The continued Israeli bombardment of civilians in Lebanon is awful to watch. On one side, Israel, backed up by the United States, remains firmly committed to its plan to beat back Hezbollah from its northern border, even at a steep cost in "collateral damage" to the Lebanese families with the bad luck to live in the area. One family heeded the Israeli military's warnings to flee--only to be bombed on the highway. On the other side, Hezbollah, unlike Hamas, which at least in theory is willing to negotiate for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, is committed to Israel's destruction. The current conflict only escalates such militancy.
The United States, for its part, is egging on the bombing, apparently on the same theory that led to the mess in Iraq.
I was on two radio shows recently with other guests and callers talking about the war in the Middle East. The anger the topic aroused says a lot about the intractability of this conflict. One caller demanded I explain how Lebanese people can be called "innocent" when they are generally anti-Israel (as if the children dying in southern Lebanon had brought this on themselves). Another said it's time to "cut to the chase" and deal with the real problem--the founding of Israel (as if wiping Israel off the map were a legitimate solution). The Washington bureau chief of Al Jazeera, who was on the same San Francisco radio program, asserted that the whole conflict was started not by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, as has generally been reported, but by Israel's continued military presence on Lebanese land, in the Sheba Farms area. That seriously oversimplifies the issue--and understates the terrorist mission of Hezbollah.
The United States, for its part, is egging on the bombing, apparently on the same theory that led to the mess in Iraq--that somehow a civilian population under bombardment will not blame the bombers, but understand the political necessity of displacing them, wrecking their homes, and killing their loved ones. It's an amazingly myopic view.
Perhaps the U.N. consensus view will prevail, an international force will come in to get between the two sides, and a cease-fire will be arranged. But most of all, the U.S. and Israel need to show better leadership. The my-way-or-the-highway approach to diplomacy is a disaster. As Steven Erlanger has reported in The New York Times, moderate Arab governments, like Lebanon and Jordan, have been weakened and embarrassed by the current conflagration and the U.S. green light for it. Radicals in Iran and Iraq have been emboldened. Anger and militancy have been stirred up all over the Arab world.
It shows what a disaster the Bush approach to the "war on terror" is--a complete failure to understand the enemy's point of view, and continued demands that he see ours--as when Condoleezza Rice said, in Beirut, that Washington would support a cease-fire when Hezbollah returned the two captured Israeli soldiers. Even that demand is embarrassing for Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, who is powerless to control Hezbollah, and yet reeling from the damage being done to Lebanon. Why not start with the cease-fire? Israel has participated in successful prisoner swaps in the past. Why not de-escalate the militant posturing?
It's often said of President Bush that voters liked him for his unwavering conviction. But here is evidence of the limits of that black-and-white worldview. By insisting that we are the good guys and we set the terms in the "war on terror," we have sacrificed opportunities for a more stable, peaceful world. Being convinced you are right is cold comfort when it means living in a permanent state of war.
Ruth Conniff covers national politics for The Progressive and is a voice of The Progressive on many TV and radio programs. Email to: editor@progressive.org.
© 2006 The Progressive
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