Stop the slaughter!
The Israeli armed forces have inflicted a vast destruction on the infrastructure of Lebanese economic and social life. They have killed hundreds of civilians.
The difference between the deliberate slaughter of civilians, the trade-mark of all the clerical-fascist organisations, and “collateral” civilian casualties in a military operation is blurred by Israel’s recklessness and indifference to civilian casualties.
The fact that Hizbollah (and Hamas) deliberately site the rocket-launching bases, from which they bomb Israeli civilians, amidst dense civilian populations cannot justify Israel, acting from immense military strength, in saying, “so be it, the responsibility for the slaughter of civilians is theirs”. The responsibility is also Israel’s.
It is not at all certain that the conflict won’t escalate to draw Iran or Syria, or both, into its bloody remit.
Israel has a right to defend itself from those like Hizbollah whose stated political and military objective is to wipe out the Jewish nation? Yes, of course it has. It does not follow that Israel is right in this avoidable war (which has in it elements of a proxy war, Israel for the USA, Hizbollah for Iran).
Israel’s case for war is as follows:
Hizbollah attacked Israel and killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Hizbollah is a clerical-fascist political and military organisation, intent on establishing theocratic-military dictatorships throughout the Middle East and committed to the destruction of the Jewish nation.
Hizbollah is backed, financed and armed by Iran, whose President recently avowed his intention to destroy Israel (and which is trying to arm itself with nuclear weapons). Israel has a right to seize a favourable time to inflict maximum damage on formidable, implacable enemies
If Israel wipes out the clerical-fascist army-party, Hizbollah, then socialists — and in the first place Lebanese and other Arab socialists, feminists, secularists, advocates of gay rights, etc — and serious liberals would have cause to rejoice.
The case against Israel rests on what it is doing to Lebanon to “get at” Hizbollah, which has mass support in southern Lebanon. Hizbollah, will come out of this war as (the far less reactionary) Gamal Abdel Nasser came out of the Suez affair, when Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt in 1956, strengthened in prestige and political authority.
Israel is not quelling but throwing petrol on the fires of Islamic political outrage and upsurge. This war will increase, not staunch, the flow of recruits and money to Hizbollah and other clerical-fascist political organisations.
And Israel’s actions in Lebanon cannot be separated from its overall policy and political goals — the annexation of a large part of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank territory.
Israel intends to impose its own, “unilateral settlement” and draw the “final” borders between Israel and the Palestinian-majority territory outside the Great Wall of Israel, which will define and guard its borders.
Intent on preventing the emergence of an independent Palestinian state, it is doing terrible things to the Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank.
For these reasons, Israel must be condemned even by people who recognise that it has a right to exist and defend itself, by war where necessary.
The Israeli government argues that, because there are no strong Palestinian “partners for peace”, then it must act unilaterally. That would be more convincing and carry more moral authority if Israel had not, again and again, acted to undermine possible political partners for peace amongst the Palestinians (by re-occupying the West Bank in 2002, for instance).
Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that there is no “partner for peace” with which Israel can deal politically to work out a multilateral agreement. In that case, then one of two things.
Either: Israeli will use its own great strength and its present relationship with the world super-power, judiciously, justly, benignly and with an eye to creating the conditions for an agreed, a multilateral, settlement as soon as possible;
Or: it will act unjustly, chauvinistically, out of a narrow national egotism that can only stimulate narrow national egotism and Islamic sectarianism on the other side.
If Israel were to pursue a truly benign, truly democratic policy — even unilaterally in so far as it could be done unilaterally — it would over time cut much — by no means all, but nonetheless, much — of the ground from under the feet of Arab and Islamist clerical fascism.
As things are, Israel must be condemned not only for the brutal inhumanity of what it is doing in Lebanon — fundamentally, because of its overall policy of which the war in Lebanon is a part.
Israel does not have the right to stifle and destroy the Palestinian nation as a political entity — and that is what is involved here — any more that the Palestinians and the Arab and Islamic states have the right to destroy Israel.
Two states for the two peoples in Israel Palestine!
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Article in Synagogue newsletter
I'd like to share with you an article I've written for my Synagogue's newsletter (a Reform congregation in the North of England). It's not written specifically for a socialist audience, and its purpose is not to preach socialism, but to ignite debate within the Jewish community about Israel's actions. (However, the sentence "nor do I believe their path to emancipation is through Western consumerism (symbolised by MacDonald’s, Wal-Mart and Las Vegas)" should give an indication of my views.)
Here it is - let us know what you think (references in bold):
War, Peace and Terrorism – a Personal View of the Lebanon Crisis
“Enough is enough”; “We will not give in to blackmail”; “Falter now and we show weakness to our enemies”. These are some of the sentiments I’ve heard (and read)expressed recently regarding this latest conflict in Lebanon. Since the horrific attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, and subsequent atrocities in Madrid and London (not to mention Bali, Mumbai, Beslan…), the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism has haunted people in the West; the peoples of the middle and far east have experienced it first hand for much longer, and the Israeli people have known it intimately since before the foundation of the state.
All over the world, violent jihadists dream of extending Sharia law to cover the whole face of the Earth. Israel is flanked by two organisations (Hamas and Hizbullah) who are trying to put this into practice. She has also had to fight for her existence on numerous occasions, staving off the armies of Arab nationalism in 1948, 1967 and 1973. When surrounded by threats such as these, isn’t Israel right to defend herself with absolute force? Shouldn’t we be steadfast in our support of all actions the government and military chose to take in Lebanon and Gaza?
In my opinion, the answer to this question is no.
The logic that tells us we should support all of Israel’s military actions is based upon a false premise: namely, that war can and will destroy Islamic fundamentalism. The tragic example of Iraq suggests this to be incorrect, and the problem of violent jihad is too deep and complex to be solved by dropping bombs.
In many places (including here in Britain), Muslim society suffers from a dearth of open intelligent debate (consider the worldwide reaction to the publishing of the Muhammed cartoons); it is often misogynistic, intolerant of others’ points of view (witness Salman Rushdie’s plight), and fiercely insular (‘honour’ killings of those who marry out, whilst rare in the UK, still occur). Poverty is a feature of Muslim communities in the west (average earnings among Muslim men in Britain are 68% that of non-Muslim men1), and the Middle-East (the GNI per capita of the whole region is 1,971.5USD, compared to the EU’s 27,920.9USD2). Leaving Islamic fundamentalism aside, the link between poverty and crime is generally accepted (“people in the poorest areas [are] six times more likely to be murdered than those in the richest”3).
Whilst I (and Jews in general) fully understand the wish of Muslims to preserve their religion, culture and communal life (either as Muslims in the West, or as residents of the Middle-East facing increased westernisation of their countries), I suspect few reading this article would doubt the need for them to do better at reconciling these values with those of a secular, open society (it is, after all, a challenge which faces us as Jews). I’m not an atheist, so I don’t think that Muslims should abandon their religion en masse; nor do I believe their path to emancipation is through Western consumerism (symbolised by MacDonald’s, Wal-Mart and Las Vegas). But other values Western society has cultivated, such as intellectual freedom, and secular morality (independent of particular religious morality), are extremely valuable and worth propagating.
Are Israel’s actions helping to achieve this? Plainly no. When General Dan Halutz of the IDF said his forces would "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years"4, he really meant it. The war has shattered Lebanon’s economy, causing an estimated $2 billon worth of damage5. It has, perhaps more disturbingly, fuelled Islamic fundamentalism, driving back western, liberal ideas (the International Herald Tribune article6 illustrates this well). Sunni and Shia Muslims are uniting under a single fundamentalist banner.
Coming back to the problem of terrorism, it is the Arab and Muslim world who must deal with it; neither Israel, nor the US, nor Europe, can hope to solve the problem: Israel's ill-fated invasion and 18-year occupation of South Lebanon proved that. If Israel were to embark on an operation the scale of D-Day (and the subsequent occupation and administration) it might be able to clear out Hizbullah, but it hasn't the resources or will to do that, and anything less is little more than a flesh-wound to Hizbullah and its backers.
Until the Arab world, including the Arab League (and in this particular case the Lebanese government) tackles Hizbullah (and terrorism generally), it will continue to fester. The goal must be “the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory” (UN Security Council resolution 15597); with Lebanon's infrastructure severely damaged, this is now very difficult. Trust and cooperation between the IDF and the Lebanese army will be required. It's also hard for the world to put pressure on the Lebanese to take responsibility when Israel has made itself a focus of international condemnation. Attention has shifted from Iran's nuclear programme and Syria's interference (e.g. Rafique Hariri’s murder) to Israel's actions. Moderate Arab regimes are threatened by a rising tide of fanatical Islam, and Israel is providing the extremists with a steady supply of propaganda.
Israel needs to ask for international help to pressurise the Arabs into taking action. It should have done that in 2000, when it held the moral high-ground for pulling out of Lebanon. But its policy has been to allow the problem to fester, rather than seek help to confront it. Since the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000, no Israeli government has had any long term strategy for integrating with the Middle-East, or confronting Islamic fanaticism. It hasn’t taken its opportunities to engage in dialogue with the Arab world (such as the 2002 Saudi Peace Plan8 – not a workable proposal on its own, but a starting point for debate), and has wasted the opportunity of negotiations with Abu Mazen (Mahmood Abbas).
One must remember that fundamentalist Islam is a threat to all civilised people (including the majority of Muslims), not just to Jews and Israel (think of the Taliban); only together can the peoples of the world defeat it. You may call me an idealist, but it's hopelessly unrealistic to think that one great military push can destroy Islamic fundamentalism; I think my views are more practical.
I'm not one to blame violent jihad on Israel/the US/Europe/the West. As an ideology, it must be defeated. But evil ideologies can only be defeated if they're replaced with something more fulfilling; at the moment this isn't happening. The ‘values’ that Israel is exporting to Lebanon at the moment are hardly designed to win hearts and minds. There is no military solution to Islamic fundamentalism: numerous examples from recent history attest to that.
This is more than a political issue for me, because I have family in Israel, and I care very personally what happens to them. The suffering of Israelis is painful for me too. Perhaps this is what prompted me to write the article. As a British Jew, I certainly feel I have a responsibility to support Israel and her people. However, that doesn’t mean supporting all of the government’s actions. Those who love Israel can sometimes serve her best by being critical. I’ve been deeply disturbed by the lack of debate in our community, and the feeling that we must support this war, come what may. Our strength lies in our diversity and intellectual openness; I have criticised Muslim communities for being closed – let us not suffer this too. If we feel compelled to conform blindly, we are throwing away something important.
References
Cheers,
Luke
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"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree." - Albert Einstein