Which side does time favour?
Tel Aviv
The front page of Israel’s mass circulation Yediot Ahronot sums up America’s attitude to Israel’s military action in Lebanon: “Take Your Time”.
Senior Israeli officers say they need at least a week, maybe more, to achieve their military aims, although there is growing confusion as to what they may be. First Israel said it wanted to destroy Hizbollah, then revised this to say it wanted the militia to be disarmed and now reduced this further to a desire to “push Hizbollah away from the border”, even if just by a few kilometres.
Whatever the aim, America seems ready to fend off international pressure for an immediate ceasefire, saying any halt to the violence had to be “enduring”. She said the political spadework, to devise a way of helping the Beirut government extend its control to south Lebanon, had to be in place first. In truth, this argument is a political manoeuvre to allow Israel to keep up its military campaign.
Prioivately, though, Western officials have been expressing doubt about how much damage Israel is really causing to Hizbollah. A senior British official toldme the bombing was yieding "diminishing returns for Israel". The question now is whether it is actually counter-productive.
Does more time really benefit Israel? More time for bombing may, in theory, give greater opportunity kill Hizbollah fighters and destroy their rockets. But it also progressively weakens the pro-western government of Fouad Siniora, whose cooperation is essential in the post-war settlemetn, and increasingly radicalises Muslim opinion.
More importantly, time also gives Hizbollah more opportunities to build up the myth of heroic resistance against the "Zionists". Every day that Israel does not silence Hizbollah’s missiles is another victory in the propaganda battle. Every day that Hizbollah fighters hold off Israeli ground troops in the border villages further increases Hizbollah’s mystique as the only fighting force able to hold Israel back.
Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chief, told an interviewer this week: “If the resistance survives, this will be a victory. If its determination is not broken, this will be a victory.”
Israel has made no secret of its desire to kill Nasrallah. But after dropping countless bombs on his suspected bunkers, he keeps back popping back up to give interviews and make statements. That, too, is a victory for Hizbollah – and it is being noticed elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Condi may be doing Israel no favours by allowing it to go on bombing Lebanon.
The front page of Israel’s mass circulation Yediot Ahronot sums up America’s attitude to Israel’s military action in Lebanon: “Take Your Time”.
Senior Israeli officers say they need at least a week, maybe more, to achieve their military aims, although there is growing confusion as to what they may be. First Israel said it wanted to destroy Hizbollah, then revised this to say it wanted the militia to be disarmed and now reduced this further to a desire to “push Hizbollah away from the border”, even if just by a few kilometres.
Whatever the aim, America seems ready to fend off international pressure for an immediate ceasefire, saying any halt to the violence had to be “enduring”. She said the political spadework, to devise a way of helping the Beirut government extend its control to south Lebanon, had to be in place first. In truth, this argument is a political manoeuvre to allow Israel to keep up its military campaign.
Prioivately, though, Western officials have been expressing doubt about how much damage Israel is really causing to Hizbollah. A senior British official toldme the bombing was yieding "diminishing returns for Israel". The question now is whether it is actually counter-productive.
Does more time really benefit Israel? More time for bombing may, in theory, give greater opportunity kill Hizbollah fighters and destroy their rockets. But it also progressively weakens the pro-western government of Fouad Siniora, whose cooperation is essential in the post-war settlemetn, and increasingly radicalises Muslim opinion.
More importantly, time also gives Hizbollah more opportunities to build up the myth of heroic resistance against the "Zionists". Every day that Israel does not silence Hizbollah’s missiles is another victory in the propaganda battle. Every day that Hizbollah fighters hold off Israeli ground troops in the border villages further increases Hizbollah’s mystique as the only fighting force able to hold Israel back.
Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chief, told an interviewer this week: “If the resistance survives, this will be a victory. If its determination is not broken, this will be a victory.”
Israel has made no secret of its desire to kill Nasrallah. But after dropping countless bombs on his suspected bunkers, he keeps back popping back up to give interviews and make statements. That, too, is a victory for Hizbollah – and it is being noticed elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Condi may be doing Israel no favours by allowing it to go on bombing Lebanon.
posted by Anton La Guardia at 8:32 pm
2 Comments:
both sides deserve each other. in many ways, they have many things in common. Their determination and the certainty they are right is so uncannily similar, one would think they share a common ancestor and have inherited the same triats.
It is like the cain and abel story all over again.
After reading carefully different articles published today about the current invasion and bombardment on Lebanon, and the civil war which is going on in Iraq, I am completely convinced that the late Robin Cook was right when he said to the Parliament more than three years ago that: “Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected, not by unilateral action, but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened. The European Union is divided. The Security Council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of war without a single shot yet being fired. The threshold for war should always be high. None of us can predict the death toll of civilians in the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq. But the US warning of a bombing campaign that will “shock and awe” makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at the very least in the thousands”. After he reminded the MP’s about the inexistence of WMD in Iraq, then he said: “But it has had them since the 1980s when the US sold Saddam the anthrax agents and the then British government built his chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years and which we helped to create? And why is it necessary to resort to war this week while Saddam’s ambition to complete his weapons programme is frustrated by the presence of UN inspectors.” I had written myself to many people in the States in March 2003, warning them that the invasion will cause thousands of civilian casualties. Even though the military offensive might be successful, which it was, they were going to occupy Iraq, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory. Furthermore, the consequences were going to be worst for Iraqis than the tyrannical regime which they overthrew in Baghdad, the Coalition will not win hearts and minds of the population and we can see that this is truth, with hundreds of thousands of victims. We witnessed that all efforts to avoid this bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites had failed in the last years. Those who warned about the appalling consequences of this decision of invading Iraq were treated as weak people, traitors in their own countries and denied access to the media in many cases. It is time that Mr. Bush and his entourage should pay for their tragic mistakes; they must assume their responsibility in this war and in the new war going on right now in Lebanon. The Clash of Civilization envisaged by Samuel Huntington in his article in Foreign Affaires 13 ago is almost a fact in these days. My only hope is that the French plan for Lebanon will work out, in spite of the opposition of the White House. My second hope is that once and for all Prime Minister Blair will carry out a policy suitable with British interests in the Middle East and not those of the current administration in Washington. Brits know quite well the region like the French do as well.
Luis A. F. Wetzler PhD International Law, Counsel to the Argentine Council in Foreign Affaires lwetzvonken05@yahoo.com
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