Salting The Earth: Israel in Lebanon

A.
It was extremely hard to write this piece, emotionally draining, but I felt compelled to face the situation with as much honesty as I could. I noticed an odd aversion to the topic on these internets. I read a lot of news on the web, and some political blogs, which are, if nothing else, an invaluable resource for finding links to obscure news sources or books. I don’t read many blogs though because they tend to be a bit myopic and masturbatory for my taste. First, there is too much of an echo effect: bloggers frequently post an excerpt from another blogger and recommend you go there. Second, many blogs don’t offer much in the way of analysis or opinion, reading a line by line deconstruction of a news article can be pedantic, and usually they bring not much more than a shallow opinion. No historical context, added insight, or reference to other sources. Third, blogs all too frequently indulge in relatively personal spats or arcane political battles, such as the Ned Lamont vs. Joe Lieberman race in Connecticut. Fourth, I don’t get into partisan politics or cheerleading. In my opinion, those are blogs at their worst and I try to stay out of them with the exception of a few that are usually the opposite of what I just said, (like TomDispatch.com or BillMon.org). The point of all this, other than to take a broad brushed stroke at my own hobby, is that I looked around at many blogs I don't usually frequent to see what others had to say about the Israel-Lebanon conflict.
Many bloggers pointedly said nothing: in the days after American made Israeli fighter jets dropped American made bombs on Gaza's electrical grid, plunging over 700,000 Gazans into what the director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, “a humanitarian crisis" where "for many Palestinians now, it’s a struggle to survive, for the basics of life,” bloggers were discussing such pressing matters as what an idiot Jonah Goldberg is, or how important blogs were in Ned Lamont's surprising challenge to Joe Lieberman in the democratic primaries. Others explained that they were not going to talk about it because they wanted to spend more energy on things they could actually affect. I believed this was a dodge, a way to avoid the trolls that equate any criticism of Israel as anti-Semiticism. Or perhaps there was too much to take in, and they didn’t feel comfortable enough to comment, although none have the same aversion to discussing the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. And these are bloggers for God’s sake; they spent hours delineating the events of a vice-presidential hunting accident down to the minute.

A convergence of personal interest and current events made this a particular nasty obsession, and I couldn't avoid it with the same facile attitude.

I had just finished reading an excellent book on the Middle East by Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree, when Israel began fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.

I just discovered that a former boss of mine, a Christian "fundie" that used to send us ultra conservative, Christian takes on life every day, publishes those missives on the web, at www.wordsfortheday.org. (Discussed here, and here.) I poked around to look for some of my old favorites, and read a lot of what he thought about Israel. His general take on any strife in the Middle East is to cheer it on because it could be a sign of the apocalypse. He advises people not to think much on the details and to trust that it is all part of a divine plan. Being relatively secular and of the mindset that people, not God, commit crimes and atrocities, this outlook caused a good bit of despair for me. Whether accurate or not, I had the image of legions of grinning Americans happily giving billions of dollars in military aid to a foreign country without bothering to wonder who or why the bombs and attack helicopters are going to be used on or for, content that it is all part of a divine plan beyond their questioning or limited understanding, and it frightened me.

My current boss is married to a Lebanese man and they have family in both Israel and Lebanon. Shortly after the bombings began, I read that 500,000 people were refugees in Lebanon, a country of less than 4 million people. Someone asked her about it one day and she almost broke down crying in rage and frustration at how the conflict is portrayed in the U.S. (as opposed to Israel.) She mentioned that Nancy Pelosi tried to add a statement asking both sides in the conflict to minimize civilian casualties to a joint Congressional resolution supporting Israel’s actions, this one sentenced sparked five days of arguing, and the line that was eventually added recognized that Israel was already doing this. The resolution passed 410-8.

Now that I am done, I don’t feel any better. The events in the Middle East are going to have long term consequences in ways that we cannot predict today, or “blowback,” in CIA parlance.

I.
Another crisis is roiling through the Middle East. Israel is fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, against Hamas and Hezbollah respectively. The destruction and carnage the conflict has left in its wake is almost beyond comprehension.

As of this writing on July 27, 2006, the Associated Press reports that the Lebanese Health Minister estimates up to 600 civilians are dead, with as many as 200 still buried in the rubble of destroyed buildings. The Health Ministry does not count the 20 Lebanese soldiers and 35 Hezbollah guerrillas killed among the dead. An International Committee of the Red Cross report describes the situation in the town of Bint Jbeil, “Villagers were running short of water, food and medicine, displaced people were huddled in schools and patients stranded in hospitals. ‘Dead bodies had not been removed from the streets and others were still buried in rubble.’” There are 600,000 to 800,000 refugees, in a country with around 3.8 million people. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has bombed electrical grids, factories, roads, bridges, and buildings in both Gaza and Lebanon. One high ranking IDF officer, Lt. Gen Dan Halutz, reportedly ordered his military to destroy 10 buildings in the Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya for every rocket strike on Haifa. (The Israelis have destroyed over 80 buildings in the neighborhood thus far.) Fifty-two Israelis are reported dead, 33 soldiers and 19 civilians who have died in Hezbollah rocket attacks into Israeli towns, an unquestionable war crime.[1]

The media has portrayed the conflict as an Israeli response to threats to their security, sparked by the kidnappings of Israeli soldiers by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. This is an inaccurate explanation of the origins for the current conflict. The immediate context for this conflict goes back to the Palestinian elections of last January and the Israeli response to the victory of Hamas in Gaza’s elections. In Lebanon, the picture is incomplete without considering the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, beginning in 1978, and eventual occupation beginning in 1982 and ending in 2000.

II.
As Americans, we ought to pay attention to the ongoing conflict and its history, if for no other reason than that we are, and have been, paying for much of it. Israeli has been the biggest recipients of American military aid for decades. Israel receives billions of dollars in American tax payer subsidies which it then uses to purchase military equipment from American defense contractors. It has the largest fleet of F-16 fighter jets, outside of the U.S., in the world. Additionally, the U.S. has also provided unprecedented political and diplomatic support in the UN. Most recently, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution, in opposition to ten other countries and four abstentions, which would have condemned Israel’s military response in Gaza as “disproportionate force.”

Immediately after the current invasion of Lebanon began, David Cloud and Helene Couper reported in the New York Times that the U.S. was sending a large shipment of armaments to Israel. According to the statements of “American officials, ...The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.” The “decision” to send the armaments came with “very little debate” as part of a “multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed.” In other words, our government has set aside a military kitty for Israel to “draw on” with no questions asked. The announcement echoed countless other instances of the U.S. sending military equipment to Israel while publicly calling for restraint. For instance, shortly after the last Palestinian intifada began in late September of 2000, the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, and Jane’s Defence Weekly reported that the U.S. was sending the largest shipment of Apache attack helicopters in a decade to Israel, with then President Clinton’s approval. Amnesty International later condemned the sale and documented IDF attacks on Palestinian civilians using the new helicopter gunships. [2]

Uncritical American support for Israeli military action is not new.

While much of the world was conflicted over the amount of damage to civilian infrastructure, civilian deaths, and staggering number of refugees in Lebanon and Gaza caused by Israeli’s attacks, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution supporting Israel’s actions. Nancy Pelosi tried to amend the resolution to include a phrase that called on “all parties to protect innocent life and civilian infrastructure.” Republicans and Democrats demurred, and for five days, while bombs continued to rain down in Lebanon, they haggled over this clause until Pelosi backed down. The language that was added instead “recognizes Israel’s long-standing commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcomes Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” The resolution passed 410 to 8. [3]

On July 26, the U.S. stood alone to reject a cease-fire plan endorsed by 17 European and Arab countries in an important Rome summit. Ha'aretz commented, “the Rome summit on the situation in Lebanon ended… after the United States shot down a joing European-Arab demand for an immediate cease-fire... The U.S., which fiercely opposed calls for an immediate cease-fire, has been working on its own proposal for solving the conflict in Lebanon.” The U.S.’s role in these talks were crucial, given Israel’s dependence on U.S. military aid. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and U.S. representative in these talks explained that the U.S. could not agree to a cease-fire because the “region has had too many broken cease-fires.” A week earlier the Washington Post reported that Bush was breaking with his predecessors in his response to the hostilities. He would not favor a “bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire”, but would instead give the “green light” to Israeli to “inflict the maximum damage possible.” One former senior administrative official is quoted characterizing the president’s stance as allowing Israel to”grind down Hezbollah” and accept as an inevitability “serious consequences that will have to be managed.” “Serious consequences” is, of course, a euphemism for collateral damage, the scale of which we will turn too shortly. [4]

It warrants mention the U.S. law that is supposed to regulate military aid. The U.S. Arms Export Control Act (AECA) forbids military assistance to any country that violates human rights. The 2005 State Department report on human rights section on Israel documented “serious abuses by some members of the security forces against Palestinian detainees” and “institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens.” The 2003 report was more specific, stating,

“There continued to be problems with respect to its treatment of its Arab citizens. Israeli and international human rights organizations continued to report allegations that security forces tortured detainees during interrogation and that police officers beat detainees. The conditions in military detention camps and Israeli interrogation centers for Palestinian security detainees held in Israel remained poor, and did not meet international standards. Human rights groups issued complaints regarding torture, insufficient living space, and inadequate medical care for those detained in interrogation centers. During the year, the Government detained without charge thousands of persons in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. According to human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the country, some security prisoners were sentenced on the basis of coerced confessions.

The Government did little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens, who constituted approximately 20 percent of the population but did not share fully the rights and benefits provided to, and obligations imposed on, the country's Jewish citizens. The Government interfered with individual privacy in some instances. The Government interfered with an individual's ability to marry within the country by not recognizing Jewish marriages other than those performed by the Orthodox Jewish establishment and by prohibiting civil marriages.”

III.
There are few subjects in the Western World as sensitive or as maddening to discuss as Israel. Some people believe Israel is the source of all that is wrong in the Middle East and that the state of Israel is illegitimate and should be abolished. At the other extreme, some people believe Israel can do no wrong by definition and that Arabs are simply “beasts walking on two legs,” the words of former Prime Minister Menachim Begin, addressing the Israeli Knesset during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak compared Palestinians to “crocodiles.” (And other racist remarks can be easily found, as can, obviously, anti-Semitic slurs directed at Israeli Jews.)

The prevailing narrative of Israel’s history and current events is dominated by Israeli apologists. They portray Israel as always concerned first and foremost with security and defense, "one nation under attack", constantly defending herself from the Arab hordes. Michael Oren puts it thusly, "Israel's purpose [in Lebanon] is not retribution but survival." This narrative absolves Israel of any criminal intent and only allows that she may, perhaps, be too rigorous defending herself from aggression. (Much scholarship has emerged recently to challenge this view and presents a much more nuanced version of history, a review of the history lies beyond the scope of this discussion.)

Echoing the U.S. congress resolution discussed above, Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz claims Israel “takes extraordinary steps to minimize civilian casualties.“ Commenting specifically on Israel’s attacks in southern Lebanon, Dershowitz proposes that we define down our definition of civilians and valid military targets. According to Dershowitz, when Israel gives notice to the civilians in an area that they are about to bomb the area and those civilians do not leave then they “have become complicit” and are no longer “innocent victims.” Dershowitz also advises that we should no longer “always” count “children” as civilians. (His argument is not an alien one, ABC News reported two Israeli soldiers discussing their definition of who is a valid target in Lebanon: "Over here, everybody is the army," one soldier said. "Everybody is Hezbollah. There's no kids, women, nothing."

Another soldier put it plainly: "We're going to shoot anything we see.")

Taking Dershowitz’s thoughts to their logical conclusion as a new international norm, no civilian anywhere will be considered innocent during a conflict if they are given ample warning that they are going to be bombed. Dershowitz specifically criticizes Hezbollah and Hamas for targeting “Israeli restaurants, apartment buildings, and school” with weapons that are “loaded with anti-personnel ball-bearings designed specifically to maximize civilian casualties,” in contrast to Israeli forces that never do these things, a matter we shall turn to shortly. Note that if we use Dershowitz’s logic then his only legitimate complaint of Hezbollah militants is that Israeli civilians are not given ample warning of incoming rockets. [5]

For the moment, let’s assume Dershowitz does not mean what he says and that his real complaint is that Hamas and Hezbollah attack civilian infrastructure and use anti-personnel cluster bombs instead of military targets in contrast to Israel’s “extraordinary steps to minimize civilian casualties.”

It is uncontroversial that the IDF targets in Lebanon and Gaza mentioned above, but again here briefly, include civilian infrastructure such as bridges, apartment buildings, airport runways, electrical centers, factories, etc. The following facts were known before publication of Dershowitz's article on July 21 in the Los Angeles Times.

On June 27 the IDF bombed the primary power plant in Gaza, which shut off electricity for approximately 700,000 Gazans. The Christian Science Monitor reported that Israel closed most crossings in and out of Gaza, effectively imprisoning the population. The lack of electricity created immediate crises in “sanitation, sewage treatment, refrigeration, communication, transportation,” and access to potable water. Donald Macintyre reports in the Independent that it immediately deprived Gaza’s “public of light, cooking, broadcast news, and a crucial issue in scorching summer temperatures, fans.” In addition, Israel arrested 23 Palestinian legislators and a third of its cabinet and bombed government buildings, the Islamic University in Gaza City, bridges, and roads. [6]

After the IDF bombed the only electrical grid in Gaza, John Ging, the director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, described the grim situation; it is “a humanitarian crisis… for many Palestinians now, it’s a struggle to survive, for the basics of life” and according to the World Food Program, “'the last two weeks have had a significant impact on food security,' with shortages of milk and sugar, and only a week’s supply of flour remaining.” [7]

Turning to Lebanon, Israeli forces have attacked ambulances and hospitals, a direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions. On July 25, the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle reported that the IDF intentionally targeted ambulances. In one incident, they attacked two ambulances in succession, reducing the credibility of any defense that it was accidental. The Chronicle reports that the “vehicles were clearly marked with Red Cross logos and flashed emergency blue lights to signal their humanitarian intent.” An American made Israeli Apache helicopter “buzzed overhead” after hitting them with a “guided missile.” The Washington Post reported on July 26 that 5 Israeli shells hit the Tibnin General Hospital, where 1350 Lebanese refugees were packed in “hallways, rooms, stairwells, a lobby and a basement lit by a few candles, hiding with little water, less food, and almost no hope of salvation from” the war. [8]

A French humanitarian group reported that Israel was likely using cluster bombs in Gaza. Their suspicion was later confirmed by General Gantz of the IDF. Cluster bombs disperse bomblets over a wide area and cause huge numbers of civilian casualties. A significant percentage of the bomblets do not explode initially and sit undetonated, threatening to anyone naïve enough to approach them, usually children. Human Rights Watch argues that “cluster bombs” should be banned “because they have been shown to cause unacceptable civilian casualties both during and after conflict. Cluster bombs have a wide dispersal pattern and cannot be targeted precisely, making them especially dangerous when used near civilian areas. Cluster bombs are usually used in very large numbers and have a high initial failure rate which results in numerous explosive "duds" that pose the same post-conflict problem as antipersonnel landmines.“ Human Rights Watch confirmed that a “cluster munitions attack on the [Lebanese] village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children.” They further documented their find with pictures of cluster munitions in an Israeli stockpile. (Note: After the conflict ended, it was reported that Israel went on a massive, extended 3 day cluster bomb raid in Lebanon after it was widely recognized that the conflict would end soon.) [9]

On July 25th, Israel bombed a UN base on the Lebanon-Israel border that killed four unarmed UN monitors, causing an international outrage. The Israelis called the bombing a mistake. The Guardian reports that “a detailed timeline of the incident” provided by a UN officer documents 10 separate incidents over 9 hours, each followed by a telephone call to the Israeli military and assurances that the attacks would stop. A subsequent report in the Los Angeles Times claimed the post was “hit at least 16 times over six hours, including five direct hits on the base as its unarmed staff repeatedly notified Israeli” forces and “begged for help.” UN General Secretary Kofi Annan was incensed, and called the “coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked U.N post” an “apparently deliberate targeting.” [10]

Recall that Dershowitz singled out Hamas and Hezbollah for targeting schools, government buildings, apartment buildings, and using anti-personnel cluster bombs. As discussed, Israel has destroyed over 80 buildings in the Lebanese neighborhood of Dahiya alone, attacked a UN building, an airport, Red Cross ambulances, a hospital, electrical grids in Gaza and Lebanon, and an Israeli general has admitted the IDF uses cluster bombs, documented by Human Rights Watch. There is almost nothing left of Dershowitz’s argument other than his assertion that Israel “takes extraordinary steps to minimize civilian casualties,“ as evidenced primarily by the leaflets Israel drops over cities they are about to bomb, presumably to give occupants time to leave. (The consideration of the IDF to give civilians several hours notice of a bombing is supposed to outweigh the entirely predictable human catastrophes of disease, starvation, and homelessness that flows from the destruction detailed above.)

There are also documented cases of Israeli forces attacking fleeing vehicles and bombing out roads around besieged towns, which would of course prevent those civilians from fleeing following notification. Nicholas Blanford and Ned Parker report in The Times, “Fleeing civilian vehicles hit by Israeli missiles, …The narrow roads that meander through the valleys and undulating chalky hills east of Tyre were a place of terror and death yesterday as Israeli helicopters attacked civilian vehicles fleeing Israel’s 11-day onslaught in south Lebanon.” There was evidence that other cars were also attacked regardless of occupants and direction of travel. The Los Angeles Times corroborated their report, reporting that Israeli warplanes “unleashed a series of bombings that smashed an apartment complex to dust in the city center… just hours after the first shipment of humanitarian aid finally reached” the city of Tyre. Israeli forces have cut off towns and villages in southern Lebanon with “smashed bridges, crushed roads, and air attacks on vehicles.” Drinking water is reportedly scarce and hunger problems rampant. July 27 [11]

Robert Fisk of the Independent also reported the bombing of the minibus fleeing Tyre as well as an attack on an ambulance outside the Najem hospital. He documented additional attacks on the villages of Marwaheen and Sidon. In Marwaheen, Israeli forces ordered villagers “to leave their homes and then fired rockets into one of their evacuation trucks, blasting women and children inside to their deaths.” Additionally, Israeli forces leveled a mosque in the town of Sidon.[12]

Perhaps all of this destruction could be explained away as fog of war or unintentional consequences of military action, so let’s look at an admittedly macabre calculus. As of July 27th, according to an Associated Press report, roughly 655 Lebanese have died since the 12th. 52 Israelis have died in the same time. Of those 655 Lebanese, 20 were soldiers and 35 Hezbollah fighters. Of the Israelis, 33 were soldiers. In other words, if we exclude Lebanese soldiers, whom the Israelis are not supposed to be attacking, from the civilian deaths then 92% of Lebanese dead are civilians. By contrast, 63% of Israeli dead are soldiers. There is one more ratio to consider: there are an estimated 800,000 refugees in Lebanon. The country’s population is 3.8 million, so roughly 21% of Lebanese civilians are now refugees. Adjusting for population in the U.S., this would be the equivalent of about 60 million Americans.

But about those leaflets and painstaking care to minimize civilian deaths…

IV.
Many political organizations and leaders that are today considered legitimate, meaning they do not resort to violence or the threat of violence against a civilian population to achieve their goals, have historical roots in violent extremism. The evolution of violent extremism to moderate political participation follows a predictable trajectory: Political groups almost always have several factions within it vying for power and when the group as a whole struggles against an adversary that is both much stronger militarily and willing to exercise this strength, the extremists tend to overshadow the moderates and use guerrilla style violence to partially negate the advantage. If they are eventually treated as legitimate parties, then the moderates emerge and marginalize the extremists. In some cases, the extremists themselves become moderates.

This is not an unfamiliar pattern, and is especially relevant when discussing the Israeli-Palestine conflict because the early Zionist movement had extremist factions that used tactics which would be described today as terrorism. After Israel became a state in 1948, this changed. Many of the leaders and actors in those early Zionist factions later became respected leaders.

Menachem Begin was once the leader of a violent Zionist faction called Irgun. The Irgun waged a guerrilla war on the British in Palestine before Israel was granted statehood by the UN. One of their more notorious attacks included the bombing of the British administrative and military headquarters at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The attack killed 91 people including Arab and Jewish civilians. In response, David Ben-Gurion denounced Irgun as “the enemy of the Jewish people.” Begin later went on to become Israel’s Prime Minister.

The predecessor to the IDF was the Palmach, a military organization that also used violence to undermine the British in Palestine. Palmach units attacked British railways, radar stations, bridges, and police stations and counted among its members, future political and military leader Moshe Dayan.

Yitzchak Rabin was the leader of a Zionist faction called the Stern Gang with a history of political assassinations. In September of 1948 the Stern Gang claimed responsibility for the assassination of a UN mediator. The Stern Gang justified the killing, calling UN observers, “members of foreign occupation forces.” Shortly thereafter, David Ben-Gurion reined in and arrested the Stern Gang. Rabin recovered politically and later served as an Israeli Prime Minister. [13]

Ariel Sharon, the “bulldozer,” began his career as a reviled military commander. In 1953, Sharon led a brutally infamous assault on civilians in the Palestinian town of Qibya. Afterward, the Arab Legion, a UN investigation, and the IDF confirmed that Israeli soldiers went house to house systematically killing residents. Almost thirty years later, in 1982, an Israeli investigation of the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon concluded that Sharon “bears personal responsibility” for the carnage. He was subsequently dismissed as Defense Minister in disgrace. Sharon once defined his definition of a good Arab, “the only good Arab is a dead Arab.” On another occasion he advised that the best way to deal with protestors was to “cut off their testicles.” Sharon went on to become Israeli prime minister and was hailed by U.S. President George W. Bush as a “man of peace.”

The West considers all of these men, who all had backgrounds in violent terrorism, respectable and legitimate political leaders.

Hamas is frequently, and rightfully, condemned for its terrorism. The elections of January 2006 offered an opening for moderate Hamas leaders to emerge and provide what Israel has long claimed is a precondition for any consideration of a two state solution; a legitimate negotiating partner. And there were signs that moderate factions were emerging. The opening, however, was brief.

In January of 2006, Hamas won Palestinian elections in Gaza. The U.S., Israel, and Europe almost immediately announced and implemented an economic embargo as punishment. The ostensible purpose of this embargo was articulated by Steven Erlanger in the New York Times six months later, “Israel and its allies have worked to weaken [the Hamas government], especially through economic pressure, in an effort to get it to recognize Israel and forswear violence.” [14]

The economic embargo cut funding from hospitals and led to economic and social disaster, as was expected. The already high unemployment and poverty rates skyrocketed, as did child malnutrition in a place where malnutrition was already estimated at 40%. Tim Rothermel, former UNDP Representative to the Occupied Territories, warned that “the backbone of a functioning civil society” was dissolving.

In May of 2006, The Christian Science Monitor reported that moderates within Hamas and Fatah were considering endorsing a two state solution which would implicitly recognize Israel’s right to exist as a state. Extremists within Hamas threatened to reject the proposal but were silenced by the threat of a popular referendum, which was widely expected to be passed by a population tired of violence. By late June, the Associated Press reported that Hamas and Fatah had finally agreed to a plan that implicitly recognized Israel. The Israelis were not happy with the specifics of the proposal, but Hamas’ willingness to recognize the right of Israel to exist was a significant step toward a two state solution. The Guardian commented, “Hamas has made a major political climbdown by agreeing to sections of a document that recognise Israel's right to exist and a negotiated two-state solution, according to Palestinian leaders… If [Hamas] formally approves the entire document, it will represent a significant shift from its founding goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic state and its more recent position of agreeing a long-term ceasefire, over a generation or more, if a Palestinian state is formed on the occupied territories but without formally recognising the Jewish state.”[15]

Another important consideration is UN 242, which requires Israel to withdraw from territories acquired by force in the 1967 war and calls on the other parties involved in that conflict to recognize the right of Israel to exist. Hamas' compliance with this requirement of 242 would put more international pressure on Israel to comply with their requirement to withdraw from occupied territories, one of which, the Shebaa Farms, would later come up in the Lebanon conflict.

The victory of the moderates over the radicals in Hamas should have been good news because it meant that Israel's efforts to “get [Hamas] to recognize Israel” were successful, so how did the Israelis respond to this coup? Israel has historically, contrary to rhetoric, worked to undermine a two state solution by ensuring that they have no "negotiating partner." They can then cynically use the absence of a negotiating partner to table any discussions of a Palestinian state or territorial concessions. Their actions in this case remained consistent with the historical record. Israel needed to make sure that the conditions for a two state solution never emerge by reversing Hamas' course towards a more moderate position and masking their aggression as retaliation or defense.

The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the summer of 2005 is an excellent example of this dynamic. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal of settlements and military posts was widely hailed as a first step toward a two state solution. Aaron David Miller, the former advisor to six U.S. Secretaries of State on Arab-Israeli negotiations explained “why [the] Gaza pullout matters” in the Christian Science Monitor, “there's a chance for Gaza to be a bridge for a similar process on the West Bank that will perhaps over time lead to the possibility of two states living in peace and security.” In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer asked and answered why Sharon pulled out of Gaza, explaining, “the Israel right has grown up and given up the false dream of a greater Israel, encompassing the Palestinian territories,” a maturity that would lead to a “lasting peace.” A Chicago Tribune editorial also claimed the pullout was part of a “plan” to “leave Gaza to the Palestinians, with the hopes that they, with international help, would turn it into a thriving state.” Michael Oren, author of the widely read Six Days of War, claims Sharon was “the first Israeli prime minister to recognize the Palestinians' right to statehood.” [16]

This was the unquestioned interpretation; the pullout was an important "recognition of Palestinian's right to statehood" that could result in a "lasting peace." It was uncritically accepted that it was the first step to a two state solution. Of course, that is incorrect. Gaza was a massive slum, far more expensive for the Israelis to maintain than it was worth. The withdrawal was a disengagement from the Palestinians that would undermine a future state. Dov Weisglass, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Chief of Staff, explained that the real “significance of our unilateral disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. It supplies the formaldehyde necessary so there is no political process with Palestinians… When you freeze the process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state ... Effectively, this whole package called a Palestinian state, with all it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda." His remarks were widely reported in the Israeli press. In the U.S., they were alluded to briefly in a New York Times editorial and subsequently buried by the near unanimous praise for Israel's selfless benevolence, briefly sampled above. [17]

Returning to the situation in the summer of 2006 and Hamas’ recognition of Israel’s right to exist: In addition to the “economic pressure,” Israel had been lobbing shells into Gaza, including one that killed a family of 7 on a Palestinian beach in early June. On June 24th, two days after it was reported that the “effort to get [Hamas] to recognize Israel” had succeeded, the BBC reported that Israel forces entered Gaza and kidnapped two Palestinian brothers, one a doctor, whose father was a member of Hamas. On June 25th, the day after the Israeli raid, Hamas militants retaliated with the kidnapping of an IDF corporal named Gilad Shalit. The IDF raid and kidnapping was reported, briefly, and quickly excised from history. In virtually every story or commentary about the subsequent Israeli attacks in Gaza, the first kidnapping is unmentioned while the Hamas kidnapping is portrayed as the flashpoint that compelled Israel to use force. In a typical statement, Michael Oren writes that, (emphasis mine) “Israeli soldiers were the victims of unprovoked ambushings and kidnappings.” Israeli, forever playing the patsy, retaliating to "unprovoked" aggression.[18]

Shortly after the IDF began bombing Gaza, ostensibly to secure the release of corporal Shalit, the New York Times reported that Israeli soldiers captured a third of the Palestinian cabinet and 23 legislators and American made Israeli jet fighters destroyed the office of the Palestinian interior minister. Analysts remarked that the Israeli actions in Gaza along with the new Israeli Prime Minister’s, Ehud Olmert, “cold shoulder” to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas were pulling Fatah and Abbas closer to Hamas, reversing the previous course.[19]

Israeli saw Hamas’s move towards recognizing Israel was a threat to the status quo, which had kept the Palestinian state in “formaldehyde” and “removed indefinitely from [the] agenda.” When Palestinian president Abbas maneuvered Hamas to a more moderate position, Israel simultaneously undermined him and increased its military pressure on Palestinians with the quite predictable effects of strengthening extremists and eliciting violence from an already fractured Hamas. The attacks on Gaza had little to do with the captured Israeli soldier, which was used as a pretext for a contingency campaign to sabotage the Palestinian government, push them to extremism, and thereby undermine any hope of a Palestinian state.

V.
That explains Gaza. There is another question begging an answer: why did Israel invade Lebanon? Initially they claimed they were only trying to secure the release of soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah. The scale of their attacks soon made it clear this was not a spontaneous reaction with the limited aim of getting a few kidnapped soldiers back. A subsequent report in the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that Israel’s response by “air, land and sea… is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago,” and U.S. officials had been briefed on it for some time. Israel has since claimed the campaign had another goal, the complete destruction of Hezbollah. The credibility of this justification soon proved impossible to maintain.

As the New York Times put it, the “talk of breaking Hezbollah’s back has slowly given way to more limited goals.” Israel next claimed they wanted to damage Hezbollah, push them back, and prevent them from launching rockets into Israeli towns; rockets such as the one that killed two brothers, ages 3 and 9, in Nazareth on July 18; Or the ones that killed a 70-year old woman from Safed after Katyusha rockets landed in an “immigration center, old marketplace, Safed College, and the Amit Center”, as reported in the Jerusalem Post.

Short of the admittedly impossible goal of complete annihilation of Hezbollah, the security justification makes little sense. Israel, of all countries, knows that attacks such as those ongoing now sow the seeds for future problems, sometimes larger than the ones initially dealt with. They have experienced this predictable cycle already in Lebanon after their 1982 invasion led to the creation of Hezbollah.

The conventional explanation for the “more limited goals” is that Israel was forced to reevaluate its goals after encountering surprisingly tenacious Hezbollah fighting. Israel then added the creation of a buffer zone, several kilometers wide, to the agenda. Did Israel ever realistically expect to completely eliminate Hezbollah? It appears that the answer to this question is yes and no, depending on whom you ask. There is no doubt that some in the general population and military thought this was possible. The policy and military planners expected otherwise. Steven Erlanger and Thom Shanker in the New York Times quote Yuval Steinitz, head of the Preparedness Subcommittee of Parliament’s Foreign and Defense Committee, “There have been no serious surprises on the intelligence level about Hezbollah” – referring to “the depth and quality of Hezbollah’s underground bunkers and storehouses,” which have made them so hard to defeat. Avi Dichter, the Israeli minister for public security and former director of the Shin Bet security agency, added that there have been no “strategic surprises” about Hezbollah’s capabilities or the results of Israel’s invasion. Yuval Steinitiz added Israeli planners knew well before the invasion, not after, that it was impossible to wipe out Hezbollah and any military action large enough to hurt Hezbollah would degrade Israeli security: to “inflict a heavy blow to Hezbollah and reduce rocketing” would effectively put “a quarter of Israel… in the shelters.” (After the invasion, estimates put 500,000 Israelis in northern Israel in bunkers to hide from Hezbollah's rockets.) When (Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah threatened to fire rockets deeper in Israel as a response to Israel’s actions in Lebanon, government secretary Israel Maimon announced that these were not unexpected threats and Israel had long known about their longer range missiles. Hezbollah made good on its threat and the number of rockets fired into Israel has not decreased, as was expected, further undermining the argument that the invasion is about security. Having conceded that an Israeli invasion would not be able to destroy Hezbollah and was expected to an increase in shelling, we are left with the buffer zone. The most plentiful rockets in Hezbollah's arsenal have a range of 4-15 miles, and they have some rockets with a range of up to 60 miles. It is unclear how effective a buffer zone would be to protect Israeli border towns from these rockets.

An additional consideration is the effect on Lebanon’s fledgling government. It is widely accepted that Lebanon’s government did not appreciate Hezbollah’s presence but lacked the military capabilities to uproot them. The current attacks are only going to weaken Lebanon’s government, perhaps irrevocably, with roughly 20% of the population displaced, $1 billion in damage to civilian infrastructure thus far, and the loss of credibility from their inability to defend their citizens from Israel. It is likely that the destabalized country will fall into another civil war.

As reviewed here, Israeli planners knew two years ago that they could not wipe out Hezbollah and that invading Lebanon would only escalate the violence when Hezbollah predictably retaliated. Furthermore, the weakening of the Lebanese state undermined a potentially important ally against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. It is also not unreasonable to assume Israeli planners knew a two mile buffer zone would do little to stop rockets that can travel 15-60 miles. Israel knows from experience, many times over, that violence on this scale only creates new threats in unexpected ways. What is left of the security justification, and if it is no longer plausible then what were the real motives for Israel’s attacks?

Michael Oren outlines an alternative motive: “Israel is drawing a line in the sand against the Iranian leaders” and trying to “prevent Lebanon from becoming a fully armed outpost of Iran.” Oren warns of an Iranian “dream of establishing an unbroken arc of Shiite militancy from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf” and points out that one objective in 1982 “was to install a pro-Israeli government in Beirut,” so to allow Iran to dominate Lebanon would be an embarrassment to Israeli prestige. In other words, this had very little to do with security but was part of a broader political strategy to undercut Tehran's influence in the region. (UPDATE [August 8, 2006]: Robert Parry, the journalist that broke Iran-Contra in the 1980s, has much more on this, here.)

It is also clear that Israel's main sponsor, the U.S., supported Israel's actions for this reason. Recall that Israel had briefed the invasion for U.S. officials for at least a year before the kidnappings. Doyle McManus reports in the Los Angeles Times that for President Bush, the conflict is "a moment of opportunity" to embarass Iran. Bush has said as much and it is worth quoting him directly. Bush told reporters after meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair,

"The stakes are larger than just Lebanon, the root cause of the problem is you've got Hezbollah that is armed and willing to fire rockets into Israel; a Hezbollah that I firmly believe is backed by and encouraged by Iran."

He added: "I also believe that Iran would like to exert additional influence in the region. A theocracy would like to spread its influence, using surrogates…. And so, for the sake of long-term stability, we've got to deal with this issue now."

Another U.S. official is quoted describing the conflict as a "proxy war" between the U.S. and Iran, sponsoring Israel and Hezbollah respectively. A defeat of Hezbollah would "by extension" mean defeat for Iran.

According to McManus's report, the administration cites three reasons to fear a "Shia Crescent"; "its pursuit of nulear technology," "hostility toward Israel," and "its history of support for terrorism." These are indeed troubling and valid concerns. Resolving these issues is an admirable foreign policy goal. Destroying Lebanon to do so is a wholly illegitimate and immoral means to this end however, and especially so considering that the U.S. has actively sought out a violent confrontation and spurned a nonviolent, diplomatic settlement for all these issues. Flynt Leverett reports that "the [Bush] administration has turned away from every opportunity to put relations with Iran on a more positive trajectory," citing three examples he witnessed as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council.

1. Bush responded to Iran's offer to help overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 by announcing that Iran was part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Iraq.

2. In the spring of 2003, Tehran sent Washington "a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations" with the support of all Iran's important politicians. Tehran offered to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israel terrorist organizations in return for guarantees of non-aggression. The U.S. response was to complain about the Swiss diplomats that served as intermediaries between the two parties.

3. In October 2003, Bush undermined a European initiative to discuss an economic, nuclear, and strategic deal with Iran. Iran had agreed to suspend its enrichment program for the talks.[20]

Whatever one thinks of the regime in Tehran, it has actively sought out the U.S. to find a peaceful settlement.

(I have suggested here, based on a narrow selection of evidence, that the given justifications for the invasion make little sense and is instead part of a strategy to weaken Iran by attacking its proxy in Lebanon. Others claim that the invasion was a spontaneous decision, undertaken with the genuine goals of recovering two kidnapped soldiers and stopping Hezbollah's rockets. It is possible this was all a strategic blunder and folly of Hubris, something the U.S. and Israeli have been guilty of in the past, notably the 1973 war. I have my doubts, but it should be acknowledged as a still plausible explanation.)

One last thing to consider; why was Hezbollah launching these rockets? Nasrallah has been explicit about the answer, “we are waging a war for the liberation of the remaining occupied lands and the liberation of our detainees." Nasrallah is referring to the estimated 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel and to the occupied territories, specifically the Shebaa Farms district, a territory captured by Israel from Syria in 1967 and unilaterally annexed with the rest of the Golan Heights in 1981. Of the 10,000 prisoners, half are still awaiting investigation and about 850 are being held without any specific charges, 359 of them are children. Additionally, Nasrallah says he wants to stop the perceived U.S./Israeli plan to remake the Middle East, a plan that is currently bogged down in Iraq. [21]

Rather than invade Lebanon, Israel could have chosen to follow the international consensus to pull back to the 1967 borders, deal with the prisoners, and their notorious human rights abuses. It is important to stress, however, that Hezbollah’s rockets are having entirely predictable consequences – namely it gives Israel an excuse, some would say justifiable, to shelve these legitimate issues indefinitely. It is unlikely that Israel will ever deal with those issues when such moves can be portrayed as capitulations to terrorist violence. (This dynamic is not new or hard to figure out, which indicates that Hezbollah militants might be using such pretexts as an excuse to attack “the Jews.”) Hezbollah has an opportunity in Lebanon to move towards moderation. Their militant wings unrealistic and illegitimate dedication to violence, aimed primarily at civilians, undermines their purported causes and eliminates any moral authority they could have. Nonetheless, Israel could have at any time over the past several decades chosen to accept UN resolution 242’s call for a return to the 1967 boundaries.

VI.
I have focused disproportionately on the Israeli side of the equation because my government unquestioningly supports Israeli crimes, but that should not be taken to mean that I think Israel is the only guilty party, or even the worst offender.

It is difficult to find anyone without blood on their hands in the Middle East. The cycle of violence continues, with Hezbollah and Israel reinforcing each others recalcitrance. Israel cannot be seen to capitulate because of violence and Hezbollah continues to unrealistically believe bombing civilians will somehow move their political process forward. Hamas militants make a similar mistake, believing they can employ violence against a much stronger military force while using civilians as human shields.

It is indisputable that militants in Gaza or southern Lebanon launching rockets into Israeli towns are criminally targeting civilians. And there are few things as gruesome and horrific as the aftermath of a suicide bomber. However, it beggars belief that some claim Israel is different because they do not specifically target civilians. A suicide bombing destroys a bus or restaurant and kills our wounds a few dozen civilians. An Israeli attack levels buildings and city blocks, or knocks the electricity out for several hundred thousand people. (Those attacks on civilian infrastructure disproportionately harm the elderly and children.)

One thing that struck me while researching this piece was how much more critical the Israeli press is compared to the U.S. press with respect to Israeli policies. In the U.S., the most extreme criticism of Israeli actions in Lebanon is that the response is “disproportionate,” and even this is sometimes construed as a good thing, portrayed as a respectable “take no guff from these Arab swine” posture. The debate in Israel is much more open. In the Israeli paper Ha’aretz, Ze’ev Maoz argues that “morality is not on our side”, and recounts the ongoing conflict in Lebanon going back to 1982 to make his case. Gideon Levy accuses Israel of “killing and wounding… children and babies, in horrifying numbers.” Levy calls the occupation a “criminal settlement enterprise” and casts Israel in an entirely unfamiliar role in the U.S.; that of the aggressor. Levy unequivocally states that it is illegitimate “to cut 750,000 people from their electricity,” kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament, and bomb people out of their homes. One could scarcely imagine reading similar thoughts on the New York Times op-ed page, recall that it took the U.S. Congress five days to reject a sentence calling on both sides in the Israeli-Lebanon conflict to minimize civilian casualties before settling on a statement which claimed Israel was doing just that! [22]

As long as the debate over American support for Israeli policy remains as narrow as it is, Israel can count on Uncle Sam’s uncritical support. I don’t necessarily mind the support, it is the qualifier I take exception to; especially when it is partly on my dime.

(Special thanks to Bill Montgomery at - now defunct - and http://www.WarinContext.org, both invaluable resources for news links.)

NOTES:
[1] Staff. "Up To 600 Civilians Killed in IDF Offensive." Associated Press. 27 July 2006
Staff. "Israel Pounds South Lebanon." Reuters, 27 July 2006
Katz, Yaakov. "Halutz Ordered Retaliation Policy." Jerusalem Post, 24 July 2006
[2]Clouid, David. Cooper, Helene. "US Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis." New York Times, 22 July 2006
About the Apache helicopters, see Phillips, Peter. Project Censored 2001, Seven Stories Press, April, 2001. The primary sources are:
Amnon Barzilai, "Israel Air Force closes largest helicopter deal of decade," Ha’aretz, October 3.
Robin Hughes, "USA approves Israel’s Apache Longbow request," Jane’s Defence Weekly, October 4.
[3] O’Connor, Patrick. "Israel Exposes House Split." The Hill, 20 July 2006
[4] Stern, Yoav. "Rome Summit Ends in Disunity as U.S. Nixes Cease-Fire Proposal." Ha'aretz, 27 July 2006
Abramowitz, Michael. "In Mideast Strife, Bush Sees a Step to Peace." Washington Post, 21 July 2006
Cooper, Helene. Erlanger, Steven. "U.S. Appears to Be Waiting to Act on Israeli Airstrikes." New York Times, 19 July 2006
[5]Dershowitz, Alan. "Arbour Must Go." National Post, 21 July 2006
Dershowitz, Alan. "‘Civilian Casualty?’ It Depends." Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2006
Sciutto, Jim. "They Know Everything, Say Israeli Troops." ABC, 25 July 2006
[6] Macintyre, Donald. The Independant, 29 June 2006
Ilene Prusher. "Severe Shortages stymie life in Gaza." Christian Science Monitor, 12 July 2006
[7] Erlanger, Steven. "Once Again, Gazans are Displaced by Israeli Occupiers." New York Times, 12 July 2006
[8]Stack, Megan. "Israeli Missiles Rip Into Medics’ Esprit de Corps." Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2006.
Allbritton, Christopher. "Medics, injured civilians under attack." San Francisco Chronicle, 25 July 2006
Shadid, Anthony. "God Stop the Bombs." Washington Post, 26 July 2006
[9] Smith, Craig. Cooper, Helene. "Cease-Fire Talks Stall as Fighting Rages on 2 Fronts." New York Times, 27 July 2006
Agence France Presse. "NGO Says Israel may be using cluster bombs in Gaza." Daily Star, 26 July 2006
Human Rights Watch. "Israeli Cluster Munitions Hit Civilians in Lebanon." 24 July 2006
[10] Staff. "Israel Bombed UN Base for Hours." Guardian, 26 July 2006
Staff. "Annan Asks Israel to probe ‘Targeting’ of UN Post." Reuters, 26 July 2006.
Rubin, Alissa. "Under Fire for 6 Hours, U.N. Peacekeepers Pleaded for Help Before Being Killed, U.N. Says." Los Angeles Times, 27 July 2006
[11] Blanford, Nicholas. Parker, Ned. "Fleeing Civilian Vehicles Hit by Israeli Missiles." The Times, 24 July 2006
Stack, Megan. Tempest, Roy. "Aid Trickles Into Tyre Amid Blasts." Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2006.
[12]Fisk, Robert. "A War Crime?" The Independent, 24 July 2006
[13]Tolan, Sandy. The Lemon Tree. Pp. 46, 95
[14] Erlanger, Steven. "Seizures Show New Israel Line Against Hamas." New York Times, 30 June 2006
[15]McGreal, Chris. "Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli State." The Guardian, 22 June 2006
Ilene R. Prusher. "Moderate voices vie for clout within Hamas." Christian Science Monitor, 19 May 2006
[16]Miller, Aaron David. "Why Gaza Pullout Matters." Christian Science Monitor, 17 May 2005.
Krauthammer, Charles. Washington Post, 25 February 2005
Editorial. Chicago Tribune, 29 June 2006
Oren, Michael. "Israel:One Nation Under Attack." Los Angeles Times, 26 July 2006
[17] Heinrich, Mark. "Israel chief of staff admits: Unilateral disengagement is to freeze peace process." Ha'aretz, 6 October 2004
[18] Oren, ibid
[19] Myre, Greg. Erlanger, Steven. "Palestinian Premier Says Israel Seeks to Cripple Government." New York Times, 30 June 2006
[20]Erlanger, Steven. Shanker, Thom. "Israel Finding a Difficult Foe in Hezbollah." New York Times, 25 July 2006.
Katz, Yaakov. "At Least 90 Wounded in Rocket Attacks." Jerusalem Post, 12 July 2006
Kalman, Mathew. "Israel Set War Plan More than a Year Ago. "San Francisco Chronicle, 21 July 2006
Agence France Press. "Hezbollah chief vows to fire rockets into heart of Israel: Beyond Haifa phase has begun."The Daily Star, 26 July 2006
Oren, ibid
McManus, Doyle. "Iran Is Bush's Target in Lebanon." Los Angeles Times, 30 July 2006
McManus summarizes the Administration opinion of Iran,

"Bush and his aides have long viewed Tehran's Islamic regime as a threat to the
United States because of its pursuit of nuclear technology and its hostility
toward Israel, as well as its history of support for terrorism. Bush named Iran,
along with Iraq and North Korea, as members of an "axis of evil" — unfriendly
nations that the United States accused of seeking weapons of mass
destruction."

Leverett, Flynt. "The Gulf Between Us." New York Times, 24 January 2006
[21] Agence France Press. "Hezbollah chief vows to fire rockets into heart of Israel: Beyond Haifa phase has begun." The Daily Star, 26 July 2006
[22] Levy, Gideon. Ha’aretz, 18 July 2006
Levy, Gideon. Ha’aretz, 3 July 2006
Maoz, Ze’ev. Ha’aretz, 26 July 2006
Ibid