Ian Boyne
THE INTRACTABILITY of the Middle East problem stands as a most distressingly poignant and gut-wrenching testimony to the baleful power of religion in human affairs. Reason and compromise are anathema to some religious folk and a region awash in blood is all the evidence you need.
The summer 2005 issue of the scholarly journal, The Washington Quarterly, declares: 'A Year of Opportunity in the Middle East', raising hope for the umpteenth time that the most troubled region in the world will finally see some glimmer of hope. Yet, the scene has been replayed again and again: Hopes raised, hopes dashed.
The death of Yasser Arafat was supposed to signal some fresh hope for solving the Middle East crisis, though only the naïve could harbour such an illusion.
RIGHT-WING VIEWS
But the right-wing had projected Arafat as the obstacle to Middle East peace, not understanding that Arafat was fighting for his political life and trying to appease the younger, more radical elements in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas who wanted no negotiations with Israel.
Arafat's fatal mistake was not pursuing the best opportunity for peace which was handed to him in 2000 by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former United States President Bill Clinton.
Under the agreement worked out at Camp David, the Palestinians would have an end to occupation, be given their own state in the West Bank and Gaza as well as parts of East Jerusalem plus compensation money.
But, Arafat knew that unless the right to return of all Palestinians was guaranteed, as well as total control over East Jerusalem, radical elements would still fight.
He never had the courage to accept a less-than-comprehensive solution. The pursuit of a comprehensive solution to the Middle East crisis is precisely what is at the heart of the war between Lebanon and Israel today. Ideologues and religious fanatics brook no compromise and detest give-and-take. It's all or nothing.
ANTI-AMERICAN IDEOLOGUES
There are many Palestinians and Arabs who believe that the very notion of negotiating with Israel is obscene, for how can I be negotiating with you over the use of my own house?
It is absurd, they say. Israel must be not only pushed back to its pre-1967 borders but pushed into the sea.
Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state is questioned by many and with that ideo-logically-motivated position, there is no plan in the world which will bring peace to the Middle East.
Equally, there are Israeli religious fanatics who feel no concessions should be made to the Palestinians for God gave all of Israel to Abraham and his descendants forever and it is sacrilege to give it away to heathens.
They are unalterably committed to the Greater Israel concept. Ariel Sharon had his own share of opposition when he began to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza.
With all the criticisms of successive American administrations' umbilical attachment to Israel and their reflexive defense of various Israeli administrations, the U.S. Road Map to Peace and the Mitchell Report represent as feasible and as rational a plan as possible for a compromised solution.
The leftists and virulent anti-American ideologues who continue to ridicule the road map and other proposals from the U.S. and Europe must show how the present terrorist attacks by Arabs are advancing the interests of the mass of the Palestinians and other oppressed Arabs. Israel will not be pushed into the sea and no one-state solution is viable.
Some were wondering what would become of Hezbollah after it had achieved its ostensible goal of forcing Israel out of Southern Lebanon six years ago.
"It would be argued that Hezbollah achieved what no other Arab country or army had been able to do: Oust Israel from Arab territory without the Arab side committing to any concession," says the September 2000 issue of the journal, Middle East Review of International Affairs.
RELIGIOUS ZEALOTRY
But Hezbollah's goals were much more extensive than forcing Israel out of Southern Lebanon. The organisation's charismatic and articulate Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah pulls no punches about what ultimately drives his terrorist group
"Hezbollah is based on opposition to the Zionist project in our region. The expulsion of Israel from the region and liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem from Hezbollah's principal belief and as such they are more sacred than a set goal," he said.
It is this kind of mindless religious zealotry and fanaticism, similar to the religious fanatics on Israel's right, which give us little real hope for any permanent peace in the Middle East.
The political left and progressive forces must not back Hezbollah because of their opposition to American hegemony.
It is a similarly mindless anti-Americanism which leads even normally well-thinking progressives and rigorous intellectuals to underplay the barbarity of the actions of groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Fattah and al-Qaeda.
It must be admitted plainly that Hezbollah was wrong to have entered Israeli territory and captured some of its soldiers. That was a declaration of war. It was wrong for Hamas to have done the same in Gaza.
If you hold the view that the Israeli state is illegitimate, anyway, and that as long as the Palestinians don't have a state, anything done against the Israelis is morally justified, then say that clearly.
But if we are all abiding by a set of international rules of behaviour, the fact that one state violates them with impunity does not justify another state's doing so.
The left has a serious problem with moral consistency, just as the right does. On almost no other issue can you witness reasonably intelligent people express more rank prejudice, bigotry and venom than on the Israel-Palestinian issue of Israel versus the Arabs.
There is no doubt that the Israeli reaction is grossly dispro-portionate, heartless and sadistic. Israel has done itself a great disservice and it should not be fooled by the U.S. Admin-istration's misguided support, as well as the cowardly vote of the House of Representatives last week, which says more about the Congress' political expedience and hostage to the Jewish lobby than it does about its moral probity (I hope that progressives in the Third World are noting how the Republicans and the Democrats close ranks when it comes to Israel).
SUFFER POLITICALLY
Israel, by ripping apart the bodies of innocent little children and old people and making homeless hundreds of thousands of people while destroying the infrastructure of a democratic country, is only inflaming anger and hate toward itself.
Israeli brute force and terror can never squelch Arab terrorism. Israel should have learnt that lesson by now. They might neutralise Hezbollah's forces, but those forces can always be rebuilt, as long as there are countries like Iran and Syria ready to assist.
And Israel's actions, relayed for all the world to see via satellite television, have the power of galvanising greater Arab support for Hezbollah and the innocent, hapless people of Lebanon.
Of course, Lebanon must implement United Nations Security Resolution 1559 which calls for the disarming of militia groups like Hezbollah. (Though Lebanon's weak army is not likely to do so soon. After all, even the might of Israel could not eliminate Hezbollah in the years it occupied Southern Lebanon).
The U.S. political elite might be backing Israel, but Europe and the international press are not in the cheering gallery. Writing in the respected Guardian newspaper on Thursday, it was opined that "In Israel's actions today, we can detect many of the elements of hubris: An imperial arrogance, a distortion of reality, an awareness of its military superiority, the self-righteousness with which it wrecks the social infrastructure of weaker states and a belief in its racial superiority. The loss of many civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon matters less than the capture or death of a single Israeli solider. In these, Israeli actions are validated by the U.S."
The U.S. will also suffer politically for its unequivocal support for Israel and for its willingness to drag its feet while Israel continues to destroy Lebanon. But the U.S. is in a delicate position of its own imperial making. The Bush Doctrine of Preemption and his War on Terror tactics make it difficult to lecture Israel about restraint.
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
There are many foreign policy issues with unintended consequences, and foreign policy experts had warned the Bush administration about the danger of its neo-conservative foreign policy thrust.
Because of its own obsession with the war on terror and its willingness to flout international norms and international law, taking on the character of a rouge state, the U.S. has no moral authority to pressure Israel to act humanely.
In addition, it is the U.S.' own failed Iraq adventure which has emboldened Iran and created a powerful Shia crescent in the Middle East.
Hezbollah's boldness is facilitated by Iran's increased regional authority with the demise of the Sunni regime in Iraq and is part of the mess which has been created by the Bush Administration's own over-reaction and lack of restraint in the face of the dastardly September 11 terrorist attacks.
Bush's muscular foreign policy is not dissimilar to Israel's. Unfortunately, terrorist groups like Hezbollah expose the very people they claim to love to the terror tactics of Israel and the cynical foot-dragging of Washington.
The destruction of lives and property and the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon is not just the fault of Israel and the U.S., contrary to Arab and Leftist propaganda.
When will we ever learn that fighting fire with fire is not the answer? That negotiation and compromise-and good old-fashioned reason-must be employed?
The Arab terrorists and their supporters in the West need to know that it is ordinary civilians who suffer most in war and that by inciting violence and provo-cation they have innocent blood on heir hands.
I take a plague-on-all-your houses-approach to the Middle East crisis. John Maxwell and Wayne Brown will condemn America and Israel alone, but the issues are far more nuanced than that.
* Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist.
