue...and that the Lebanese army should be the main player in securing southern Lebanon, with an expanded UNIFIL there to assist it as needed. [Emphasis added]
Meanwhile, Israel continues to pound Shia areas throughout Lebanon — not just in the de facto free-fire zone south of the Litani, but in south Beirut and in the Bek'a valley — apparently hoping to rob Hezbollah of any area in which to take refuge. By re-occupying southern Lebanon and turning it into a de-populated wasteland, Israel is effectively partitioning the country — or trying to, anyway, Hezbollah has other ideas.
The paradox, however, and the reason Israel's policy is certain ultimately to be self-defeating, is that Lebanon is rapidly being turned into a failed state. Which is to say, fertile ground for an insurgency. It's like they don't get CNN in Israel. Haven't they watched the US go down in flames in Iraq? For that matter, haven't they learned from their own experience in occupied Palestine: namely, that injustice calls forth resistance, with the strength and staying power of the resistance proportional to the scale of the injustice, in a sort of Newton's law of conflict. Few injustices feed resistance like an occupation.
The US and Israel seem unable or unwilling to adapt to new global realities. Where it once may have seemed attractive to neocons here and in Israel to turn the Middle East (Israel aside) into a bunch of weak statelets, the reality in this age of "global guerrillas" is that every failed state is a Petri dish for increasingly effective insurgencies, insurgencies that are quicker to learn and adapt than the First World militaries arrayed against them. More on that topic tomorrow.
Meanwhile, like the bumper sticker says: no justice, no peace.
[Thanks, Miles]
Posted by Jonathan at August 10, 2006 04:45 PM
