What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Special Issue: the Collapse of America
Paul Craig
Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is
happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class,
white collar jobs. Roberts'
stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy
is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead.
Plus Mike
Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
each month! But
remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the
print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
If there were any remaining illusions
about the purpose of Israel's war against Lebanon, the draft
United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a "cessation
of major hostilities" published at the weekend should finally
dispel them. This entirely one-sided document was drafted, the
Hebrew-language media have reported, with close Israeli involvement.
The top adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, talked
through the resolution with the US and French teams, while the
Israeli Foreign Ministry had its man alongside John Bolton [yet
another of Israel's men, Eds ] at the UN building in New York.
The only thing preventing Israeli officials from jumping up and
down with glee, according Aluf Benn of the daily Haaretz newspaper,
was the fear that "demonstrated Israeli enthusiasm for the
draft could influence support among Security Council members,
who could demand a change in wording that may adversely affect
Israel." So no celebration parties till the resolution is
passed.
Instead, in a ploy familiar from previous negotiating processes,
Israel submitted to the US a list of requests for amendments
to the resolution. When Israel agrees to forgo these amendments,
it will, of course, be able to take credit for its flexibility
and desire to compromise; Lebanon and Hizbullah, on the other
hand, will be cast as villains, rejecting international peace-making
efforts.
The reason for Israel's barely concealed pleasure is that Hizbullah
now faces an international diplomatic and public relations assault
in place of the unsuccessful Israeli military one. Israel, and
the United States, are trying to set a series of traps for Hizbullah
-- and Lebanon too -- that will justify Israel's reoccupation
of south Lebanon, the further ethnic cleansing of the country,
and a widening of the war to include Iran, and possibly Syria.
The clues have not been hard to decode. The US Secretary of
State, Condoleezza Rice, characterized the aim of the resolution
as clarifying who is acting in good faith. "We're going
to know who really did want to stop the violence and who didn't,"
she said. Or, in other words, we are going to be able to blame
Hizbullah for the hostilities because we have offered them terms
of surrender we know they will never agree to.
The main sticking point for Hizbullah is to be found in the resolution's
requirement that it must stop fighting and begin a process of
disarmament at a time when Israeli forces are still occupying
Lebanese territory and when there may be a lengthy, if not interminable,
wait for their
replacement by international peacekeepers. Not only that, but
the resolution allows Israel to continue its military operations
for defensive purposes: Hizbullah only has to look to Gaza or
the West Bank to see what Israel is likely to consider falling
under the rubric of "defensive".
Hizbullah has been stockpiling weapons since Israel's withdrawal
in May 2000 precisely to create a "balance of deterrence",
to make Israel more cautious about sating its appetite for occupying
its neighbors' lands, particularly when the neighbor is a small
country like Lebanon without a proper army and divided into many
sectarian groups, some of which, for a price, may be willing
to collaborate with Israel.
This time, however, as Israeli troops struggle back towards the
Litani River and their initial goal of creating a "buffer
zone" similar to the one they held on to for nearly two
decades, the Lebanese are rallying behind Hizbullah, convinced
that the Shiite militia is their only protection against Western
machinations for a "new Middle East".
Israel and Washington, however, may hope that, given time, they
can break that national solidarity by provoking a civil war in
Lebanon to deplete local energies, similar to Israel's attempts
at engineering feuds between Hamas and Fatah in the occupied
Palestinian territories. Certainly, it is difficult to make sense
otherwise of Israel's bombing for the first time of Christian
neighborhoods in Beirut and what looks like the intended ethnic
cleansing of Sunni Muslims from Sidon, which was leafletted by
Israeli war planes at the weekend.
On the US-Israeli view, a nation of refugees living in an open-air
prison cut off from the outside world and deprived of food and
aid -- a more ambitious version of the Gaza model -- may eventually
be persuaded to take their wrath out on their Shiite defenders.
Hizbullah understands that the proposal to bring in a force of
international peacekeepers is another trap. Either the foreign
troops will never arrive, because on these Israeli-imposed terms
there can be no ceasefire, or, if they do arrive, they will quickly
become a proxy occupation army. Israel will have its new South
Lebanon Army, supplied direct this time from the UN and subsidised
by the West. If Hizbullah fights, it will be killing foreign
peacekeepers not Israeli soldiers.
But Israel knows the international force is almost certainly
a non-starter, which seems to be the main reason it has now,
belatedly, become so enthusiastic for it. Senior Israeli government
officials were saying as much in the Hebrew media on Sunday.
Israel's Justice Minister, the increasingly hawkish Haim Ramon,
summed up the view from Tel Aviv: "Even if it is passed,
it is doubtful that Hezbollah will honor the resolution and halt
its fire. Therefore we have to continue fighting, continue hitting
anyone we can hit in Hezbollah, and I assume that as long as
that goes on, Israel's standing, diplomatically and militarily,
will improve."
Israel hopes it will be able to keep hitting Hizbullah harder
-- at less cost to its troops and civilians, and with improved
diplomatic standing -- because in the next phase, after the resolution
is passed, the Shiite militia will find that one arm has been
tied, figuratively speaking, behind its back.
Not only will Washington and Israel blame Hizbullah for refusing
to agree to the ceasefire but they will seek to use any retaliation
against Israeli "defensive" aggression -- including,
presumably, further invasion -- as a pretext for widening the
war and dragging in the real target of their belligerence: Iran.
This subterfuge was voiced at the weekend by Israel's ambassador
to the UN, Dan Gillerman, who told the BBC that if Hizbullah
fired at Tel Aviv -- which it has threatened to do if Israel
continues attacking Beirut -- this would be tantamount to an
"act of war" that could only have been ordered by Iran.
In other words, at some point soon Israel may stop blaming Hizbullah
and turn its fire -- defensively, of course -- on Iran.
This linkage is being carefully prepared by Olmert. On Monday,
according to the Hebrew press, he told some 50 government spokespeople
what message to deliver to the foreign media: "Our enemy
is not Hezbollah, but Iran, which employs Hezbollah as its agent."
According to Haaretz, he urged the spokespeople "not to
be ashamed to express emotion and appeal to feelings".
So in the coming days, in the wake of this US-Israeli concoction
of an impossible peace, we are going to be hearing a lot more
nonsense from Israel and the White House about Iran's role in
supposedly initiating and expanding this war, its desire to "wipe
Israel off the map" and the nuclear weapons it is developing
so that it can achieve its aim.
The capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 will be decoupled
from Hizbullah's domestic objectives. No one will talk of those
soldiers as bargaining chips in the prisoner swap Hizbullah has
been demanding; or as an attempt by Hizbullah's leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, to deflect US-inspired political pressure on him to
disarm his militia and leave Lebanon defenceless to Israel's
long-planned invasion; or as a populist show of solidarity by
Hizbullah with the oppressed Palestinians of Gaza.
Those real causes of hostilities will be ignored as more, mostly
Lebanese, civilians die, and Israel and the US expand the theatre
of war. Instead we will hear much of the rockets that are still
landing in northern Israel and how they have been supplied by
Iran. The fact that Hizbullah attacks followed rather than precipitated
Israel's massive bombardment of Lebanon will be forgotten. Rockets
fired by Hizbullah to stop Israeli aggression against Lebanon
will be retold as an Iranian-inspired war to destroy the Jewish
state. The nuclear-armed Goliath of Israel will, once again,
be transformed into a plucky little David. Or at least such is
the Israeli and U.S. scenario.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
