We are now more than 2 weeks into the war that Israel is waging against Lebanon, and the logic of Israel in their attack continues to bewilder and baffle any observer who is paying attention. The players in this game are many, but the three that are front and center are Hezbollah, Israel, and Israel’s proxy, the United States.
Israel began the current round of hostilities with their “response” to Hezbollah, and they have responded with blinding amounts of force, using missiles, planes, bombs, and ground forces as well.
The main problem that Israel is facing, however, is the fact that Hezbollah is a non state actor, an armed militia that does not have a state. Their stated goal is to attack and destroy Hezbollah, but how can this be accomplished against a non state actor? Attacking a military is easy; you attack the military assets, bunkers, airfields, weapons caches, and other obvious targets. When you are fighting against a guerilla army that does not have many large installations, how can you use standard military force to respond?
The simple answer is that you cannot. Despite obvious strategic flaws, attacking civilian areas that are allegedly harboring a militia is a clear violation of International Law, as well as the laws of war. This is where Israel’s logic of empire comes in. Israel maintains that it has a right to respond to Hezbollah’s attacks against it. But, since Hezbollah is a guerilla army with its base amongst civilians, then any civilians who are hurt is not their fault; it is Hezbollah.
So, when an armed militia moves into your neighborhood, regardless of whether you support them or not, the sheer fact of their presence make all civilians in the area fair to attack, and if anything happens to them, it is the fault of the militia and not the one who is actually dropping the bombs. Take a moment and think about that logic; it is not Israel, the bomb dropper’s fault that civilians die; instead it is Hezbollah’s fault for hiding amongst civilians.
Inherent is this argument is the idea that Israel has the right to respond to any attack that is made against it, with any amount of force that they deem necessary, and all of the consequences of the attack fall on the target. Israel argues that they would not be attacking these areas if Hezbollah was not there, so in fact it is Hezbollah’s fault that civilians are killed.
Another method that Israel uses to dodge the blood on their hands is by stating that they have leafleted certain areas, letting all the civilians know that they are living in a targeted area. Then, if any civilians die in that area, it is again not their fault because they were all warned. While this assumption is again based on the idea that Israel has the right to use as much force as it deems necessary, clearly this is another shifting of the blame.
First of all, Israel has destroyed most of the roads and bridges in southern Lebanon, making escape from cities and small towns almost impossible. So, many people are stuck in the cities to wait out the war and hope for the best. Secondly, most of the people who Israel is attacking do not have enough money to afford to escape from an area where Israel is targeting, and instead are forced to wait there for their potential deaths while others who can afford it flee.
Third, and most important of all, since Israel has no right to attack civilian areas, then there is no reason that the residents of the area should have to flee their homes. Those people have a right to live in their homes and not be bombed; if they are killed by missiles while peacefully living in their homes and existing from day to day, then their blood is on the hands of the aggressor, Israel.
Let’s put this in simple terms that we can all understand; when a school yard bully attacks a weaker child, who do we blame the bully or the weaker child? If that same bully, in the process of beating up the other child hits a few onlookers who were not even involved in the fight, do we blame the onlookers for getting in the way, or would we blame the person whose fists were doing the pummeling?
Another piece of Israel’s logic is based on the fact that, as they claim, the Lebanese government will not use its army to try and control Hezbollah. Apparently, Israel believes that the purpose of the Lebanese state is to fight what would be a bloody civil war in order to protect Israel, the country who has attacked Lebanon numerous times and occupied the country for almost 20 years. What would the Lebanese government have to gain from attacking Hezbollah, other than to cause a civil war that would go on for years and years?
The Lebanese government, which now contains some members of Hezbollah who were elected, has stated that it was in negotiations with Hezbollah in order to try to bring disarmament. The Israeli government disregarded the negotiations and called on Lebanon to implement UN Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon.
Unfortunately, Israel does not see the irony in asking Lebanon to implement the will of the UN, when Israel has been the target of over 60 UN resolutions, and has never implemented any one of them in full. This is just another part of Israel’s logic: the UN applies to others, and not to us. When the UN resolution calls on Hezbollah to disarm, then we must enforce it. When the UN calls for the right of all Palestinians to return to occupied land that was once theirs, well that is just a suggestion which will not be followed.
Israel continues every day in its propaganda to try and portray its war against Lebanon as legitimate, its use of force necessary, and it continues to express regret that innocents are dying. However, it also continues to invade and target civilian areas, to use force instead of negotiations, and to rely on its superior firepower and its proxy the United States for protections for some of its greatest crimes in recent memory.
Anyone with any beliefe in justice and international law, however, will not blame the victims for their own deaths, and instead will place the blame where it belongs, clearly on the aggressor Israel and their proxy and supplier, the United States.
Update: Israeli Airstrike kills over 56 Lebanese, many of them Children...
