Dangerous liaisons

Israel and the US are playing a typically diabolical double game. They want a regime change in Lebanon and the destruction of Hezbollah by controlling a nation without actual occupation

Harsh Dobhal Delhi

A fragile ceasefire is in place in Lebanon following large-scale destruction and bloodshed caused by Israel during the month-long war. Lebanon has been bombed in the past, again and again and it has painfully built and rebuilt its infrastructure, roads and buildings, bridges and landscapes in the past decades, only to be bombarded and destroyed again. A melting pot of diverse cultural heritage, Lebanon always felt the tremors of instability in surrounding countries and paid the price of others' wars as a battlefield.

Before launching this war, which even Israeli analysts back home are flaying their generals and politicians for, the Jewish state held that its bombs were aimed at Hezbollah and not civilians, though TV images showed that most victims of the current military ferocity are Lebanese civilians, children, families, and homes. Indeed, it is a deliberate strategy. The hardline Israeli government cares two hoots for international diplomacy, laws or protocol, even as the US quickly dispatched precision bombs to Tel Aviv (followed by Condoleezza Rice).

The western governments, also called “international community”, were in complicity with the rogue actions by Israel while helping their own citizens to evacuate from the war-ravaged country, and leaving the locals to their fate.

Lebanon's decision to give refuge to Palestinian refugees through the 1970s and Israel's 1982 invasion of that country, subsequent occupation of the southern part, and unilateral, unconditional withdrawal after 18 years under stiff Lebanese resistance and domestic public pressure, is still fresh in public memory in the Middle East. After the invasion, over the years, Israel found itself in a deeply entrenched mess. This, accompanied by wailing of Israeli mothers, had compelled the then Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, to pull back his soldiers. A triumphant Hezbollah had then celebrated its ‘victory’, and the Israeli people, desperate to see their boys back home, had also rejoiced even as the last Israeli tank rolled out of the rugged mountainous region in 2000.

Six years on, the situation is very different in the same territory with the same parties involved. While throughout the late 1980s and ’90s most Israelis opposed the invasion of Lebanon and the presence of their army there, during the early days of the current war, surveys showed that over 90 per cent of Israelis supported the offensive and even Israel's anti-settlement movement like “Peace Now” did not take an open stand on the disproportionate use of force against Beirut. As in the past, Israeli politicians and army commanders have always played on the fear of external threat to the Jewish state and a feeling of perpetual threat is always kept alive. Thus, any attack on the country has always united the Israeli public, across the political spectrum, to throw its weight behind their government.  The kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and constant rocket attacks by Hezbollah gave Israel an excuse to embark yet again on a long-cherished dream: the destruction of Hezbollah and a regime change in Lebanon.

Israel asserts that it is exercising its right to self-defence by attacking Hezbollah and ensuring that Lebanese territory, over which Tel Aviv has no claim, does not become a base to launch attacks against Israel. It asserts that Hezbollah has refused to disarm, despite UN resolution 1559 passed in 2004, calling for disarming of the militia. Since when has Israel begun caring for a UN resolution is one question.