The humanitarian and moral crises in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are the inevitable outcome of Israeli-American exceptionalism elevated to dangerous levels under George W. Bush and now adopted holus bolus by Stephen Harper.

• It was a given that Israel would respond to the abductions and killings of its soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon. But there are many theories about how and why its response became so disproportionate that it triggered worldwide condemnation.

• A new cabinet got railroaded by the defence establishment.

• Israel was taken aback by the range, payload and accuracy of Hezbollah's missiles and had no choice but to go in, guns blazing, to send a strong message.

• The abductions provided the excuse to do what Israel was planning anyway — try and destroy Hezbollah and Hamas.

• Israel and the U.S. are redrawing the map of the region, with a wink and a nod from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. They are all spooked by the American disaster in Iraq, the growing influence of Iran, the failure to curb its nuclear program, and by the rise of Hezbollah, in particular. Regardless, the crisis has brought to the fore some of the realities and absurdities of Israeli-American policies.

• Arab lives are cheap.

"Is the value of human life less in Lebanon than that of citizens elsewhere?" asked a distraught Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. "Are we children of a lesser God? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood?" Yes.

• Bush wants an end to the conflict but he does not want a ceasefire. The U.S. sympathizes with the suffering of the Lebanese and the Palestinians but it won't stop the Israeli offensives that create the suffering.

• The immediate causes of the twin wars in Gaza and Lebanon must be addressed but not the nearly four decade-long occupation and colonization of Palestinian and Syrian lands.

• Israel won't negotiate a prisoner exchange — getting its soldiers back in return for four or five Lebanese prisoners and some of the 1,500 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children — even though it has swapped prisoners before.

• The 2004 UN resolution on Lebanon, calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed, must be enforced — but not the 1967 and 1973 Security Council resolutions calling on Israel to vacate Arab-occupied lands.

• The Lebanese government is too weak to disarm Hezbollah but must nevertheless do so. Hezbollah — as the main representative of the Shiites, the single largest community, constituting 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the population — is, in fact, part of the government that's supposed to do the disarming.

• We need an international force to contain Hezbollah even though France, the former occupier of Lebanon (1920-'43), Germany and others won't join without Hezbollah's consent.

• Previous buffer zones between Lebanon and Israel had to be abandoned but a new one must be created.

• Hezbollah must be shunned in favour of the Lebanese government even though the latter parrots all of Hezbollah's demands: prisoner exchange; an end to Israeli violation of Lebanese air space; the return of the disputed Shabaa Farms; and the release of Israeli maps showing where mines have been laid.

• It is important to protect Lebanon's nascent democracy but it's all right to cripple it with the current military offensive.

• Democracy must be promoted but crushed if it does not produce the right results, as in the Occupied Territories.

• Israel can destroy but others must pay. Saudi Arabia has pledged $1.5 billion, the U.S. $30 million, the EU $12.6 million and Canada $1 million to help fix the bombed infrastructure, as they had done earlier in the West Bank and the Gaza.

• Iran and Syria should not arm Hamas and Hezbollah but the U.S. can arm Israel, to which it has just rushed aviation fuel and bunker-buster bombs.

• Pulverizing Palestinians, by force and economic strangulation, hasn't worked for 40 years but it must continue, even if it produces evermore militant forms of resistance.

• Assassinating Arab leaders seems not to deplete their bench strength but targeted killings must go on, the latest in the Israeli crosshairs being Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

• Iran and Syria can contain Hezbollah and Hamas but Iran and Syria must be boycotted.

NB: The Arab/Muslim world is inflamed; militancy is rising; moderates are marginalized; Islamists are winning wherever America is most involved; and the U.S., the biggest power in the world, and Israel, the biggest power in the region, are driven more and more by insecurity and fear.

It is to this world order that Harper has committed Canada.

© 2006 The Toronto Star

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