Israel - Lebanon

An Increasingly Illusive Peace

As Israeli jets pounded the densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut, the Palestinians of Sabra, Chatila, and Borj el Barajne refugee camps listened reminiscently as the sound waves shook the foundations of their small crowded homes.

In 1982 the Israeli Government launched a severe full-scale military invasion against Lebanon in a bid to crush the Beirut-based Palestine Liberation Organization. Israeli goals included depriving the PLO of its launching pad for attacks in southern Lebanon and driving the PLO completely out of Lebanon. Both military objectives were achieved (with over 10 000 Lebanese civilians killed as a result).

By September 1982, PLO fighters had been expelled from Lebanon and the Israeli military surrounded Beirut's Palestinian refugee camps. Claiming 2000 armed Palestinian fighters remained in Sabra and Chatila, Ariel Sharon, Israeli Defence Minister at the time, reportedly invited the Lebanese Phalangist Militia to go into the camps to rout out the armed fighters. An estimated 700 to 2000 Palestinian civilians were slaughtered under the watchful eye of the Israeli Military. While the Sabra and Chatila massacre wasn't the only act of violence inflicted on Palestinian civilians in Lebanon, its consequences continue to haunt Israel today. In fact, the Israeli invasion and long-term occupation was the catalyst for the creation of Hisbullah, with Sabra and Chatila being one in a list of disgraceful acts of violence perpetrated by the Israeli military and their allies. The Sabra and Chatila Massacre and indiscriminate bombing of Beirut in 1982 are used by Hisbullah to justify their continued armament. We can see clearly the consequences of Israeli aggressive disproportionality over the years.

The crimes committed against the Palestinians by the Lebanese Militiamen and their Israeli allies during the assault of 1982 and subsequent occupation has had a lasting effect on the collective psyche in Lebanese and Palestinian society. As we have seen time and again, fear - real or imagined - is a powerful political tool. Hisbullah supporters regularly cite those events as justification for continued armament; they fear Israeli aggression or internal violence where, without weapons to protect themselves, they will be left vulnerable - defenseless against mass slaughter. Twenty-four years later, the ghosts of Sabra and Chatila still haunt Lebanon as well.

Support for Hisbullah rises sharply when their popular base feel threatened or come under direct attack. Fear is an intelligently wicked tactic employed by those in power on both sides of the conflict. Considering its past history in Lebanon, Israel has only emboldened the "Lebanese Resistance" and increased their popularity, feeding the flames of hatred by launching a disproportionate military assault further eroding any hope for peace in the near future.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon reports that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) violated Lebanese airspace almost daily between 2001 and 2003 and persistently until 2006. Several civilians have been shot and killed along the border area as well. These low-altitude flights (sometimes breaking the sound barrier over Lebanese villages) and other incidents traumatize citizens and give Hisbullah validation in the eyes of supporters. While I was living in Beirut, the IAF dropped anti-Hisbullah flyers over the city and skirmishes in the south were a regular occurrence. I think most would agree that it is easy to sell resistance ideology under these circumstances - especially in the case of Hisbullah, who are seen as the only group able to stand up to the strength of the Israeli military. Clearly, short-term military action often has dire long-term consequences.

With a ceasefire being interpreted differently by both sides and utter disrespect for UN troops in Lebanon, the reluctance of the international community to send troops is not surprising. After an Israeli raid killed four UN observers, the IDF claimed that Hisbullah had been firing rockets from nearby. The lack of precision of Israeli "precision guided" missiles caused the death of UN conflict observers and has hindered the Israeli government's demand for a quick and effective deployment of a UN force to provide a buffer between Hisbullah and their northern border. In the short-term after the attacks on the UN installations, 50 observers were withdrawn from the border area. Hisbullah attacks, however, continued with increasing frequency.

Under international law, states must weigh the achievement of military objectives against the potential damage to civilian infrastructure and lives. Over the course of this conflict, the Israeli military managed to kill over 1000 civilians (many of them children), left more then 5000 families homeless, destroyed Lebanon's northern coastline, bombed more then 150 businesses and factories, destroyed more then 60 bridges and other civilian infrastructure, littered southern Lebanon with a million unexploded cluster bombs preventing 200 000 people from returning home, and paralyzed Lebanon's growing tourism industry. They have nourished a culture of conflict, they have endangered the lives of their own citizens, they have crushed any realistic peace in the near future, and validated extremist elements in Lebanese society in the eyes of supporters.

The absurdity of this military campaign lies in the utter failure to achieve anything close to the stated military objectives, including disarming Hisbullah and liberating captured soldiers, who's kidnapping was the stated reason for Israeli military action. The IDF did achieve, however, their goal of turning "Lebanon's clock back 20 years." Gideon Levy, a columnist for Haaretz, asks the question that all Israelis should be asking, "[we] are bombing and shelling, darkening and destroying, imposing a siege and kidnapping like the worst of terrorists and nobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to what right?"

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