Opinion: The world must rein in Israel By Brian Whitaker
The onslaught on Lebanon is fuelling recruitment to terrorist groups and denials of the Jewish state’s right to exist.
August 3, 2006
It seems increasingly likely that international forces will be sent within a week or two to extricate Israel from its blunder in Lebanon. The question then – assuming a ceasefire is achieved – will be how to extricate the international forces and prevent a recurrence.
Nobody should have any illusions about disarming Hizbullah by force: the only workable solution is a political one – which means that at some point Israel will have to withdraw from the Shebaa Farms, agree to an exchange of prisoners and provide the long-requested maps of its landmines in the south. The Lebanese will also have to allow Hizbullah a more proportionate role in the country’s mainstream politics – ie a considerably larger one than at present.
More generally, the world will also have to do its best to minimise the adverse consequences of the Israeli onslaught against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Lebanon, particularly its impact on Arab and Muslim opinion. If nothing is done, we shall see an increase in recruitment to terrorist organisations and probably an increase in actual attacks. Israel’s right to exist will be further questioned, and there may well be a rise, too, in anti-semitism.
The US (including its vice-president, Tony Blair, judging by his latest speech) seems unwilling to grasp that nettle, but it must. If Israel is to be accepted as a member of the international community, it has to abide by international norms of behaviour, and if necessary it must be made to do so. It can no longer be treated as an exception or a special case.
Israel is in serious breach of security council resolution 1559, which calls for the “strict respect” of Lebanon’s sovereignty. It was also in breach of the resolution before the war, with its frequent incursions into Lebanese territory. It is all very well to demand compliance from Syria (with the threat of sanctions), but the US never publicly talks about Israeli infringements, even though they have been noted in at least two UN reports.
There is also the question of war crimes. Today, Human Rights Watch issued today a 50-page report examining almost two dozen cases of Israeli attacks on civilian homes and vehicles in Lebanon. Its main conclusions are that Israeli forces have “systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians”, and that these failures “cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hizbullah practices”.
Some of these attacks, Human Rights Watch says, constitute war crimes. It calls for an international commission of inquiry to investigate them and “to formulate recommendations with a view to holding accountable those who violated the law”.
Beyond that, the massive destruction in Lebanon will take years to repair. The cost plainly runs into billions of dollars – money Lebanon can ill afford. Why should international donors be expected to pay for this? Israel should pay for it itself. The same applies in Israel to civilian damage caused by Hizbullah.
A suitable mechanism for processing compensation claims already exists in the shape of the UN compensation commission, which was set up in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s attack on Kuwait. Its brief can be extended without much difficulty to the Lebanese war, applying the principles already established in the case of Kuwait. Israel, incidentally, was an enthusiastic supporter of the compensation commission at the time, and succeeded in claiming millions from Iraq as a result of being hit by Scud missiles.
I am not particularly hopeful that any of this will happen. But if we fail to rein in Israel now we shall reap the consequences later.
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