[News] Lebanon - Mounting crises in escalating chaos
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Dec 6 12:30:56 EST 2006
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/printer6161.shtml
Opinion/Editorial
Mounting crises in escalating chaos
Hasan Abu Nimah, Electronic Lebanon, 6 December 2006
----------
The people of this region are being abandoned by
the world to escalating chaos. The political
crisis in Lebanon is a manifestation of this
chaos, linked more broadly to the catastrophe in
Iraq, and the butchery in Palestine. Despite
empty gestures, fake goodwill and worn out
slogans from a parade of prominent visitors to
Jericho, Gaza and some regional capitals, there is no reason at all for hope.
Hypocrisy and double standards have reached new
levels of shamelessness. Members of the so-called
"international community" refused to take any
position on the inclusion in October of an openly
fascist party in the Israeli government, on the
grounds that this is a purely internal matter.
The real reason, shall we painfully deduce, is
they do not have any objection to ethnic hatred
and religious extremism as long as its victims
are mere Arabs and Muslims. God forbid.
The current crisis in Lebanon is also a purely
internal matter. Nevertheless, countless Western
and other officials have rallied to offer support
to the cabinet of Lebanese prime minister Fouad
Siniora, against peaceful mass demonstrations
calling for its resignation. The same forces who
condemn the demonstrations against Siniora, and
implicitly consider them an attempted coup,
hailed the mass demonstrations that brought down
the previous government a "Cedar Revolution" and
hailed them as a great wave of people power. At
the same time, those who view the Siniora
government as democratic and demand that it
survive at all costs, are often the same people
who participate in the starvation and siege of
the Palestinian people under occupation to
overthrow the Hamas administration they democratically elected last January.
The crisis in Lebanon is a direct outgrowth of
Israel's devastating aggression on the country
last July. Israel exploited a Hizbullah border
raid in a long running war to try to decisively
change the political make up of the region. If
Israel had truly been troubled by Hizbullah
forces crossing its border, as it alleges, it had
many lawful means to pursue, including going to
the UN Security Council. Instead, it launched an
all out attack on Lebanon's civilian population
and infrastructure, deliberately sowing death and
destruction among the innocent in the hope of
turning the people of Lebanon against the
movement. It was a move that some forces in the
region, other than Israel also thought they would
benefit from. In addition to standing in the way
of Israel's aggression and colonization,
Hizbullah articulates the hopes and demands of
Lebanon's poorest, the Shia plurality long
marginalized from power by the elite. If
Hizbullah had been destroyed on the battlefield,
it would have become a lesser factor in Lebanese politics.
But the opposite happened. Hizbullah defeated
Israel, and is now emboldened to demand a unity
government in which the party receives a rightful
share of power on behalf of the masses it
represents. Of course Hizbullah does not stand
alone, but with other factions representing a
cross section of the country's sects. While the
lazy and biased Western media routinely repeat
the propaganda that Hizbullah is simply doing
Teheran's bidding, and that the opposition
demonstrations in Beirut are "pro-Syrian," they
forget that among the leaders of this movement is
the Christian general Michel Aoun, who fought a bitter war against Syria.
All of this can only really be understood when we
step back and look at the big picture. While
there are attempts to portray the crisis in
Lebanon, the civil war in Iraq, or the tension
between Hamas and Fatah in Palestine as local
squabbles, or irrational sectarian hatreds, the
reality is that these faultlines mark the
division between those who have supported and
benefitted from Western intervention in the
region, and the effort to reshape its politics to
suit Israel, and those who have chosen to resist
culturally, politically and at times militarily.
All those who accept foreign hegemony are
labelled "democrats," no matter how narrow their
base; everyone else is accused of being a
"terrorist" or a puppet of Iran or Syria.
Similarly, all those in Iraq who opposed the
invasion and occupation of their country were
labelled either supporters of Saddam or Al-Qaida,
closing the door to dialogue that could have ended that country's agony.
Parties like Hamas and Hizbullah, which are able
to mobilize the masses in their countries and
inspire millions more across the region, have
called the bluff of those who use the language of
democracy. Neither has asked for anything more
than the fair share of power it won at the ballot
box, on behalf of the people it represents.
The approach of slamming the door on all the
forces that oppose Western hegemony in the
region, can only have the effect of increasing
the conflict in all these arenas. In Iraq it
seems already beyond control. The dangers in
other areas of escalation are clear to all.
The answers seem crystal clear. If, for example,
there is opposition to Hizbullah retaining its
weapons as a resistance movement, then all
international efforts should be aimed at ending
the Israeli occupation and constant violations of
Lebanese territory. This week Israel talked about
unilaterally withdrawing from the Lebanese
village of Ghajar in order to prop up the Siniora
government by showing that Lebanon can retain its
rights by means other than resistance. But the
Israeli move only further discredits the Lebanese
government and vindicates the widely held view
that only resistance works. After all, Resolution
425 of 1978 called on Israel to withdraw from
Lebanon "forthwith." Israel did not do so until
it was forced by Hizbullah in 2000.
In Palestine too, the Hamas-led Authority is
demanding nothing except that election results be
respected, and offering Israel a full truce for
ten years to allow negotiations. For the first
time ever, Israel verbally accepted a truce offer
(although continues to murder people on the
ground), not because it is strong, but because it
failed to stop resistance even after carrying out
daily atrocities in the Gaza Strip that briefly
shocked even the calloused consciences of European Union officials.
Those who continue to offer advice to the region
should understand that unless they are willing to
drop their double standards, apply the principles
they proclaim but violate every day, and support
the rights of ordinary people to a life free from
foreign occupation and colonization, then they
have nothing to contribute. And the situation will continue to deteriorate.
EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah is the former
permanent representative of Jordan at the United
Nations. This article originally appeared in the
Jordan Times and is republished with permission.
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