Lebanon, & the (mis)Fit

Boston, Brookline Public Libraries, New Art Center of Newtonville 6, 7, 8 October 2009

SLIDE 2 – 5: demographics: roughly half pop of Israel

Overview of religious /ethnic composition.

What this talk is not about:

• It’s not about what might constitute a just and equitable resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian. • It’s not about whether Israel has a right to exist, what the boundaries of a new Palestinian state should be, whether a two state solution is feasible or the status of Jerusalem. • It’s not about whether Obama’s initial efforts to jumpstart talks in the have stalled, or whether his call to halt settlements in Israel was short-sighted, or whether he should direct his attention to as the biggest threat to stability in the Middle East. • It’s not about whether Palestinians & Israelis can negotiate in the absence of Hamas being at the table.

This talk is a case study of sorts:

• What I want to address is

how Israel’s propensity to place decision making relating to its perceptions of national security in the hands of its defence establishment compounds its national security problems,

that the paradigm used by Israel’s national security apparatus– the idea that Israel is under a constant state of siege from belligerent neighbours on its own non-defined, elastic borders -- and from within -- constitute an existential threat to its existence – is no longer a relevant national security paradigm.

This talk will suggest:

1) That Israel needs to unbundle the contents of what it terms the existential threats to its existence and treat each component as a political problem not as a national security problem.

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2) That although Israel’s invasions of Lebanon, briefly in 1978 and again in 1982, and subsequent occupation of for 18 years might have had a certain military logic at that time, that logic collapsed in the face of political facts on the ground, but Israel continued to interpret events through the same military prism. This has compounded rather than alleviating its security concerns. 3) That one of these political facts is the emergence of Hezbollah, the Lebanese based movement listed on the US State Dept’s list of terrorist organizations, which is largely an Israeli creation. Had Israel not invaded Lebanon in 1982 and tried to install a government there that would be compliant to Tel Aviv and not continued to occupy southern Lebanon when it failed to achieve that objective, there is no reason to believe that Hezbollah would exist.

You could say that Hezbollah is an unintended consequence of Israel’s defence strategy.

Furthermore, I suggest:

1) That Israel’s inability or unwillingness to acknowledge its own role in creating Hezbollah and its continuing role in perpetuating its existence ensures that Israel is unable to place Hezbollah in the context of the behaviours that motivate it and is unwilling, therefore, to place it in a political context. 2) That its insistence on seeing Hezbollah only in the context of terrorism makes another war in Lebanon, not with Lebanon, all but inevitable.

The national security nexus in Israel is dominated by the IDF establishment; indeed, because Israel itself comprises Jews with different national backgrounds, drawn from different cultures & speaking different languages, the IDF is the social instrument that maintains societal cohesion because every Israeli serves time in the IDF, no matter what his or her background, and the IDF provides the network for future advancement in politics, business and the national security industry. The ladder from the highest level in the IDF to the highest in politics is seamless. SLIDE 6

The history of the IDF, indeed the core principles on which it is built have their roots in the paramilitarism that successfully brought the state of Israel into being, principles that emphasise pre-emption and harsh military response to perceived threat. (Col) re paramilitaries – all terrorist groups in their day

Hence, the tenets of what I will ask you to consider are:

1) Israel’s interest in Lebanon predates the existence of either state. Israel’s founding fathers were from the start cognizant of the fact that essential to the new state’s survival was access to an adequate supply of fresh water.

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2) The invasion of Lebanon in March 1978 and again in May 1982 and Israel’s actions in the 34 day Hezbollah/ Israel war in 2006 best exemplifies IDF adherence to the doctrine that disproportionate military response even in the absence of imminent threat always produces beneficial outcomes. The actual outcomes indicate that this is a fallacy. 3) These invasions, ostensibly to destroy the PLO, were part of a wider military strategy to install an Israeli friendly Christian government in Israel, an exercise conducted with Maronite paramilitaries, especially Maronite leader Bashir Gemayel, during the 4) This strategy failed because like the US invasion of it was a military action undertaken with no post invasion plan in place, just with the hope that certain outcomes would miraculously fall into place. 5) When these did not materialize in 1983, Israel had no fallback plan BUT continued to occupy southern Lebanon against a threat that was no longer there & in doing do it created a threat that continues to exist. 6) These invasions cost Israel whatever supposed moral high-ground it had thought it had held 7) The rise of Hezbollah, Israel’s nemesis on its northern flanks, is a direct result of Israel’s invasions & occupation of Lebanon in 1982

I. WATER & SECURITY

Lebanon’s fears of ongoing Israeli aggression are historically based: it believes that Israel, starved of water, covets the water resources of the Litani River. SLIDE 7

These fears are not entirely ill founded:

Indeed, Israel’s interest in Lebanon predates the existence of either state. Israel’s founding fathers were from the start cognizant of the fact that essential to the new state’s survival was access to an adequate supply of fresh water.

In 1919, the Zionist Organization submitted a memorandum to the Versailles Peace

Conference proposing that the northern border of Palestine should be extended to a point just south of Sidon on the Mediterranean coast.1

Its rationale was that when a Jewish state materialized in Palestine, it would have to have adequate access to water to grow and develop and sustain itself. The British were

1 Z. Schiff and Ya’ari, Israel’s Lebanon War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp 79-80 3 sympathetic to the Zionist position, but the French, who had the mandate for Lebanon and were heavily lobbied by some Lebanese leaders, especially Christian Maronites with whom they had a special bond, ensured that when borders were drawn up, the Litani River was specifically designated as being part of Lebanon.

This decision, however, did not deter the intentions of the new Israeli state. The country’s first foreign minister, Moshe Sharett, declared in 1949 that “Israel plans to destabilize, indeed, dismember, Lebanon and install a puppet regime pliable to Israel’s diktat.”2 In the first year of Lebanon’s existence, Ben Gurion, the country’s first prime minister, was equally unequivocal:

“We should prepare to go over on the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon,

Transjordan and . The weak point of the Arab coalition is Lebanon for its regime is artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established, with its southern border on the Litani River. We will make peace with it.”3

The redoubtable Moshe Dayan, had such contempt for the capability of Lebanon’s security

forces that he opined that “all that is needed is to find an officer, even at the rank of captain,

to win him over or win his cooperation so as to declare himself the savior of the Maronite

population.”4 Then, “the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, occupy the relevant territory and form a Christian government in alliance with Israel. The territory south of the Litani will be annexed to Israel and everything will fall into place.” 5

In fact, the Jewish leadership may have been seduced by the apparent willingness of many

Maronite nationalist leaders, among them the Maronite Archbishop of , to dismember

Lebanon, cede southern Lebanon to a new Jewish state and create a Christian state in

Lebanon.6 Even Emile Edde, (1936-1941) under the French Mandate,

suggested that south Lebanon be detached from Lebanon and become a separate Shia state

2 J Randal, Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventures and the War in Lebanon, (New York: Vintage Books 1984), p 189. 3 C. Nowle, “The Israeli Occupation of Southern Lebanon,” Third World Quarterly (Vol. 8, No. 4, 1986) pp 1351. 4 I. Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon: 1970 -1983, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1984) p. 39. 5 Ibid. 6 D. Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country, p 80. 4 under French administration.7 After Bishara al Khoury became the first president of the

Republic of Lebanon in 1943, he denied the South as “Lebanese” and withheld development

assistance.8 And later, after Israel had overran Arab armies in 1967 with a show of military force that left a permanent indentation on the Arab psyche; Moshe Dyan demanded a redrawing of Israel’s borders to incorporate southern Lebanon, even though Lebanon was not a party to the war.9

II. THE PLO

After King Hussein expelled the PLO from Jordan in 1970, the PLO found itself without a

home BUT a weak Lebanon on Jordan‘s doorstep. SLIDE 8 (PLO)

First, a few words about Lebanon:

Lebanon comprises a set of minorities, with no one minority in a position to dominate the

other, each minority looks to an outside power to guarantee its interests and to try to gain

some marginal advantage over the others that might its position in the country’s power

structures. SLIDE 5 – slide with religious/ethnic composition of Lebanon.

The country was constructed by the French to accommodate Maronite Christian wishes –and

against the wishes of provinces hitherto parts of Muslim Syria. To enable governance, the

country had foisted on it a consociational form of government – eighteen confessional

groups – sharing power on the basis of such a complicated mathematical formula, based on

certain 1932 realities. That formula, with a little tinkering here & there, is still used to govern

Lebanon today, even though the underlying fundamentals have utterly changed.

The 1932 census, which had shown that Christians were 54% of the population, was used as

the basis for the distribution of seats in the national parliament, on a ratio of six to five -- Six

Christian deputies for every five Muslims. This formula that was later extended to other

public offices. The president would be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni

Muslim and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a Shia Muslim.

7 M. Zamir, “Emile Edde and the Territorial Integrity of Lebanon,” , Middle Eastern Studies, (Vol: 14, No. 2, 1978) pp 232 -233. 8 N. Raphael, Development Of Planning: Lebanon,” Western Political Quarterly( Vol: 20: No. 3, 1967) 9 F. Hof, Galilee Divided: The Israel- Lebanon Frontier, 1919-1984, (Boulder: Westview Press 1985) p 9. 5

No further censuses were taken in Iraq after 1932 because to take one now would show that the proportionalities of Maronite Christians, Greek Orthodox, Sunni, Shia, & 13 other sects were changing & any modification of the political electoral system to reflect new realities would result in a redistribution of political power & hence, it was widely assumed, civil war would ensue. SLIDE 5 slide with religious/ethnic composition of Lebanon

Rather than ameliorating differences, Lebanon’s consociationalism further entrenched them, thus ensuring that Lebanon, even when the consociational system of power sharing worked, would remain an inherently weak state.

Into this pieced together country, the PLO entered as a cohesive, well armed, movement.

Slowly but inexorably the PLO began to resettle itself in Lebanon and acquire the appurtenances of a quasi state, answerable to itself and not accountable to the sovereign government of Lebanon.

The Cairo Agreement of 1969-10 between the PLO and the Lebanese Army, which was no

match to the PLO, ceded to the PLO the right to establish militias in the Palestinian refugee

camps in Lebanon, which became bases from which to launch attacks on Israel, thus inviting

Israeli retaliation. Arafat’s alliance with Sunni leaders in Lebanon consolidated his position

politically and allowed him to create ‘a state within the state,’ establishing a de facto

government in southern Lebanon, taking control of local municipality offices, and subjecting

the local residents to all the accoutrements of occupation – ‘revolutionary courts’ to dispense

justice, collecting customs in Tyre and Sidon. SLIDE 9 Tyre & Sidon & southern Lebanon

It simply subverted the authority of the Lebanese institutions of governance11, becoming

“the sole instrument of rule in the area stretching from West Beirut to the Israeli border.”12

III. The Civil War: Opportunity to Create an Israeli Friendly Regime

The outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975 was the result of many factors that converged

with explosive intensity at a point in time and had untoward consequences for Lebanon,13

and again, the residuals of these consequences were left to fester after the war ended.

10 Cairo Agreement 11 Z. Schiff and E. Ya’ari, Israel’s Lebanon War, pp. 79-80. 12 6

Two pressing imperatives collided.

First, in the early 1970s, Muslims began to claim that that they constituted the majority, &

were not being given their due political equivalence

Second, the Christians’ resistance to further power sharing and what they saw as an emerging Sunnis alignment with the PLO.

And, as the PLO was an armed militia, Lebanon’s confessional groups get about creating

their own militias as counterweights to the PLO. SLIDE 11 Lebanon’s militias

Into this volatile mix stepped Bashir Gemayel, head of the Maronite militia, XXX, as the pre- eminent Maronite leader, willing to do business with Israel to establish Christian hegemony in Lebanon. Israel was all too willing to oblige, as an Israeli friendly Lebanese government firmly entrenched would reposition Israel in the Middle East, leapfrog an Arab encirclement, and enable Israel to fight Arab states from Lebanon, rather than having to fear assaults on Israel itself.

Beginning with Phalangists, extreme right wing Christians, pitted against Palestinian militiamen, most prominently the PLO, the war simply escalated.

The violence among the militias would continue for 16 years, reducing much of a once magnificent Beirut to rubble and the town divided into mostly Muslim and Christian sectors, separated by the so-called Green Line.

Within months the PLO controlled 80 percent of the country and the Lebanonese

government called for Syrian intervention. Soon 25,000+ Syrians troops were beating back

the PLO. Later the sanctioned the presence of the Syrians, who continued to

maintain 25,000 troops in Lebanon until being compelled to withdraw after the assassination

of former PM Raffik Hariri in 2005.

Between 1975 and 1989, the Lebanese state collapsed; services only functioned

intermittently; militias took over the functions of the state in their enclaves, levying taxes,

administering services, offering protection. The Ta’if agreement 1989 brought the civil war

13 Joseph Jaffra and Nancy Jaffra, “Consociational Democracy in Lebanon: A Flawed System of Governance” (in Lebanon folder) . 7 to a close. Power was redistributed between Christian & Muslims on a 50/50 basis. SLIDE 12

Ta’if

Then, in March 1978, in reprisal for a Palestinian attack into its territory, Israel launched a

major invasion of Lebanon, occupying land as far north as the Litani River. SLIDE 13 The

UN Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 425, which called on Israel to withdraw

from all Lebanese territory and establishes the Interim Force in Lebanon

(UNIFIL) to confirm the Israeli withdrawal. SLIDE 14(buffer zone)

In 1982, Israel launched a much more devastating invasion, which was spearheaded by Ariel

Sharon, whose objectives were to crush the PLO once and for all and to change the

government in Beirut—regime change. Slide15 with arrows...

Bashir Gemayel, the Maronite militia leader would be installed as President and establish a

pro-Israeli regime, which would sign a peace treaty with Israel.

The fact that this was a gross violation of Lebanon’s sovereign rights as a nation was not a

matter of consideration.

To accomplish his ends Sharon laid siege to Beirut.

Around the clock devastating aerial bombardment, air, ground and sea, an embargo on both

food and humanitarian assistance getting into the city,

Bombing was not restricted to positions of military resistance – there were few and they

were obliterated within the first hours object. The ordinary residents of Beirut, already

targets of competing militias, were to pay the price for the country’s weak and ineffectual

government, its people were being forced to compel its government to surrender.

The bombing of Beirut involved the disproportionate use force to achieve a military objective, without considerations of its political ramifications or of the civilian population of the city.

The scale and intensity of the Israeli assault on defenceless Beirut alarmed the west. Daily diets of television footage showing American F16s, swooping over Beirut in precise bombing formations before unloading their lethal payloads on the city with no retaliatory response

8 whatsoever elicited a public reaction in the west, especially in the US, that was unfavourable to Israel, compelling its government to reconsider its strategy in the light of the detrimental impact it was evoking among its friends.

In the end in a deal brokered by American Ambassador Philip Habib, the PLO was evacuated and a Multi National Force (MNF) to protect the residents of West Beirut, especially Palestinian civilians from the Maronites, and to end the presence of all foreign forces in Lebanon.

On 23rd August 1982, Bashir Gemayel was elected President by the Lebanese Chamber of

Deputies. On 14 Sept he was assassinated and succeeded by his brother, Amin who had never been party to the understandings between Bashir and the Israelis.

Immediately, things began to fall apart for the Israelis.

With Bashir’s death went the pliant president they had placed in power. The IDF occupied

West Beirut, contrary to the agreement it had agreed to with Habib preceding the PLO’s evacuation, and encircled Palestinian refugee camps. Operating on information that there were PLO guerrillas harboured in the camps, Sharon gave the go ahead to Phalangist militias to enter Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. With Israeli tanks standing guard, 150

Phalangists14 entered the camps on September 16 1982 and for three days went on a

rampage, killing perhaps as many as 2,000 defenceless civilians. When it was established

that Israeli troops saw what was happening but did nothing to stop the killing, the outrage

worldwide was vociferous and damning of Israel.

Its standing as a country that held the moral high ground, already damaged by the

bombardment of Beirut was now in tatters. The perception of Israel as a small country

fighting for its survival against hordes of Arabs bent on its destruction was shattered.

The US joined with other members of the UN Security Council that ordered the IDF to

vacate Beirut within 24 hours.

14 These particular men were well known to the Israelis to have little experience of armed conflict, but were members of the Damor unit, which had been trained by the Israelis to clear out “terrorist nests” in West Beirut. EXPAND. See Habib, pp 130 -131. 9

IV. THE EMERGENCE OF HEZBOLLAH

The Israeli invasion of 1982 resulted in the occupation of southern Lebanon for 18 years.

Throughout that period, the Shias of south Lebanon were under occupation, humiliated in

their towns and villages, subject to the random vagaries of the Southern Lebanese Army, an

Israeli created, trained and funded surrogate. The Shias were subject to the excesses of

power without accountability, pawns in others’ political manoeuvres, deprived of their

dignity. SLIDE... southern Lebanon

Occupation ineluctably leads to resistance.

In the latter part of the 1990s, Israeli operations, especially “Grapes of Wrath” in 1996 had

left either severely damaged or destroyed 80 percent of villages in Southern Lebanon. In

addition, the years of war and occupation had resulted in 19,000 deaths and 32,000 casualties

inflicted by Israel.” 15

Abandoned by the rest of Lebanon, not even considered “real” Lebanese by many, the challenge Hezbollah faced was not to evict the Israelis, but to resuscitate the Shias.

The mosque is the only place where the freedom to believe is paramount; where grievances

can be enumerated and regurgitated, where whispers of freedom can be encoded in the

Friday sermons and hope perpetuated; it is from these whisperings that Hezbollah built the

foundation of its support.

Even among its harshest critics in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s role in its war of attrition against

Israel in southern Lebanon is credited with Israel’s withdrawal in March 2000.

Hezbollah - or the Party of God - is the elephant in the Lebanese political circus. It was established in the Bekka valley in the early 1980s, made its way to southern Lebanon and although it was first perceived as an outsider and therefore a force to be suspicious of by

15Amal-Saad Ghoreyeb, Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion,

10 southern Shias, mostly aligned with Amal, in time it emerged as the resistance to Israeli occupation.

In a sense, just like the IRA emerged from irrelevancy in the mid 1960s to become a

“resistance” movement to the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland in the early

1970s and then to the British “occupation” of Northern Ireland.

The founding members were Muslim clerics who were geographically close to a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The Iranians had been sent to Lebanon by the Iranian government to aid the resistance against Israel. Once Hezbollah had established its resistance credential among Shiite southerners, it set out to establish its revolutionary credentials.

In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is not just the party of God; it is the party of liberation.

Deeply embedded in every fabric of life in the south, Hezbollah can do little wrong. And, as long as Hezbollah can make the case that no matter what the Israelis do, there always remains the feasible threat of future Israeli aggression; -- southern Lebanon will stand solidly behind it, as will Shias in general, but only up to a point.

Polls in Lebanon among Shias illustrate the ambivalence: They show that while Shias support an armed Hezbollah as part of the resistance, they would prefer to see this function taken over by a strong Lebanese army and for Hezbollah to disarm and play its role in politics on a level playing field. Use of its weapons to coerce its political opponents will, which happened on 7 May 2007, is not approved of by Shias. If Hezbollah were to do something similar in the future it have repercussions in its broad political base and undermine its political ambitions in Lebanon.16

The most recent Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon:

In 2006, the abduction by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers in July 2006 resulted in the 34 day

Israel/Lebanon war, with devastating consequences for Lebanon, but, paradoxically a

16 Nicholas Noe interview 29th June 2009; See polls of Amal Saad Hezbollah’s internal polling. . 11 perceived victory for Hezbollah -- not just among Lebanese at large but throughout the Arab world, and many countries in the west. Most important, among Arabs, the myth of Israeli military invincibility that had hammered into the Arab consciousness since the war of 1967 was shattered. When the Israelis responded with a full scale invasion of Lebanon, they intended to smash Hezbollah and reshape politics in the country.

The invasion of Lebanon was met with fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrilla units, who fought Israeli troops on the ground and fired hundreds of missiles into Israel, many of them reaching populated areas. SLIDE 17

The ground troop advance was abetted by round the clock aerial bombardment of southern

Lebanon, and as the ground assault plodded to a halt, seemingly not equipped to fight an unconventional war, Israel extended airstrikes on vital parts of Lebanese infrastructure, and finally on Beirut itself, targeting south Beirut which is Hezbollah controlled and mostly

Shia. SLIDE 18 (bombing patterns]

The official Israeli position was that the Lebanese government was responsible for disarming Hezbollah and in the absence of it doing so, Lebanon as a whole had to bear the consequences.

Hezbollah fought Israeli ground troops to a standstill, while its mobile rocket launchers continued to fire Qassem missiles into northern Israel. In the end, Israel air power reduced much of southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut and its infrastructure to rubble.

In the 72 hours before the UN Resolution that called for a ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal and an enlarged UN territorial area, the Israelis dropped four million cluster mines in southern Lebanon, in random patterns so that their exact location cannot be determined for demining purposes. The result is that a huge swatch of southern Lebanon is a wasteland.

Over 40 percent failed to explode. SLIDE 19 cluster bombs

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The war further crippled an already dysfunctional Lebanese economy 17 and further eroded

the authority of an already weak central government. Total damage to residences was

estimated at $2 billion and Total war damage could be as high as $10 billion. 18

The conflict resulted in 1,191 deaths in Lebanon and 4,409 injured. More than 900,000 people

fled their homes. In contrast, Israeli losses in the war were 113 soldiers, five civilians. SLIDE

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Nearly one quarter of the population was displaced between 12 July and 14 August, with

approximately 735,000 seeking shelter within Lebanon and 230,000 abroad.

No matter what criteria of war you employ, the conclusion is the same: the IDF used

excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force that went far beyond reasonable

arguments of military necessity and of proportionality, and failed to distinguish between

civilian and military targets. It engaged in a collective punishment of the Lebanese people.

Israel rejected all findings by international bodies that incorporated these conclusions as being prejudiced, one sided and not addressing Hezbollah’s violations

Since August 2006, more Lebanese civilians have been since killed (50) and more injured (300) by unexploded cluster bombs than were Israeli civilians in both the 2006 war, the rockets from Gaza or during the Gaza war itself. SLIDE 21 (chart)

In the west you hear nothing of this. In southern Lebanon, it keeps memories fresh and support for Hezbollah strong.

Like Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, with which Hezbollah shares many attributes, Hezbollah entered politics, and like Sinn Fein, Hezbollah’s political wing, the Party of Resistance, swung most of the Shia vote behind it and has emerged as a centrifugal force in Lebanese politics.

17 The Khiam Centre, funded by the Canadian Embassy, listed the following destruction on 22 July 2006: “28 vital points (airports, ports, water and sewerage treatment, electrical plants etc), 600 kilometres of roads, 23 fuel stations, 73 bridges, 72 overpasses, 6,800 private houses/apartments, 160 units in the commercial sector (factories, markets, farms etc.)” By the end of the hostilities on 15 August, the damage had increased substantially: government sources quoted 15,000 destroyed homes and 80 bridges hit (French newspaper report).

18 Ibid.

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Hezbollah is the major player in the March 8 coalition SLIDE 22 that lost the June national elections to the anti Syria March 14 coalition. SLIDE23

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, (son of Rafik Hariri, whose assassination by a massive car bomb in 2005 sparked the “” and led to the withdrawal of 25,000 Syrian troops from the country), is still trying, some 100 days + after the election to form a government of national unity, which will include several Hezbollah members as cabinet ministers.

In August this year, the London Times reported that Hezbollah had amassed an armoury of 40,000 rockets, some with anti aircraft capacity, along Israel’s borders. Simon Peres has since revised that figure upwards to 80,000.

Of course, there is no way to verify such figures or the reliability of the source. But Israel has seized on the figures. Senior ministers have: a) accused the Lebanese Army as backing Hezbollah b) warned Lebanon that if Hezbollah is included in the government then all Lebanese will be held accountable for any “aggressive provocation” on Hezbollah’s part, and c) that the inclusion of Hezbollah, a party with 40,000 rockets aimed at Israel is “not acceptable”.

For its part, Hezbollah has warned that another war will make 2006 look like “a joke,” that this time it will be a war between “the southern suburbs of Beirut and the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv,” the insinuation being that it has a capacity to hit civilian areas in Tel Aviv.

Ugly stuff and getting uglier.

To the West, in the absence of there being war, Lebanon’s complaints of Israeli “aggression” are seen as trifling incidences of petty turf wars, mostly over disputed territory, matters that are routinely filed with UNFIL, and left to its officials to arbitrate. But to Lebanon, every perceived violation of the , the routine violation of Lebanese airspace, is seen in a much different light: the omnipresence of Israeli military power on Lebanon’s southern flank, its powerlessness in the face of Israeli airstrikes.

The core aim of Hezbollah is to end Israeli occupation of Lebanon, an aim that remains its raison d’être.

From its inception Hezbollah had financial backing from Iran – something it has never denied 19 and the embrace of Syria.

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The party is unremittingly anti Israel: it calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, believes that Israel occupies Muslim land and argues that that Israel has no right to exist.

So, when I talk about Hezbollah as being the movement that is part of the resistance against

Israeli occupation what do I mean since Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.

Since the 1967 war, Israel has occupied a small area of territory -- the – an 8 sq

mile area consisting of 14 farms located south of the Shebaa, on the western slopes of Mount

Harmon. SLIDE 24

Lebanon was not a participant in the Six Day War. Lebanon regards the Shebaa Farms as part of its national territory, but Israel considers it part of Syria.

Although the UN relies on the 1923 Anglo-French demarcation and the 1949 Armistice line, place the Shebaa Farms in Syria, both the Lebanese and Syrian governments insist that Syria officially gave the territory to Lebanon in 1951.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told a news conference in Paris before ending a state visit to France in 2007 that Beirut and will demarcate their countries' border at Shebaa

Farms after Israel withdraws from the region. They will then submit a new map to the UN.

All Lebanese consider Shebaa Farms as part of the national territory of Lebanon. That occupation continues to rankle. It is a matter of acute humiliation to Lebanon, reminding of its impotence in the face of invasion & occupation, of the atrocities committed on its soil, too often used by others, to fight their wars.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is just part of the political landscape; its role as part of the resistance to liberate the Sheba Farms, still under Israeli occupation recognized by all, even if grudgingly, as legitimate, its position as a party that can turn its guns on its political rivals a matter of deep concern to all but Hezbollah.

To the U.S. Hezbollah is simply an instrument of Iran and Syria, anti democratic by nature, intent on a takeover of Lebanon in order to turn it into Islamic Republic.

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Of course, any attempt to turn Lebanon into an Islamic Republic would result in a civil war, with all other sects and parties aligned against Hezbollah, at the end of which an Islamic

Republic would be no closer to being a reality than it is now.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is just part of the political landscape; the legitimacy of its role as part of the resistance to liberate the Shebaa Farms, still under Israeli occupation, recognized by all Lebanese and the Lebanese government, even if grudgingly, its position as a party that can turn its guns on its political rivals a matter of deep concern to all but Hezbollah.

To sum up:

1) In Lebanon Israel refined what has become its signature response to every perceived threat to its security – the application of disproportionate response as an instrument of deterrence, i.e., that its response to either attack or attempted attack will be so out of proportion to the damage inflicted on it that the enemy will never again attempt an aggressive move 2) Even though this policy has failed repeatedly, it has done nothing to dissuade Israel from using it again 3) This is a form of military insanity – doing the same thing over & over again expecting a different result 4) Israel’s threatening the Lebanese people, as it is doing at present, of the dire consequences they might face if Hezbollah is included in a Lebanese government of national unity, is a wilful attempt to distract and disingenuous. It suggests that Israel is either wilfully ignoring or does not understand the complexities of Lebanon’s consociational system of democracy, its roots in confessionalism AND Lebanon’s fear of returning to the dark days of civil war, which Israel itself played a significant role in stoking 5) Such militaristic threats to cow the Lebanese on the part of Israel constitute a misconception of its own national security imperatives. 6) Far better for Israel to have Hezbollah in the Lebanese government than outside the governance tent pissing in. 7) Hezbollah in government will be constrained in how it can act and it catapults the issue of Hezbollah putting its arms verifiably beyond use into a political context. 8) In this regard, Israel’s insistence on the Lebanese Army disarming Hezbollah is also disingenuous because Israel knows ***that Hezbollah is far superior militarily to the Lebanese army; ***that Hezbollah may well be a non state actor stronger than the state itself; ***that such a precipitous action could lead to the fragmentation of the Lebanese army & civil war ****and that Israel itself is partly to be held to account for the strength of Hezbollah’s support in Lebanon.

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9) It is in Israel’s strategic interest to return the occupied Shebaa Farms to Lebanon SLIDE (Shebaa ) 10) Such an action would undermine Hezbollah’s claim to be part of the resistance against Israeli occupation because no such occupation would exist, & hence, it would undermine Hezbollah’s rationale for building its military power as a deterrent to another Israeli invasion. 11) That opening talks to return the Farms to Israel does not compromise Israel’s security in any way 12) That a move in this direction would call Syria’s bluff, if in fact Syria’s acquiescing to Lebanon’s claim to the Shebaa Farms is merely pretence, 13) Far better that Israel encourage the integration of Hezbollah into the Lebanese security services to build a strong Lebanese Army, so that the Lebanese fears of another Israeli assault are ameliorated

However, I would be the first to admit that the IDF, still in thrall to a deeply embedded mindset that sees a superior show of force -- as the only way to protect Israel’s security interests, ***with the corollary that you must never allow your perceived enemies to establish a military counterweight to your own***would strenuously object, would perceive a strong Lebanese security military as a threat to its security.

And thus the predicament, of its own making, that entraps Israel: to eliminate one perceived threat, Hezbollah, it will have to countenance a strong Lebanese army, but if IDF is not willing to entertain the thought of a strong Lebanese army emerging in Lebanon, it perpetuates the rationale among Lebanese for the continued existence of Hezbollah.

• Israel’s actions in Lebanon over the last three decades, which have included occupation and all the usual oppressions’ that accompany occupation reverse received wisdom in Israel: It is Israel that is an existential threat to the Lebanese state, not the other way around. • That as long as Lebanon’s fears that it cannot defend itself against possible future Israeli invasions are not addressed there cannot be a stable Israeli/Palestinian settlement. This is a political problem. • Unless these fears are assuaged, Hezbollah will continue to maintain legitimacy in Lebanon and have a justifiable rationale for maintaining a sufficient sophisticated military capacity to be in a position to deter future Israeli aggression • Hezbollah, I suggest, is best understood not as how the U.S. sees it, i.e. as an international terrorist organization but as a national liberation organization, grounded in the Shia people of southern Lebanon for whom it provides essential services, a sense of communal attachment, and an identity of belonging to Lebanon, which they lacked during the earlier decades of Lebanon’s existence when Christians and Sunnis held the commanding heights in the political arena.

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Therefore, I suggest for your consideration:

• While Israel views Hezbollah as one more component of the existential threat to its existence it is within Israel’s competence to take steps to eliminate the dimensions of that threat. • This will require radical changes in *** the way Israel views itself, *** the way it views the countries on its perimeters, ***in the dominant political culture that defers to the military establishment that continues to think in terms of 1948 rather than 2008.

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