Israeli Aggression Raises Tensions

The Israelis have launched a series of punitive raids in Lebanon following the kidnapping of two Israelis soldiers along a contested portion of its border.

Hezbullah fighters apparently found the soldiers more or less alone and unsupported, which raises suspicions about the willingness of the Israelis to expose their soldiers to danger.

The Israelis have lashed out at Beirut and the Lebanese government for failing to police their southern border; escalation involves destruction of the Beirut airport runway. Caught between Israeli and Hezbullah, the weak Lebanese government provides a defenseless target, lacking the capacity to reign in its militants or provide any credible deterrence threat against Israel.

Rocket attacks by Hezbullah strike deep into Israeli territory. These are justifying the expansion of the use of force and subsequent waves of violence where civilians will undoubtedly die.

Meanwhile Arab leaders are fuming. Just what they can to stop the use of force remains far from clear.

It appears Israeli has had its current military operation planned for quite some time. Speculation as to the root cause behind the rise in aggression may lie with the desire to start conflict while the American presence in Iraq goes on, which provides operational coverage for the exercise of military force by Israel in the Occupied territories and Lebanon.

Saber-rattling by the US towards Iran has manifested itself in the Israeli’s charges the Tehran is sponsoring Hezbullah and the spread of terror. Likewise, American support for Israel, previously characterized as unconditional in policy statements by the Bush Administration, has led to a dangerous undermining of US strategic influence in the region, as well as contributed to an atmosphere where ongoing Israeli military action is acceptable.

The greatest impact of the aggression will be in the Arab world, probably in Egypt and Jordan, whose regimes will be targetted for making peace with Israel, in a relationship which has become increasingly problematic for those countries’ leaders.

The greater strategic imperative for Israel is the de-stabilization of the Arab world. With Iraq in complete turmoil, the idea of increased anti-US hostility may not make that great a difference. However as the impact of the violence in Lebanon and Gaza spreads, regimes in the region be caught between swelling support for Arab militancy and placating the increasingly aggressive and militarism of Israeli-American policy in the region.

These regimes may have to relieve pressure on themselves from radical groups like the Muslim Brotherhood by offering some degree of power-sharing or autonomy. Yet as we saw in Gaza after Hamas’ victory, adopting democracy will almost certainly lead to the election of strongly anti-Israel and anti-American factions, who have no doubt been lifted by the indiscriminate use of force in Gaza and Lebanon. Unable to unconditionally accept sovereign determinations, Israeli and the US have shown themselves willing to compromise on their support for the spread of democratic institutions in favor of less anti-American and anti-Israeli governments.

Why the US dumped a secular alternative to fundamentalism in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein is anyone’s guess. Realpolitik dictates that the enemy of an enemy is a friend. As we saw with US advances toward the Shah during the Cold War, this approach can backfire when anti-Shah forces turn on the US for its support of the preceding regime.

Obviously the US hasn’t learned its lesson, unless it has planned on seeding open-ended instability in the region it and its proxy Israel (or is it other way around?) seek to dominate. Then the purpose of the Iraq invasion could be fulfilled. Theoretically, the rise of rabid anti-Americanism could fuel further acts of terror, which could perpetuate the justification of the use of US military force against regimes in the region.

Non-violence is clearly the solution to this problem. Unable to reign in their radicals, many weak Middle Eastern governments have lost control over the ability to use non-violence. Isn’t terrorism ultimately the resignation of an oppressed people to violence, instead of a pre-mediated intent to do violence?

Perhaps the solution to terrorism cannot be achieved by military means. Therefore one wonders as to the purpose of a military reaction towards the phenomena, its effectiveness, and ultimately the motivations which encourage military aggression in response to the threat posed by terror.