Hezbollah is perpetrating a war crime by randomly targeting civilian areas, but Israel's response is disproportionately massive and is not directed at the rocket launchers but largely at a civilian population not involved in the conflict. That too is a war crime, and the breadth and scale of the operation belies its retaliatory nature, including the destruction of much of Lebanon's infrastructure and the wholesale demolition of entire villages and "block after block" of apartment buildings in south Beirut. The overall picture of what Israel is doing there starts to look like the economic murder of the country and ethnic cleansing of a large segment of its population.
If you want to know what is really going on now in Lebanon, you have to do some digging because the actual details are not being featured on the front pages of the news outlets. Juan Cole's website, Informed Comment, is one place to start, but if you follow some of the links he has put up, you're going to need a strong stomach. (Several updated links added below.)
It is terrible to once again see piles of rubble in the streets of Beirut. After the twenty years it took to rebuild that city, it is again being demolished by bombs. Why? Hezbollah controls the south, and there is nothing the Lebanese citizenry can do about that, yet they are being targeted by Israeli air power.
The response of former American administrations to such hostile outbreaks between Israel and its neighbors was invariably to send the Secretary of State to meet individually with the leaders of the belligerent countries in what was called "shuttle diplomacy" in an effort to bring about a ceasefire, but Condoleeza Rice will not engage in any attempt to arrange a ceasefire until after Hezbollah has been thoroughly vanquished. The wholesale destruction and slaughter of Shiites and the effect this will have in Iraq seems not to worry her, but this new explosion of violence is not occuring in isolation. There are now too many problems in the region, all of them headed in the wrong direction. Does Condi even consider the strong possiblity that the Shiite militias in Iraq are likely to turn on American forces with newly motivated ferocity?
I shudder to think what is going on in the south. Israel has leafleted villages and towns, making it known that everyone must get out, but where can they go? The clear implication is that all human beings in that region are considered targets, with the result that the terrified population is fleeing northward and a humantiarian crisis is now inevitable.
It gets worse. It appears that the Israelis may be using chemical weapons to dispose of the Shiite population in certain areas, or as a weapon of terror, or both. I would not have believed it, but I don't know what else to make of the pictures. Juan Cole warns you not to look at them, so of course I had to, and what I saw was a lot of dead children, their skin burned to a ghastly shade of gray but their hair intact and unburned, something that can only be the result of exposure to abhorrent chemicals. There are three possibilities:
- The Israelis are using chemical weapons
- Bombs hit an arms dump containing chemical munitions provided to Hezbollah by Syria or Iran
- Bombs hit a chemical plant of some kind
All wars are obscene, and terrible pictures of dead children are an aspect of the obscenity. Leaving aside the question of whether or not Israel is guilty of war crimes in the current conflict, one needs to consider the power of propaganda. Just as pictures from Abu Ghraib and of American brutality in Iraq served as recruitment vehicles for Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency, the enormous suffering of the Lebanese people will make heroes of Hezbollah fighters all over the Arab world. America lost the propaganda war for the hearts and minds of Iraqis long ago, after which we lost the country, though Bush won't acknowledge it. The lesson is simple: If your actions serve to strengthen and swell the ranks of your enemies, you will lose, but Israel is following the failed template.
A more fundamental lesson is embedded in old Judeo-Christian (or Abrahamic?) doctrine that makes a civilized world possible. I'm referring to the one about living and dying by the sword. A child who loses his parents to a bomb dropped on a village is a bitter enemy for life, and in the large historical view, Israel's longstanding policy of the Iron Wall leads ultimately to disaster.
It's partly the bottomless US support that has made genuine Israeli adherence to peace accords unneccesary and enabled people like Ariel Sharon to pursue the irredentist fantasy of a Greater Israel. The US bears major responsiblity for the fact that Israel has consistently chosen the sword, and now the logical, predictable consequence of this policy and this dangerous alliance might be unfolding.
I'm reminded of Al Gore's observation— "We are living in a time of consequences" —from his recent documentary about global warming. As a New Yorker, I also remember something David Levy, a Knesset member and one of Menachem Begin's deputies, said during the last invasion of Lebanon:
"We will not budge an inch for the Arabs even if it means nuclear flames in New York."
Hardly the warm sentiments of an ally.
So is it WWIII? I don't know, but I don't think we've ever witnessed a more dangerous lineup of circumstances in that region, with hot fires burning from the Levant to Afghanistan. What happens when they connect?
The pictures mentioned above of people apparently killed by chemical exposure have been removed from this site where I found them early yesterday morning. Allegations of chemical weapons being used in Lebanon can be found elsehwere on the web.
New links as of Sunday July 23rd:
Robert Fisk's Elegy for Beirut
Juan Cole's entry for Saturday (yesterday) provides good analysis at Informed Comment
Stop that Shit! by Uri Avnery
Operation Peace for the IDF by Gideon Levy
Willful Fantasies and Reality in Today's Mideast Conflict by James Zogby.
The rut becomes a grave by Larry Johnson
Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need To Know by Alex Cockburn
British Split with Bush as Israeli Tanks Roll in by Ned Temko, Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv and Peter Beaumont in Beirut
Do People Know How Much We Hurt? by Najla Said.
Why is Israel Destroying Lebanon by Patrick Seale.
Is Hizbullah here? Only children here by Clancy Chassay
Western media has dropped the ball by failing to tell the real story in Lebanon by Marc J Sirois
Stop now, immediately by Gideon Levy
Purity of Arms in Lebanon by Mark Whitney
Letting Lebanon Burn, MERIP Online
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