A New Thread fot the Current Israel/Palestine/Lebanon mess

Totally want it to happen - I just don't see it happening.

I mean I'm all for a cease fire, but I honestly don't know what happens next and I know that after a cease fire you're still stuck with huge problems.

Being stuck with huge problems seems like the usual conclusion to these things, no?

1. An armed Hezbollah represents a threat to Israel and the
proper government of Lebanon.

2. So, everyone (it seems) agrees that Hezbollah must be disarmed.
They never really showed an interest in disarming themselves,
and now it's not even a pipe dream.

3. if Hezbollah will not disarm itself, it must be disarmed
forcibly. This seems to be a logical conclusion based on what
we've already decided. Am I right or wrong?

How does a cease fire fit into this? It might last a day or a
year, but how will a cease fire help solve the fundamental
problem of disarming Hezbollah?

How does sending an international force to Lebanon solve the
problem? Will Hezbollah see the international force as legitimate
and turn over their weapons? Or will Hezbollah see this force
as a tool of Israel and imperial zionist america?

OTM

Hezb' is not going to disarm in the short-run, given that you don't give up after what will be perceived as a victory against mighty Israël. Plus, all the talk about how Hezb' should have been disarmed ages ago doesn't really consider the fact that Lebanon was an occupied country up until last year. The sovereignty of Lebanon was just starting to emerge and expecting Hezb to rely, for the country's defence, on a Government and army just getting used to the absence of Syria, is completely unrealistic.

Because every Lebanese person that
I've heard interviewed is basically sympathetic to Hezbollah.
They seem to believe the bizarre fantasy that Hezbollah are
simply freedom fighters defending against a totally unprovoked
Israeli invasion.

The only Lebanese that I have heard criticized Hezbollah are
politicians, who presumably have to maintain some semblance of
sanity when they're talking to the international press. Even so,
they seem to place 90% of the blame for this whole crisis on
Israel.

The Israeli air strikes, whatever material damage
they may have done, are totally strengthening Hezbollah where
it counts: in the court of public opinion.

So whomever ends up taking on Hezbollah (whether Israel continues it alone or an international force is sent in) may have to fight the Lebanese people. All of Lebanon may end up in ruins. This would polarize the entire Muslim world, and the extremists would have all the aces.

I can't believe there's people who don't believe this could
LIKELY escalate into a major
regional war (
or worse).

NOW they are! They certainly weren't before! Why would a Lebanese Christian have been sympathetic to Hezbollah?

1. Israel's response was totally wrong,
2. they should have responded like THIS instead

Because all i hear is 1.

>The best we can hope for now is that things can go back to they
>were before the invasion without the current Lebanese government >being *too* undermined or usurped by a more hardline one.

I respond to this theory with disbelief.
If Beirut can't or won't rein in Hezbollah, right now, than
Lebanon is a failed state.

Should the Israeli gvt give Lebanon a "grace period" to get
it's act together? in which terrorist
attacks are not responded to? Should they just suck it up for
a few years and hope a moderate government reins in Hezbollah?
I can't believe that anyone would endorse a solution that
includes Israel accepting rocket attacks and not searching out
the source of those rocket attacks and disabling them. If
that's not self-defence I don't know what is.

x

Bombing worked in Japan (we didn't care about alienating the
Japanese public - we just wanted to kill them all)
But historians can't prove that the only-slightly-less brutal
bombing of Germany significantly shortened the war.

Bombing campaigns suck, ethically AND militarily. Too bad
they're politically expedient.

S_P, the Lebanese government is slightly over one year old. They have come to power after YEARS of Syrian puppet states and Syrian/Israeli occupation. Yes, they do need some time to establish popular support before they can take on a well-established guerrilla movement that, to many in southern Lebanon, is viewed as having courageously fought the earlier Israeli occupation. And frankly, a force of any or multiple non-Lebanese nationalities coming into disarm Hezbollah without asking or being asked by the Lebanese government is a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty.

This whole "if you can't provide an alternative, your criticism is meaningless" argument is absolutely absurd. But in spite of that, I DID suggest an alternative--undermine Hezbollah by proving the Lebanese government will do more for the people of Lebanon. Forcibly disarming Hezbollah would not be possible until Hezbollah's support is decidedly on the decline (which is DEFINITELY not happening now)--and even then, it would probably still be better to negotiate a disarmament with the condition of remaining as a political party (which would also become possible). Attempts at any other point would be about as effective as fighting the Iraqi insurgency.

Finally, this talk of "oh what is Israel supposed to take it?" is only looking at things in terms of the situation NOW, after Israel escalated the conflict (which they DID). Hezbollah kidnapped two soldiers in the hopes of obtaining a prisoner exchange, which they have done in the past. I highly doubt their goal was to ignite an all-out war with Israel--but that's what they got, and they aren't going to lay down and quit. If this had never happened--if the prisoner exchange had occurred (or hell, even a covert rescue operation/successful ground operation) the atmosphere would be much more conducive to the international community providing support to the Lebanese government in decreasing Hezbollah's support and ultimately disarming it. Yes, border skirmishes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah would still occur for some time. Yes, if the prisoner exchange occurred, there would be a serious threat of Hezbollah adopting it as routine technique. But I doubt they would start randomly firing rockets at towns.

A writer on slate.com (not that favorable towards Israel,
generally) stated that for any nation, militias like
Hezbollah are incompatible with sovereignty, or true
democracy for that matter. I tend to agree.

>Yes, if the prisoner exchange occurred, there would be a serious >threat of Hezbollah adopting it as routine technique.

OK, so that seems to rule out the wisdom of Israel conducting
a prisoner exchange, right?

>But I doubt they would start randomly firing rockets at towns.

Wait, weren't they firing rockets before?

>I highly doubt their goal was to ignite an all-out war with Israel-->but that's what they got, and they aren't going to lay down and >quit.

I believe that Hezbollah has always been interested in all-out
war with Israel. Maybe I'm wrong.

Let's not forget Syria and Iran's continuing influence in
Lebanon, or their stated intentions towards Israel. Maybe it's
a mistake to isolate this issue from the larger context.

Maybe if more Americans had agreed, people in Northern Ireland wouldn't have had to live with the Provisional IRA for 30 years

Jessie once more on the money. I was on holidays in lebanon two months ago and I can definitely assure you that apart from people in the Bekaa Valley (ie. Eastern Hezb strongold) and in the southern border area, most people were strongly against Hezbollah and would spontaneously talk about it with a bunch of tourists like us. All the demonstrations I've been to these past few weeks have always been quick to boo any pro-Hezbollah slogans. But, I guess the longer this goes on, and at a period where Lebanon is not ready to assure its sovereign rights/obligations, the Hezbollah will increasingly look like the vietcong of all Lebanese people.

i remain unsure that this was their objective.

I guarantee you that if Israel returned the Shebaa farms and freed the three Lebanese prisoners, Hezbollah would continue to arm and train and talk about fighting Israel. Even Nasrallah says this is also about the Palestinians for him. And with his Iranian backers still talking about the need to destroy the "Zionist regime" - it's unclear whether even a two-state solution would satisfy them, though I think it'd certainly cut off a lot of the fuel for the fire.

Morality aside, extended bombing campaigns work well against nations and governments, and less so against embedded guerillas, militias, and insurgents willing to die for their cause.

If Beirut can't or won't rein in Hezbollah, right now, than
Lebanon is a failed state.

Jessie's OTM about trying to influence Lebanon and marginalize Hezbollah - instead of focusing on encouraging the behavior we want, we only punish the behavior we don't. This works as well with nations as it does with children.

The saddest thing is the lost opportunity. Lebanon stepped up and pushed to end Syrian influence in its country last year. The Bush administration trumpeted this as one of their few victories in the Middle East. Of course, no one followed through on disarming Hezbollah through force or through diplomacy, not the UN, not the US, nobody.

A historical problem in the Middle East has been the Western world looking to nationalism to solve all the problems in an area that doesn't believe in nationalism. Okay, we call Lebanon a failed state. Now what? If anything, the Western powers failed Lebanon. The same mistakes have been made in the Middle East for hundreds of years (at least) - the Western nations cheer on Arabs to stick out their necks when it fits their agenda, then leave them holding the bag when the check comes (excuse the mixed metaphor).

I want someone to tell me

1. Israel's response was totally wrong,
2. they should have responded like THIS instead

Because all i hear is 1.

Maybe you need to browse this thread again...

"The first day, everyone I talked to was furious at Hezbollah. "How can I express my anger?" wrote a Lebanese friend in a mass e-mail blazing with sarcasm. "Maybe by saying bravo to Hizbollah, thank you to Hizbollah. Thank you for ruining the entire season for the poor Lebanese who have been struggling so hard to cover the losses of last year's events... for destroying the tourism industry and infrastructure? for weakening yet again an already weak government and flushing all the hopes of millions of Lebanese down the drain? should I say more?"

But then Israel bombed the airport, and suddenly, surprisingly, I was hearing cautiously approving statements from people who'd always railed against the Shi'ite militia before. These were Christians and secular Muslims, not Hezbollah partisans, but they saved their wrath for Israel and the US. "I am angry, definitely, at the Israelis," said my friend George, who until now had always been adamant that the Party of God should give up its arms, like all the other militias that sprang up during the Lebanese civil war. "They have replied in a very aggressive manner. It shouldn't take this much to get back the two hostages. But what I'm also angry at is the US. They haven't done anything yet. They say that they are the country which helps the underprivileged countries, but they have done nothing to help us."
- Fear and Shopping in Beirut, Annia Ciezadlo
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/fear_shopping_beirut

Israel had a potential ally in Lebanese elements who wanted Hezzbollah out of their country as well, and now they've squandered that, creating just another bunch of people with a beef against Israel. The Syrian army was forced to withdraw from Lebanaon last year after outcry against them from the Lebanese public. Here are a bunch of people doing the hard work to try to turn their country around, and the reward they get is Bush shrugging his shoulders while Israel does the shock and awe number on them.

I read a thinkpiece the other day (can't remember where) saying that if the US had taken a more active role in the Syrian troop withdrawal (instead of standing from afar issuing threats), a Hezzbollah withdrawal or disarmament might have been negotiated simultaneously. Not sure how valid that is, but Bush's "hands off" foreign policy is definitely a factor in how this thing is playing out, and will have ramifications for years.

-- Edward III (ehonaue...), July 17th, 2006.

Or how about this:
Perhaps a bitter battle on the southern border might have goaded the Lebanese government to take stronger action against Hezbollah, or brought more international pressure to bear on the issue. But instead of taking incremental steps to escalate the conflict, Israel went all out with a full-blown war. Was this the wisest course of action?

Ironically, most of the international community (including several Arab nations) initially supported Israel's response to Hezbollah's aggression. Israel could have used this situation to great political advantage; instead it chose to seal off Lebanon and bomb it back to the stone age. That's when the outcry started.

-- Edward III (ehonaue...), July 25th, 2006.

How does a cease fire fit into this? It might last a day or a
year, but how will a cease fire help solve the fundamental
problem of disarming Hezbollah?

A ceasefire is important at this point because the conflict is grinding on without progress on either side. A ceasefire would give both parties a chance to stand down and think things through a little bit. When you're having a fight with someone you live with, do you ever go to different rooms to cool off? Or do you argue and argue until things escalate out of control or until one person collapses from exhaustion?

Perhaps there will be a chance to go back and do what should have been done in the first place (see above), but I fear the diplomatic ground in Lebanon has been poisoned already by Israel's excessive (and counterproductive) use of force.

This wouldn't help -- Hezbollah gets blank cheques from Syria and Iran, so they can continue to prosper no matter what the Lebanese people think of them. Not to mention the other members of the Lebanese govt ... it's not like the rest of the Lebanese govt can vote to disarm them or cut them off from public funding. And like Baaderonix said, plenty of Lebanese people already hate Hezbollah -- why would they care what they Lebanese think about them when two other sovereign nations will support them no matter what?

A ceasefire is important at this point because the conflict is grinding on without progress on either side.

Hezbollah casualties are far greater than the IDF's, Jpost and Haaretz report the numbers daily but of course Hezbollah denies all casualty numbers. This is the advantage you have when you are a non-uniformed militia that never reveals the names and faces of its members (or how many members it has).

Israel supposedly destroyed half of Hezbollah's arsenal in the first few days of the war, I think I read that they're up to around 70% now. Of course, the remaining 30% is still capable of doing a lot of damage. My feeling is that Nasrallah wanted to conserve his remaining arsenal and hold out for the more palatable ground war, so he decreased the frequency of rocket attacks and replaced them with rhetoric and threats. Now that a UN Resolution/possible cease fire is probably a week away, he can exhaust his weaponry, giving the illusion of strength and hope to get saved by the UN bell.

Some things I've been picking up late yesterday and this morning:

—The first of the U.N. resolutions could come Monday, but could be as late as Wednesday, just depending. It will call for a ceasefire, and set the political conditions for a international force. Militarily, the later, the better, of course, since Israel still has work to do against Hezbollah.

—We are working very closely with the French on all this.

—The first U.N. resolution will, of course, be meaningless if Hezbollah doesn't accept the ceasefire, which seems quite possible. (Although I would think the obvious play would be to accept it, claim victory, and live to fight another day.) If Hezbollah keeps shooting, Israel keeps at it too.

—The Israelis say they want 15,000 international troops. A writer in the Wall Street Journal today says it needs to be more like 25,000. But it's shaping up to be more like 9,000-10,000. That's still a lot. The Europeans are being amazingly forthcoming in offering troops (in theory at least). Why anyone would volunteer for this mission is a bit of a mystery to me.

—I don't know why, for instance, Hezbollah wouldn't just start killing or kidnapping the international troops. Apparently the thinking is that Hezbollah isn't al Qaeda, and wants to preserve enough of its respectability not to be utterly cast into the outer darkness by the Europeans and by all the rest of the Lebanese political players. We'll see...

—There are very real fears within the administration that Saniora's government could fall. It's been a balancing act between giving Israel the running room to hit Hezbollah and not fatally destabilizing the government.

—The refugee situation is adding a huge element of volatility into Lebanese politics—besides the fact that the government is seeing its country ravaged by two armies it doesn't control. My undertsanding is that the refugee flow has resembled Katrina in some respects. The more well-do people with some place to go got out first. Now the poorer Shia have been flooding north with no place to go, and that is profoundly unsettling to the other confessional groups.

—The hope within the administration is that the wave of popularity for Hezbollah will wilt away when it's clear that it has been dealt a severe blow, defined as: all the infrastruture and command-and-control it has built up over ten years is destroyed; it can't get back to the border; it is denuded of its heavy arms; it is kept from Syrian/Iranian re-supply.

—At least one pro-Israel hawk in the adminsitration I was talking to this morning very much shares Krauthammer's view that Israel has been given a unique opportunity that it has been blowing. He can't believe that we're three weeks into the war and Israel hasn't made more progress. He thinks they should swept into the Bekaa Valley from the beginning; should have called up more reserves immediately; and need another division to do what they need to do.

—It seems that some of the Israeli bombing in its initial campaign was just to "do something" immediately in the wake of the Hezbollah kidnappings. Yes, some of it had a strategic purpose, as has been noted here—"isolating the battlefield." But some of it was ill-considered.

—The Lebanese military is a joke. They stay in their barracks. They have basically no mobility, letting their equipment rust away. Morale's not great either. As they have lost capability, they have lost confidence too.

—At the end of the day, no matter what they say, the Israelis will probably exchange prisoners with Hezbollah in some form or other.

—If Hezbollah hits Tel Aviv, all bets are off and the political/diplomatic deck gets shuffled again.

Etc.

(in other words, this is why there have been ~ 450 rockets launched in the last two days after a period of relative calm)

(this also highlights the messed-up perception of "victory" in this war ... real wars aren't won once the loser has spent its last bullet. Israel could destroy 99.9% of Hezbollah's weapons, a cease-fire could be declared, and Hezbollah could use its remaining 0.1% and say "hi dere, we still have weapons, we're still strong". Treaties are supposed to prevent this sort of thing at the end of real wars, but there won't be a "peace treaty" to come out of this, that's for sure)

Not to argue against the word "excessive", but again (as was implied a bit upthread), when the world voted on Resolution 1559, how were they expecting Hezbollah to disarm? Did they think it would be bloodless? There's not much incentive for a militia funded by rich Muslim nations that run a semi-autonomous state-within-a-state (that could kick the ass of that state's army and police forces) to lay down its weapons voluntarily.

I would seriously challenge any nation on earth to accomplish this with fewer casualties than we're seeing right now.

It's not what Hezbollah thinks, it's that if they become less popular in their strongholds, people are less likely to help/defend/support them and more likely to help the Lebanese government to catch them. While I can't say either way for Iran, I would be willing to bet that if Hezbollah became decidedly unpopular in all areas of Lebanon, Syria would rethink supporting them--especially if diplomatic pressure were applied.

I think you're missing the point of the whole conflict, namely that the existance of "larger unresolved political issues" = future wars = the killing never stops. I'm all in favour of a cease-fire, multinational force, or whatever -- all of which is better than the status quo (= the whole world hopes that Hezbollah doesn't kill too many Israelis, that the Israelis don't snap and start destroying cities, all while Europe prays that they don't have to get involved and Syria + Iran pretend they're not already involved)

The hope within the administration is that the wave of popularity for Hezbollah will wilt away when it's clear that it has been dealt a severe blow

Are they nuts? Of course, that's who popular opinion always coalesces around in the Arab world, the military victor!

(this also highlights the messed-up perception of "victory" in this war ... real wars aren't won once the loser has spent its last bullet. Israel could destroy 99.9% of Hezbollah's weapons, a cease-fire could be declared, and Hezbollah could use its remaining 0.1% and say "hi dere, we still have weapons, we're still strong". Treaties are supposed to prevent this sort of thing at the end of real wars, but there won't be a "peace treaty" to come out of this, that's for sure)

That's because this isn't a "real war" - there's no nation or government to claim victory over. In the 50s the French dismantled the FLN with much more vicious tactics than the IDF are using on Hezbollah. They ended up winning militarily and losing politically and were forced out of Algeria anyway.

Israel supposedly destroyed half of Hezbollah's arsenal in the first few days of the war, I think I read that they're up to around 70% now.

Not sure if you see this as evidence of "progress". If they've destroyed Hezbollah so badly, why aren't one of the world's top military organizations fishing on the banks of the Litani river after 3 weeks of non-stop no-holds-barred operations? Wasn't the stated military objective "push Hezbollah off of our border?"

The Israelis say they control the southern 6-7 km of Lebanon right now, that's the same buffer zone they had up until 2000. That's "progress", whether you agree with the events in this war or not.

Not to argue against the word "excessive", but again (as was implied a bit upthread), when the world voted on Resolution 1559, how were they expecting Hezbollah to disarm? Did they think it would be bloodless? There's not much incentive for a militia funded by rich Muslim nations that run a semi-autonomous state-within-a-state (that could kick the ass of that state's army and police forces) to lay down its weapons voluntarily.

I would seriously challenge any nation on earth to accomplish this with fewer casualties than we're seeing right now.

I still don't subscribe to the "Israel had no choice" or even "Israel has handled this in the best possible fashion" viewpoints. No, I don't think disarming Hezbollah would be a necessarily bloodless ordeal - however, keep in mind that plenty of people were surprised when the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon without a shot being fired last year. Many expected a turbulent uphill battle.

And I'll keep repeating this point: Israel missed a huge political opportunity by not taking advantage of the world/Arab/Lebanese support of their initial military actions against Hezbollah. If they had said to the UN and the US, "Look what happened when you didn't enforce the resolution, you've got to help us fix this," while restricting their military campaign to Southern Lebanon, we might've ended up with a much stabler and manageable situation than the current one. Look at the difference between the outcomes of the first Gulf War (consensus building, coalition action, stabilization) and the second (unilateralism, cowboy action, destabilization). If you can't have victory, stability's a pretty good goal.

I don't know about that, starke - obviously there would be outrage, but I think part of what makes the IDF's extant war so unacceptable to many people is the idea that they've gone out of their way to wreck Lebanon as a nation - all the destroyed infrastructure, in particular! It produces even more pictures and accounts of suffering and death and so forth, of course, but it also conveys this general ambience of over-the-top-ness. Even people not already inclined to view the Israeli military with suspicion are getting the idea of "Was all this really necessary?"