Why there has to be a ceasefire By Former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser
Malcolm Fraser was PM of Australia from 1975 to 1983
The Age August 2, 2006
The longer an end to the fighting is delayed, the harder it will be to achieve, writes Malcolm Fraser.
THE war between Israel and Lebanon or, if one likes, between Israel and Hezbollah, has again drawn out an ugly side in our nature.
A number of connected debates are being pursued. As Waleed Aly has indicated on this page (31/7), Australians fighting alongside Israeli forces are praised and revered; when one is killed, there is an outpouring of grief, understandably and justifiably, but when Lebanese Australians are trapped by Israeli bombing and find some difficulty in escaping to safety, there are those who suggest that we have no obligation to them because they are Lebanese, rather than Australian.
This flows through to a debate about dual nationality. At high levels, the Government has questioned whether dual nationality should be allowed and whether people should be forced to choose. There is a narrowness of view. The success Australia has had with a large-scale and diverse immigration program, which has, over the years, included large numbers of refugees, has rested on the fact that, while we expect allegiance to Australian laws, we do not deny that person the right to have affection, connection and love for his or her country of origin.
I suspect that those who argue that there should only be one passport haven’t followed through the logic of their case. Are they going to tell people of British origin that they must give up their British or European Union passports? The absurdity should be laughed out of court.
None of this hides the tragedy of the conflict. It seems that both sides have locked themselves into impossible and non-negotiable positions. Kofi Annan is correct to have been calling for a ceasefire and it is only during the ceasefire that longer-term solutions may evolve, although one can’t be too optimistic about that, having regard to the tragic history of the Middle East.
But for Israel and for Israel’s closest friends, the United States and Britain, to continue to say they want a ceasefire, but a sustainable one, will postpone a ceasefire for days, for weeks and perhaps may make it impossible. The nuts and bolts of a permanent ceasefire will take time to put in place. It will involve a political settlement, recognition of Israel by all parties but also an element of trust on Israel’s side, which may be difficult. Such agreement won’t be reached while Israeli planes are pounding civilians in Lebanon and while Hezbollah’s rockets are firing into Israel.
Israel says that there is no point in ending their offensive because that would enable Hezbollah to re-arm. Well, it may, if the appropriate political settlements cannot be reached meanwhile, but what is the bombing achieving? I suggest the stated aim of the Israeli armed forces and of the Israeli Government and indeed of President George Bush, are simply not achievable.
The rockets being fired into Israel are not being fired out of houses. The rocket launchers are not in houses, they may be close to them and the Israelis may well be able to pinpoint where they come from but the rocket launchers fire and are moved. By the time Israeli forces have struck back, Hezbollah is long gone. Israel knows it is firing at civilian houses. They say it is Hezbollah’s fault, but is it if you know Hezbollah has gone before you fire?
Meanwhile, Israel is building hatred. It is guaranteeing that if Hezbollah wants volunteers, it will obtain them in their tens of thousands.
If bombing were capable of achieving an end of the rockets into Israel, after the best part of three weeks bombing that should have been achieved. They have bombed every target they wanted to hit and they have killed hundreds of civilians, and probably not all that many Hezbollah fighters.
The Israeli tactics cannot work and there is indeed in this sense a similarity with the Vietnam War of decades ago. Hezbollah does not have to hold country, it does not have to defend territory; they hit and they move, they move again and they hit. They are probably sophisticated enough to know when aerial surveillance will reveal their movements and they will probably also know when there is an open door and window when satellite surveillance will not see where they go or what they do. Three weeks’ bombing and the capacity to fire rockets seems unimpaired. Earlier claims of a 50 per cent success rate now appear to be a gross exaggeration. If the bombing is not working, what is Israel to do?
It seems it may have come to the conclusion that a full-scale invasion and occupation of Lebanon is undesirable or beyond its capacities. Even so, it would still be fighting an enemy that is highly mobile, that does not have to defend territory and is therefore difficult to destroy. The other leg of Israel’s claim is that it is trying to force the Lebanese Government to do what the Lebanese Government should do and disarm Hezbollah. It knows Lebanon, unfortunately, is not a strong state and the Lebanese Government does not have the power to do that which it demands. Israel then has been living, I believe, in a fantasy land. The military campaign is not working and its political demands are not achievable.
Bush of course has fallen into entirely the same errors, perhaps because he has had no strategy and has been following and supporting Israel.
Is there a strategy that will work? It would be a bold person who would say in the Middle East that this can be easily achieved but we know for certain that the first step will be a ceasefire as soon and as urgently as possible.
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