The west must recognise that Israel's agenda is in conflict with its own

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Olmert government, Hizbullah and Hamas are tacitly united in rejection of any moves towards a compromise peace

Whatever else can be said for or against Israel's escalation of military action against Lebanon, there is little prospect that it will achieve its stated objectives. If Israel couldn't defeat Hizbullah after 18 years in which its army occupied large swaths of Lebanese territory, it is not going to succeed with air strikes and blockades, or even another occupation. The same point applies even more forcefully in the case of Gaza. Every time Israel applies the iron fist in an effort to beat the Palestinians into submission, their resistance simply re-emerges in a more extreme and rejectionist form. Far from fearing Israel's wrath, Hizbullah and Hamas must be rather pleased at their success in provoking it into the sort of over-reaction from which they have always benefited.

Nor does it seem plausible that military action will enable Israel to secure the release of its captured soldiers. The civilian victims of Israel's indiscriminate retaliation have no real influence over the militias that hold them, while the militias themselves are untroubled by the spectacle of public suffering. On the contrary, they thrive on it. In the case of Lebanon, it is possible that acts of collective punishment, such as the destruction of Beirut airport and yesterday's killing of yet more civilians, might divide Hizbullah and its supporters from the rest of the country, but only at the risk of triggering another civil war and creating a vacuum that Israel's enemies in Syria and Iran will find easier to exploit.

In view of all this, it is valid to ask what Israel thinks it is doing. Indeed, this question is implicit in the statements of world leaders at the G8 and elsewhere who have called on Israel to use force proportionately, avoid civilian casualties and refrain from acts that might strengthen Hamas or destabilise Lebanon's fragile political settlement. No one quibbles with Israel's right to defend itself, but doesn't it understand how irresponsible and immoral it is to deliberately escalate the conflict in this way?

The problem is that the premise of the question is false. It assumes that Israel shares our view that a de-escalation followed by negotiation is the best route to a settlement. It assumes, therefore, that when Israeli ministers complain of having "no partner for peace", they actually want one. A much more sensible approach would be to credit them with having the intelligence to know exactly what they are doing and to work backwards from there.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1822097,00.html

This is as clear an analysis of the situation as I have seen.

[Kagemusha]

1. Bwa ha ha ha! Forget larger agenda! Israel won't allow evacuations

Evacuations of significant numbers of Westerners will ONLY happen if there's a ceasefire. Anyone here on DU expect one soon? Anyone? Forget Hizbollah, I mean the Israelis. Every time the Beirut International Airport gets bombed, that's one more brick in the virtual 3-dimensional wall around Lebanon. Western nations' concern for their own citizens' very lives is in conflict with Israel's agenda. Makes the point made in the above article seem trite and irrelevant.

[sui generis]

2. and the problem in a tiny little region like that

is that even if you could clearly delineate Hezbollah from "innocent" civilian populations, you are still going to be waging war on civilians just by proximity.

Blowing up the civilian airport - that was pretty big. That WAS the Lebanese economy. I watched the news coverage of the Haifa bombings but did not see equal coverage of civilian deaths at the airport in Lebanon.

There is no reasonable outcome that Israel can expect here. Shock and Awe - that crap clearly doesn't work, take it from the Americans in Iraq.

[Igel]

3. I heard that the control tower, the terminal buildings, and

the hangars were intact. They bombed the runways, not even the planes that were there. This might have changed in the last 24 hours.


True, there might have been civilian casualties there. But runways are typically fairly unpopulated. They're also fairly easily repaired.

[sui generis]

4. they also bombed the fuel depot

which does take quite a bit of money to rebuild, not to mention poisoning the area. I make no allowances for Israel in this regard. They've overreacted, and they are making the problem worse.

My point is that Israel (and the MSM) confuse suicide bombers and radical islamists with Palestinians, and now confuse Hezbollah with anyone who lives in Lebanon. It's absurd. There has to be a justifiable cost/benefit to war, and the cost here far outweighs the benefit.

[Demeter]

5. A Solution That Requires the Death or Capitulation of All Muslims

is fundamentally flawed. THe Israelis have taken leave of their senses, drinking the GOP Koolaid and adding their own poison to the brew.

[Karenina]

6. Part of that poison is

a rabid racism handed down for generations. It is the reason that SOME IDF forces can so blithely respond to children throwing rocks with lethal fire. Arabs are Üntermenschen, they are no more than lice, they ALL just want to kill Jews, drive them into the sea and simply need to be eliminated as they are nothing more than savages with whom no one can reason...

It's truly a sad state of affairs.

[bloom]

7. "It's high time..."

"It's high time western governments grasped the fundamental truth that Israel is pursuing an agenda that conflicts directly with their own. In the context of the fight against terrorism and the need to promote international cooperation, the west's interest must be to remove the Palestinian question as a source of grievance among mainstream Muslims in a way that guarantees justice for the Palestinians and security for Israel. A settlement of this kind is perfectly feasible and has been outlined in countless documents and initiatives over the years, most recently in the Geneva accords. But the main reason it has proved illusive is that Israel is not, and never has been, prepared to make the territorial compromises required. It still believes that it is entitled to the victor's spoils by annexing large tracts of Palestinian land."

And wants to deny that their entitlement attitude is a problem. "Whaaaa? we're just defending ourselves.... blah, blah, blah..."