Streetwise*
Understanding the War in Lebanon
Certain things stand out despite the
inevitable fog of war, including the accompanying lop-sided propaganda war
being waged, that a fair-minded and serious person can make out. And that
is, it is overwhelmingly the Lebanese people – civilians who are getting
killed by the hundreds and wounded by the thousands, with one third of the
casualties being children.
BY CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
BusinessWorld
Posted by Bulatlat
A Lebanese man recovers
some of the goods from his shop that was destroyed, near the northern
border with Syria, at the Arida crossing, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 12,
2006, following Israeli airstrikes. (AP Photo) |
The impact on the Philippines of fresh fighting in the Middle East,
specially in Lebanon where a full-scale war has erupted between the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Hezbollah*, has mainly been felt
through the ordeals of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) working in Lebanon
and another round of steep increases in fuel prices. Of course, the
horrors of war are brought home to us by photos of lifeless bodies of
children and entire families being dug out of the rubble of their homes or
places of refuge.
But the reasons for the new outbreak in fighting elude most. In fact, a
cursory reading of the news gives one the impression that the Palestinian
organization Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah started it all – they who
are said to have sneakily gone across the border into neighboring Israel
to kill and capture Israeli soldiers. |
The history and the current issues surrounding the creation of a Jewish
state in the heart of the Arab Muslim world, most especially the
continuing displacement and inhumane work and living conditions imposed on
the Palestinian people by Israel, are hugely complex and complicated
further by the overweening presence of the U.S., Israel's principal
backer, and the source of $4 billion in yearly aid and the most
sophisticated nuclear and non-nuclear weaponry.
These issues are inadequately ventilated, if not grossly oversimplified or
distorted, in mainstream Western media, the filter through which most of
us get our piddling dose of the international news that is eventually
picked up in the local mass media.
Yet certain things
stand out despite the inevitable fog of war, including the accompanying
lop-sided propaganda war being waged, that a fair-minded and serious
person can make out.
And that is, it is overwhelmingly the Lebanese people – civilians who are
getting killed by the hundreds and wounded by the thousands, with one
third of the casualties being children. A million more, or one fourth of
the population, have been displaced and are in real danger of being
pulverized by the precision-guided bombs that the Israeli military has
been indiscriminately raining down on them.
In contrast, Israeli casualties have been limited to a few scores and are
still mostly soldiers, as the Hezbollah have proven to be no pushovers
despite their being largely outgunned, without an air or naval force,
their military arm a mere guerilla force face to face with one of the most
well-trained and deadly armed forces in the world.
Civilian infrastructure like homes and whole villages, hospitals and
schools, water and electrical facilities, public buildings and offices,
industrial complexes, airports, roads and bridges have been massively
destroyed in Southern Lebanon. A humanitarian crisis of major proportions
is already on hand with stricken areas isolated by the Israeli military's
deliberate destruction of roads and bridges, closing off escape routes for
refugees (the Hezbollah have not turned tail and continue to fight) as
well as passageways for humanitarian aid and relief workers.
And yet Israel refuses any ceasefire. It wants to destroy as much of
Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah's stronghold, as it can. It wants to reduce
this area into a depopulated wasteland, euphemistically termed a “buffer
zone.” Only after having done so will the Israeli government consider
Israel safe from any future attacks by the Hezbollah. Only then will it
agree to an UN-brokered ceasefire that will even mobilize an international
force to help safeguard this "buffer zone" for them and keep the Lebanese
out.
It is backed up in this strategy by the U.S. even as U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleeza Rice appears busy doing shuttle diplomacy to allegedly
broker a ceasefire and gives press conferences with an appropriate somber
face ruing the civilian casualties in the raging conflict.
The U.S. has in fact vetoed a United Nations (UN) Security Council
resolution condemning Israel and has opposed calls for an immediate
ceasefire. Based on reports, the U.S. is further intensifying its
interventionist role by rushing the delivery to Israel of precision-guided
bombs capable of massive destruction. The U.S. strategic geopolitical
interests in this oil-rich part of the world are once again revealed as it
cynically utilizes Israel's latest war of aggression in its drive to
eliminate all opposition to U.S. dominance in the region.
Both Israel and the U.S., with the help of Western media owned and
controlled by pro-Israel US and Jewish interests, have persisted in
obscuring the fact that the all-out military response of Israel over the
earlier capture of a few of its soldiers is grossly disproportionate,
unwarranted and unjustified. It is instead a mere pretext for massive air,
naval and ground attacks against the civilian populations of Lebanon and
Palestine,
considered as "necessary collateral damage" in the overall scheme of
driving out, if not annihilating, both Hezbollah and Hamas.
As the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) stated, “In
accordance with international law, the three captured Israeli soldiers are
prisoners of war (POWs). They are not victims of kidnapping or hostaging.
The Israeli government is using them as pawns in its attempt to crush all
popular resistance in Lebanon and Palestine. The Olmert government in
Israel refuses to conduct any negotiations for the release of the captured
soldiers or for the exchanges of POWs. (Israel is holding more than 9,000
Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners.) Instead, the Zionists are engaging in
collective punishment by ordering attacks on Lebanese and Palestinian
civilian populations. At the beginning of the war, Israeli's Army Chief of
Staff Dan Halutz said, ‘Nothing is safe in [Lebanon], it's as simple as
that.’”
Thus the ILPS minced no words in condemning “(t)hese unbridled acts of
international terrorism emboldened and supported by U.S. imperialism.”
Filipinos must strive
to understand the real reasons behind the crises engulfing the Middle East
region, a favorite destination of OFWs desperately trying to escape the
poverty and economic dead-end back home, if we are to break free from
always being victimized by forces seemingly beyond our control.
Business World/Posted by Bulatlat
*According to the Wikipedia, the Hezbollah, meaning "party of God," is
a broadly popular Shi'a Islamist organization and political party in
Lebanon comprising a military and a civilian arm. Formed in 1982, its
primary goals have been to defend Southern Lebanon against Israel and to
secure the release of Lebanese from Israeli prisons.
Although Hezbollah has been blamed for a number of "terrorist" acts, there
is disagreement in the international political community even between
Israel and its istorical Western allies about whether it merits
designation as a terrorist organization in full, in part, or not at all.
Within Lebanon and the Muslim world, Hezbollah's armed operations are
widely regarded as legitimate resistance against Israel.
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