Lebanon in Shock, but not Awe
There is no doubt about it, Lebanon is in shock. At the Beirut meeting of Arab foreign ministers, Lebanon's prime minister once again made a tearful plea for his country, stating that Lebanon was "stunned" by the devastation caused by Israel's defensive offensive actions. "We are still in the middle of the shock", he said.To be perfectly truthful, the situation is nothing less than awful. With seemingly no end in sight. One grieves for families, Lebanese and Israeli, who are mourning the loss of family members, frightened for their own lives, grappling with the reality that their livelihoods have been lost their countries' economy horribly compromised. War benefits none of these people directly, but indirectly this war has become one of attrition, to deweaponize and defang Hezbollah for the greater protection of the Middle East, for the immediate safety of the State of Israel and her people.
Prime Minister Seniora's appeal hasn't had much of an impact within Israel, despite that Jews do harbour sympathy and feel empathy for all civilians caught in military crossfire, as indeed they have themselves been. Within Israel hospitals directly in the path of Hezbollah-launched rockets are working around the clock to protect their patients from harm, and moving them into basements. We know that similar desperate attempts to aid and assist stricken and wounded Lebanese are taking place in that war zone as well.
Israel is also working within its own framework of response to civil disaster to welcome, shelter, render medical assistance, and feed their vast displaced population. Citizens of still-safe areas within Israel are working to assist their homeless war-refugee fellow citizens. There are no foreign-aid NGOs working within Israel, whereas in Lebanon they are there in great numbers, wringing their hands in desperation at the dreadful difficulties in dispersing food and medical aid to refugees from southern Lebanon. Mind, they do have the considerable assistance of the "social-aid wing" of Hezbollah which is operating efficiently we are assured by a spokeswoman for the Lebanon operations of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Adding also that "there were people going around with little buttons, little flags". Of Lebanon, or Hezbollah? For as one of Hezbollah's social workers stated:
"This is the second war with Israel, and it's the toughest", declared Abbas Dibaja, who runs Hezbollah's central kitchen which prepares 8,000 hot meals for evacuees every day. "We have to make sure what Israel says about our supporters turning against us isn't true. We have to stand behind our people and make sure they don't suffer even a single day."Interesting, the same group which "stands behind" their people to launch rockets at a neighbour, then hurriedly decamps with their launchers leaving their people to catch the inevitable, anticipated fallout from Israeli aerial bombardments then bemoans the death of innocent civilians, now "stands behind" their people to make sure they don't suffer. Even a single day.
John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the UN has remarked that Lebanon's opposition to the text of the draft ceasefire resolution was disingenuous, since both U.S. and French negotiators had consulted throughout the drafting process with Lebanese and Israeli governments. Israel, despite its own disequilibrium at the moment, found it possible to voice a tentative agreement to the draft resolution. Lebanon, steadfastly, despite her frantic appeals for a ceasefire, refuses the text of the resolution.
"It's not as though we drafted this resolution in a closet somewhere and suddenly sprang the text on any member government", said Mr. Bolton. "The United States and France were in close touch with the governments of Lebanon and Israel."Arab countries insist Israel should hand control of southern Lebanon immediately to the 2,000 soldiers of the UN's Interim Force in Lebanon, located there since 1978 in the wake of attacks by Palestinian militants on northern Israel. The world now knows how perfectly ineffectual this UNIFIL group has been. The idea is for UNIFIL to hand control of the situation to the Lebanese army. Neither UNIFIL nor the Lebanese army has ever been able to challenge Hezbollah for control of southern Lebanon, so what kind of long-term solution might that be?
And when the Lebanese government stated that it was prepared to deploy 15,000 troops to southern Lebanon, Israel expressed cautious skepticism:
"That's something we support, and have supported all along," said Mark Regev, Foreign Affairs spokesman for Israel. "But I don't know of a single situation where the Lebanese army has tried to prevent Hezbollah from launching a terrorist attack, and tried to prevent them from walking around with their guns and missiles."Back to square one. Leaving Lebanon in shock.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 08, 2006
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