 Et tu, Hezbollah?
A sampling of Lebanese bloggers' reactions to the current crisis in the Middle East:
The folks at the Lebanese Bloggers Forum go tit for tat on U.N. resolutions, and calls for a new oil boycott... (somehow I doubt that will happen, since the mainly Sunni Gulf states are taking pains to remain on the U.S. side of the conflict, at least so far...)
Lebanese journalist Bassem Mroue details the stark realities of war in his country, and warns that Israel's policy will only create more "human bombs..."
A "sub-expert" at Bliss Street Journal sees the possibility of a NATO solution, a la Bosnia. Then he adds this ominious bit of rumor reporting:
Addendum: Stratfor relays from IDF sources that Israel is setting up a military administration to manage areas under their control in southern Lebanon. Since Israel has maintained that they do not want to occupy southern Lebanon, most likely this action is intended to motivate international attempts to formulate a peacekeeping solution. We shall see. If it looks like ocupation, and sounds like occupation ... can settlements secured by Jewish-only roadways, IDF checkpoints and frequent suicide bombings be far off?
A Lebanese woman blogger named Delirious captures the torment of the times with painful post after painful post...
Ramzi's Blah Blah blog (out of Beirut) has lots of great posts and information, as well as links to the latest news out of Lebanon, and ways people can help the civilians who are suffering there. He's also got this post about Italy's attempts to reach out to the Lebanese, and this great cover from the Independent UK...
There's also a new organization called SaveLebanon.org.
All of this is not to say that Israel does not have a legitimate security interest in seeing Hezbollah disarmed (to be sure, it would be in the interests of the Lebanese government not to have a private army or government within a governmetn operating out of its south). But what Israel is currently doing in Lebanon, including its possible plans for invasion and reoccupation of that country, is both counterproductive, and morally wrong. I stand by that, no matter how many Joyces want to call me "anti-Semitic." It isn't anti-Semitic to criticize Israeli policy. Their policy does not come from the mouth of God, nor is it necessarily conducive to the best interests of the United States. We have to be able to say that freely in this democracy, and we have to be able to assert U.S. interests first. As Pat Buchanan has said, Israel's war is not our war (whether or not it is the neocons'). And Israel's unrelenting destruction of Lebanon is certainly contrary to our interests in the region.
No matter how much I may understand the Israeli mindset on this, I just don't see how the bombardment and possible occupation of Lebanon can do anything other than destabilize the Siniora government, popularize Hezbollah both inside and outside of Lebanon, radicalize the population there, and increase pan-Arab and pan-Muslim disdain for the U.S., and hatred for Israel. And then, there is the question of who will pay for the reconstruction of Lebanon? Europe? American taxpayers (whose government then will do what? Hand the money over to Halliburton and other privateers?) Or will the Israelis be forced to pay restitution, which then will either break their economy or be passed on to the American people in the form of fresh requests for aid?
This policy is misguided. The people of Lebanon are being punished -- the children of Lebanon are being punished -- for the taking of two soldiers? And not even by their government?
Rubbish.
At the same time, the Lebanese government must get control of its affairs, and must assert itself over all of its territory. Hezbollah has proved to be highly effective at delivering services and aiding the people of southern Lebanon. They should become a part of the governmetn proper, and fold their military into the Army. If they don't wish to do so, they should be brought under the control of the Lebanese government, perhaps with the help of the international community, or even Syria, but not -- not -- under the boot of the Israeli IDF. That simply won't work. And it won't be acceptable to anyone in the region. How could it?
Over at Beirut to the Beltway, Abu Kais asks if Israel might think it's acting as the Gulf states' unofficial SWAT team...
Anyway, The Lebanese Bloggers is a good place to find some of the most updated and chilling inside coverage of what's going on on the ground (including this post about the "Iraqization of Lebanon".) And one of their bloggers, Raja, who has just returned to the U.S. from the region, has perhaps the best summary of what the Lebanese people are facing:
I am finally back in the United States. After spending ten days in Syria, helping my family cope with the loss of their lives in Lebanon, I am back to my own life over here.
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Both my brother and sister had to leave loved ones behind, who sought the safety and comfort of their families. My brother is now on his way to London; his long-time girlfriend to Australia. My sister is on her way to Dubai; her long-time boyfriend is staying behind in Lebanon to salvage what remains of his business. Both their sets of friends are dispersing all over the world. The networks of relationships that were such a crucial part of their lives are now broken. They have to start their lives from scratch.
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Despite all this, our family ranks among the lucky few. Yet even the "lucky" among us now have to deal with disrupted lives, in all senses of the phrase: broken relationships; shattered livelihoods; failed investments and much, much more. All we have left is hope: hope that we will be able to rebuild what has been destroyed, and hope that the situation will not deteriorate any further. ...
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I want this war to end now. The last thing I want, however, is a return to the status quo ante so that we face another wave of destruction five, ten, or fifteen years down the road. And in all honesty, I simply don’t want to give Israeli generals another reason to flex their destructive muscles at our dire expense.
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Lebanon will never recover from this brutal blow unless Lebanese are assured that such a calamity will not befall them again. The worst outcome - the absolute worst outcome - would be if all this destruction and death comes to naught, and a real political change for the better does not materialize in Lebanon and the region. Lastly, Carine at Chercheuse d'Or writes a moving letter to Israel. To sum up:
You have made the situation much, much worse for yourself. And you have killed something fragile that you ought to have nourished: a liberal Arab neighbor.
Frankly, I'm not sure, including from the comments to Carine's post, that Israelis ever believed that such a thing existed. I'm not sure they believe that such a thing can. Having talked to and listened to pro-Israeli Americans describe Arabs as essentially animals (and Palestinians as "nothings" who should be deported en masse to Jordan or Egypt -- something even supposedly liberal talker Ed Schultz threw out last week, at which point I had to call his show for the first time...) I don't think that Israel or its partisans are capable of seeing Arabs or Muslims as human enough to negotiate with. Perhaps that's the falt of the Islamists, or the movements that consider themselves warriors against occupation (Hezbollah and Hamas) but who Israel and the U.S. consider terrorists (Europe, intriguingly, does not share our view.)
But the bottom line here is that nothing good is coming of this war in Lebanon/Israel. Just like nothing good so far has come from our war on Iraq.
Frankly, if any good can come of all of this, it will be the death -- finally and for all time -- of neoconservative/Likudnik foreign policy.
On a slightly more personal note: despite the accusations that have occasionally been thrown at me on this blog, I am not some sort of terrorist sympathizer. I understand what terrorism is, and believe as strongly as do many on the right that it must be taken out of the political equation. Where I differ is how that can be accomplished. (In short, I don't think it can be accomplished via military invasion...) I'm also not Lebanese, or Arab, or Muslim -- I'm an American with a father fromthe Congo and a mother (God rest her soul) who came to this country from British Guyana. So I have a particular point of view about colonialism -- European in the cases of my parents' home countries, and in my view, Euro-Israeli in the Middle East. I suppose I'm just one of those "State Department Arabists," because I have tremendous sympathy for the more than 1 million dispossessed Palestinians languishing in squalid refugee camps without a country (if not for some of their tactics), as well as for the people of Iraq and Lebanon -- none of whom asked to be "liberated" by the Americans, the British, or the Israelis. I believe that political/military movements like Hezbollah and Hamas don't just spring up out of a spontaneous desire to spread radical Islam around the globe. They spring up as grassroots movements to combat what native populations see as colonization, dispossession, and the theft of their lands and resources by foreign powers. That is especially true in the oil-rich Middle East, where land is at a premium and religion fuels already deep desires to hold onto territory at all costs. I also don't happen to think that all Muslims are "terrorists," or that the black and white, "with us or with the terrorists" dynamic set up by the Bushies (and coddled by the pathetic government of Tony Blair) is even valid. The Middle East is the most complex region, perhaps on earth. The "beefs" between the people there and the people of the West (not to mention with one another) are intertwined with colonialsim, the random drawing of the map post World War I, internecine politics, resource wars, proxy Cold War detritus conflict, ethnic hatred, religious ideology and much more. It simply can't be boiled down to us (and the Israelis) versus "the terrorists." Al-Qaida is not Hezbollah (for starters, one is Sunni and the other Shia). Hamas and Hezbollah are not simple terrorist groups, but rather are complex social, political and militaristic networks that cannot be eradicated from populations that they are an intrinsic part of. In both cases, they are also parts of the governments of Arab states (or in the case of the Palestinians, of a state in waiting.) Americans have simply got to stop being so simplistic about what is going on over there, if we are to make coherent choices about who we want in leadership who can deal with the unfolding crises around the globe. Clearly, George W. Bush is out of his depth. The next president, in my humble opinion, had better not be.
That's my rant. Here's hoping that all of those living on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border sleep safely tonight.
Update: And in case you're wondering where is the sampling of Israeli bloggers on Lebanon ... not to worry (or get pissy)... I'll be posting that tomorrow. Cheers.
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Tags: Bush, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Politics, News, war, Current Affairs, Iran, Iraq |
