The recent war in Lebanon has, unexpectedly from the US-Israeli perspective, generated more questions than it has provided answers. Did the so-called good guys win? No. Did the so-called bad guys lose? No.
So what happened then?
Hezbollah emerged as the clear victors with popular support even greater than before the conflict (strange considering that they were supposed to be crushed beyond recognition by this offensive). Ehud Olmert came out looking like a sheep in wolf’s clothing trying to maintain a precarious grip on a country that has lost faith in his leadership (stranger still when you look at how he was backed up by the most powerful country in the world). The United Nations looked even more impossibly impotent subsequent to its emasculation by the US and Britain prior to the Iraq war (not strange if you take into account America’s penchant for neoimperialism that seeks to re-define the “new world order” according to the State Department’s “Uncle-Sams-R-Us” foreign policy document). But all this is not exactly surprising given the whole nature of the war and the basis upon which it was fought.
It was, as we have all been told a million and one times for anyone who cares to listen, part of the “global war on terror” and yet its peculiar outcome showed just how ineffective and inept such vigilantism actually is.
As we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan obliterating entire countries and further disenfranchising their peoples is no solution. If anything it just perpetuates the ever-increasing cycle of violence that we are supposedly trying to rid ourselves of in the first place. The most pertinent outcome of the wars waged in the Middle East is that in spite of all the airstrikes, the bombings, the arrogant display of military prowess, the concomitant destruction and the thousands of civilian lives that have been lost, the might of the US and its allies has not dented the will of its opponents. If anything it has fueled the sentiments of frustration and discontent and served to swell their ranks with a whole host of dispossessed individuals who have been robbed of their past, present and future and subsequently have nothing left to lose.
The fact of the matter that no one seems willing to address is that the terrorist acts that we are witnessing cannot be attributed to any single nation state. They are part of a cause. A cause that is shared by elements so disparate and widespread that going after successive countries in an attempt to root out this extreme violence is just the wrong way of doing things. Lebanon has amplified the need to look beyond flexing military muscle in response to such an elusive and misunderstood threat. It might be an idea then to examine the cause. Like any good doctor would tell you, there’s no point in constantly treating the symptoms without diagnosing their basis (but then again, the world is run by a bunch of quacks these days).
There are legitimate grievances at the heart of the matter that never get airtime or warrant sufficient understanding. The terrible injustice meted out to the Palestinians would be a good starting point. How is it that in this day and age we can justify keeping an entire state in a virtual prison surrounded by fortifications, barbed wire and observation posts manned by ruthless soldiers touting machine guns pointed at a defenseless population? Or overlook the fact that more and more land is being stolen from these wretched people without any accountability? Or ignore how orchards are being cut down in order to make way for further illegal settlements? Or allow for the water of over a million people to be controlled by Israel who then systematically blocks it off during the fiercely hot summer months leaving them with no supply? Or pay no attention to the fact that the IDF periodically barricades the entrances to villages preventing access to food and water? Or disregard the frequent disruption to electricity that causes untold misery? Or justify the denial of medical supplies to an entire community? Or condone the murder of civilians at the beach, or in a car, or at home as part of a “failed attempt” to assassinate political leaders or spurious cases of “mistaken identity”? Or excuse the roadblocks that disallow the passing of ambulances carrying the critically sick to hospital? Or condemn those who don’t make it to die in them for no reason at all?
This is the cause. The acts of terror are merely the symptoms. This is what the world chooses to consistently turn a blind eye to. This and the lies, treachery and deceit that started off the Iraq war and that could very imminently lead us into another immoral illegal and, in hindsight, counterproductive war in Iran.
What we need now more than ever is to redress the injustice that is so acutely felt in the Middle East by impressing upon Israel the importance of recognizing the Palestinians as fellow human beings, restoring the territory that belongs to Syria and completely withdrawing from Lebanon. Not only will this bring about the peace and security that the Israelis themselves long for but it will go a long way in pulling up global terror by its roots.
(Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)
