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July 20, 2006
Well the Howard Government is one hundred per cent right behind the Israel destruction of Lebanon and adopts the same position as the Bush Administration ----the talking points are all about Syria and Iran and Israel needing more time to destroy Hezbollah, which is a terrorist organization. So why bomb hospitals, or Greek Orthodox churches and milk factories far from Shiite areas?
The spin from the Howard Government is that the Israeli assault on Lebanon is not as bad as it is, and that there is no need to criticise Israeli tactics:
Alan Moir
It is not clear if Lebanon will survive from Israel's disproportionate response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah--ie., gradually reducing Lebanon's infrastructure to rubble whilst killing and maiming its civilian population. It appears that the Israeli campaign is designed to ensure that Lebanon is economically poor and weak for decades to come and beyond to break the back of Shiite villagers in southern Lebanon. The American neo-con hawks are saying that the war in Lebanon can't end until Israel destroys Hezbollah once and for all, and that means knocking Syria and Iran around. If so, then the broad action against so much of Lebanon is wrong and strategically flawed. The inference is that the political endgame is that Israel becomes a regional superpower.
I presume that if Israel the goal is to degrade Hizbullah's military capability, then more land operations are likely.If the Israelis exit quickly, creating a free-fire zone in the border area so Hizbullah cannot return, then this might allow the international community to facilitate the deployment of an expanded United Nations force with the Lebanese Army to the South. Yet that presupposes that Hizbullah would first have to agree to surrender its weapons. Deploying the Lebanese Army, a multinational force or both along the border, is in Israel's interest and perhaps Lebanon's, but not Hezbollah's and certainly not Iran's.
So what happens if Lebanon collapses? What happens if Israel cannot accomplish the destruction of Hezbollah? Doesn't that create an unstable region? How is an unstable region with failed states an improvement? Is this an example of short term tactics at the expense of long term strategy?
Is there a public and critical debate about the point of the war in Israel? One about the reasons, the motives, the responsibility of the Israel Defense Forces and the government, as well as about the results and the implications of the war and the alternatives?
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A disproportionate response would be fine if Israel actually focused on Hezbollah and not destroying all of Beirut. They've flown over 600 sorties and have killed over 300 civilians. They have killed very few members of Hezbollah.