Lebanon, Israel & the Hezbollah
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Lebanon, Israel & the Hezbollah (mis)Fit Boston, Brookline Public Libraries, New Art Center of Newtonville 6, 7, 8 October 2009 SLIDE 2 – 5: demographics: Lebanon 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 Middle East have stalled, or whether his call to halt settlements in Israel was short-sighted, or whether he should direct his attention to Iran 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. 1 2) That although Israel’s invasions of Lebanon, briefly in 1978 and again in 1982, and subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon 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. 2 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 Lebanese civil war 4) This strategy failed because like the US invasion of Iraq 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 Syria. 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 Beirut, to dismember Lebanon, cede southern Lebanon to a new Jewish state and create a Christian state in Lebanon.6 Even Emile Edde, president of Lebanon (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.