[NYTr] Israeli Onslaught Will Only Strengthen Hizbullah
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The Daily Star (Lebanon) - 18 July 2006
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&article_id=74032&categ_id=17
Israeli onslaught will strengthen, not weaken, Hizbullah's popular appeal
Despite the mounting civilian death toll in Lebanon, and despite increasing
evidence of Israeli violations of international law, the heavyweights in the
international community are once again following the lead of US President
George W. Bush, who has effectively given a green light to Israel's
destruction of Lebanon. With the exception of Russia, which seems to be
reluctant to jump fully onboard the international bandwagon for fear of
jeopardizing its relations with Iran, the world powers have taken the view
that UN Security Resolution 1559 ought to be enforced - and Hizbullah
disarmed - before any cease-fire is put into effect.
In the meantime, Israel is pressing ahead with its bloody military campaign,
which one Israeli official has said could be completed within a week. In the
short-term, Israel may succeed in laying waste to Hizbullah's arsenal of
weapons. But even the complete destruction of Hizbullah's military
capabilities would do nothing to reduce the group's political appeal. On the
contrary, each slaughter only fuels the political sentiments that inspire
resistance groups such as Hizbullah to take up arms - not only in Lebanon,
but across the region.
Bombs will not annihilate the desire for statehood, missiles will not force
an acceptance of occupation, and shells will not wipe out the desire of
refugees to have a place to call home. These are political sentiments that
no amount of American-made weaponry can annihilate. In fact, over the last
58 years, Israel's use of strong-arm tactics has consistently had the
adverse effect of stirring these sentiments into a frenzy.
When the dust from this latest round of conflict settles, Israel will likely
revert to its decades-old pattern of demanding that the weak governments in
Palestine and Lebanon crack down on the militants in their territory, while
at the same time weakening those governments and denying them any means of
meeting the imposed demands. This strategy has only dragged the region from
conflict to conflict, fueling more and more calls for resistance.
The only way out of this cycle is through a genuine closure of a political
conflict, via a comprehensive Middle East peace. Any peace deal would need
to be followed up with a local version of the Marshall Plan, in which the
governments tasked with keeping the peace would need to be strengthened. One
could hardly think of a better time to start this process, given that the
Arab world is currently awash with petrodollars that could be put to good
use.
Failure to arrive at a political settlement will only ensure that this
current conflict, which has been touted as a battle in a "war on terror,"
will end up nurturing the exact same forces of resistance that it aimed to
destroy.
*
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