Barbarism, pure and unadulterated
August 12, 2006
By Abdulkhaleq Bin Dhaaer, Special to Gulf News
There is no other description of Israel's behaviour as demonstrated by the wanton aerial attacks on Lebanon, which have mercilessly been going on for weeks. Israel's victims, as in occupied West Bank and Gaza, have mostly been innocent civilians men, women and children. If Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets were being fired from residential buildings, as Israel has been alleging, they would have completely been wiped out during the first week of the Israeli aerial bombardments, as no building in south Lebanon, in particular, has been spared.
Since Israel was forced to pull out of Lebanon in 2000 while holding on to the Lebanese She'baa farms violations of the so-called Blue Line and intermittent Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace have been the norm. But the two sides have exchanged prisoners and hostages through third party mediations. Israel had the opportunity last year to release the remaining Lebanese prisoners it captured 20 years ago, as Lebanon and Hezbollah demanded, but it declined to do so.
Israel, therefore, had neither the moral nor the military justification for its decision to wage war on Lebanon because of the two captured Israeli soldiers that Hezbollah was intending to exchange with Lebanese prisoners. This, even if Hezbollah had captured them not in occupied Lebanese territory but in Tel Aviv. Does international law justify Israel's behaviour in destroying another state? The UN Security Council has a lot to answer, as it is its responsibility to safeguard international law and order.
Besides, it is very clear that Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982, and its continued occupation of the remaining part of Lebanon is the main reason behind Hezbollah's creation and its continuation to this day as a national resistance movement, whose guerilla war-fare forced Israel to pull out of most of southern Lebanon.
The current situation could have been avoided if Israel had pulled out of She'baa farms, when it pulled out from most of south Lebanon in 2000. This, if Israel truly wanted peaceful co-existence with Lebanon. But, from the results we witness today, Israel's calculations were certainly different and with a specific agenda that has now unfolded.
Geopolitical design
Is it merely out of jealousy and deep-rooted hatred of Lebanon given Lebanon's reputation as a competitive place and a regional financial centre with a very large and impressive tourist industry that attracts Arabs and westerners that Israel destroyed this country? Is this kind of wanton attack by Israel going to take place every 20 years or so, as and when Lebanon stands back on its feet again and strengthens its democracy? Or is there a larger geopolitical design in the area, using Lebanon as a conduit for world power hegemony, and to turn Lebanon into another Iraq?
Israel started its aggressive war on Lebanon attacking Lebanese civilian infrastructure and institutions and residential buildings before Hezbollah fired any of its rockets into northern Israel. Israel was, surely, expecting reprisals from Hezbollah so that it could justify its attacks against the Lebanese, while the Jewish-controlled western media trumpeted Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, trying to equate that with the power and severity of the Israeli air force, which has killed more than a thousand civilians with thousands more injured and in serious condition. A third of the country's people have been made refugees.
Israel's militarist government should also be held responsible by its citizens for the deaths of Israeli civilians caused by Hezbollah rockets. Those rockets would not have been fired into northern Israel and Haifa by Hezbollah had it not been for Israel's senseless war against Lebanon, a war that is believed, according to leaked western media sources, to have been pre-planned. The kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah was just used as a pretext by Israel to implement the plan of destroying Lebanon, expecting another Lebanese civil war to result from its war of aggression, and perhaps drawing Syria into the war to complete Israel's strategy.
Israel's one-sided war on another, practically unarmed nation and its consequences reminds us of Serbia's criminal attacks against Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats and Serb crimes of ethnic cleansing now being judged at The Hague. Even Christian quarters in Lebanon have not been spared by Israel's aerial bombardment. Yet the so-called international community and the permanent members of the Security Council remain in deepest slumber.
The talk about a "new Middle East" has no real substance in this situation of instability. A new Middle East may emerge only when Israel is forced to change its arrogant and aggressive behaviour that is intended at bringing down Arab states to their knees and accept Israeli terms of Hitler-like peace with its neighbours. Or have I misunderstood the type of "new Middle East" to be shaped by its proponents?
Perhaps. In 1994, Arab countries, for the first time since Israel's creation in 1948, put forward a historic compromise in Beirut for peace with Israel. They offered to recognise and have peace with Israel and normalise relations with it if Israel pulled out of all the Arab lands it militarily occupied in 1967, in compliance with the UN Charter that does not allow acquisition of territory by means of war. This Beirut Arab Summit proposal was instantly rejected by Israel and ignored by the United States. The Security Council should have adopted it, at least through a strong statement by the Council, in order to push the Arab-Israeli peace process forward in a more constructive manner. That Arab peace proposal and position still stands for Israel to seriously consider and accept, if it has any real intention of establishing a just and lasting peace with the Palestinians and Arab states.
The United States and the international community must show their seriousness and adopt the Arab peace plan in order to solve the Middle East problem once and for all for the sake of world peace and security. Israel should remember that territorial expansionism led to the downfall of Hitler and his regime after the Second World War.
Abdulkhaleq Bin Dhaaer is a UAE diplomat and the views expressed in the article are his own.
By Abdulkhaleq Bin Dhaaer, Special to Gulf News
There is no other description of Israel's behaviour as demonstrated by the wanton aerial attacks on Lebanon, which have mercilessly been going on for weeks. Israel's victims, as in occupied West Bank and Gaza, have mostly been innocent civilians men, women and children. If Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets were being fired from residential buildings, as Israel has been alleging, they would have completely been wiped out during the first week of the Israeli aerial bombardments, as no building in south Lebanon, in particular, has been spared.
Since Israel was forced to pull out of Lebanon in 2000 while holding on to the Lebanese She'baa farms violations of the so-called Blue Line and intermittent Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace have been the norm. But the two sides have exchanged prisoners and hostages through third party mediations. Israel had the opportunity last year to release the remaining Lebanese prisoners it captured 20 years ago, as Lebanon and Hezbollah demanded, but it declined to do so.
Israel, therefore, had neither the moral nor the military justification for its decision to wage war on Lebanon because of the two captured Israeli soldiers that Hezbollah was intending to exchange with Lebanese prisoners. This, even if Hezbollah had captured them not in occupied Lebanese territory but in Tel Aviv. Does international law justify Israel's behaviour in destroying another state? The UN Security Council has a lot to answer, as it is its responsibility to safeguard international law and order.
Besides, it is very clear that Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982, and its continued occupation of the remaining part of Lebanon is the main reason behind Hezbollah's creation and its continuation to this day as a national resistance movement, whose guerilla war-fare forced Israel to pull out of most of southern Lebanon.
The current situation could have been avoided if Israel had pulled out of She'baa farms, when it pulled out from most of south Lebanon in 2000. This, if Israel truly wanted peaceful co-existence with Lebanon. But, from the results we witness today, Israel's calculations were certainly different and with a specific agenda that has now unfolded.
Geopolitical design
Is it merely out of jealousy and deep-rooted hatred of Lebanon given Lebanon's reputation as a competitive place and a regional financial centre with a very large and impressive tourist industry that attracts Arabs and westerners that Israel destroyed this country? Is this kind of wanton attack by Israel going to take place every 20 years or so, as and when Lebanon stands back on its feet again and strengthens its democracy? Or is there a larger geopolitical design in the area, using Lebanon as a conduit for world power hegemony, and to turn Lebanon into another Iraq?
Israel started its aggressive war on Lebanon attacking Lebanese civilian infrastructure and institutions and residential buildings before Hezbollah fired any of its rockets into northern Israel. Israel was, surely, expecting reprisals from Hezbollah so that it could justify its attacks against the Lebanese, while the Jewish-controlled western media trumpeted Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, trying to equate that with the power and severity of the Israeli air force, which has killed more than a thousand civilians with thousands more injured and in serious condition. A third of the country's people have been made refugees.
Israel's militarist government should also be held responsible by its citizens for the deaths of Israeli civilians caused by Hezbollah rockets. Those rockets would not have been fired into northern Israel and Haifa by Hezbollah had it not been for Israel's senseless war against Lebanon, a war that is believed, according to leaked western media sources, to have been pre-planned. The kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah was just used as a pretext by Israel to implement the plan of destroying Lebanon, expecting another Lebanese civil war to result from its war of aggression, and perhaps drawing Syria into the war to complete Israel's strategy.
Israel's one-sided war on another, practically unarmed nation and its consequences reminds us of Serbia's criminal attacks against Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats and Serb crimes of ethnic cleansing now being judged at The Hague. Even Christian quarters in Lebanon have not been spared by Israel's aerial bombardment. Yet the so-called international community and the permanent members of the Security Council remain in deepest slumber.
The talk about a "new Middle East" has no real substance in this situation of instability. A new Middle East may emerge only when Israel is forced to change its arrogant and aggressive behaviour that is intended at bringing down Arab states to their knees and accept Israeli terms of Hitler-like peace with its neighbours. Or have I misunderstood the type of "new Middle East" to be shaped by its proponents?
Perhaps. In 1994, Arab countries, for the first time since Israel's creation in 1948, put forward a historic compromise in Beirut for peace with Israel. They offered to recognise and have peace with Israel and normalise relations with it if Israel pulled out of all the Arab lands it militarily occupied in 1967, in compliance with the UN Charter that does not allow acquisition of territory by means of war. This Beirut Arab Summit proposal was instantly rejected by Israel and ignored by the United States. The Security Council should have adopted it, at least through a strong statement by the Council, in order to push the Arab-Israeli peace process forward in a more constructive manner. That Arab peace proposal and position still stands for Israel to seriously consider and accept, if it has any real intention of establishing a just and lasting peace with the Palestinians and Arab states.
The United States and the international community must show their seriousness and adopt the Arab peace plan in order to solve the Middle East problem once and for all for the sake of world peace and security. Israel should remember that territorial expansionism led to the downfall of Hitler and his regime after the Second World War.
Abdulkhaleq Bin Dhaaer is a UAE diplomat and the views expressed in the article are his own.
posted by HRM Deborah of Israel and the Messenger of Peace at 7:18 AM
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