Israel and Lebanon

In my book Anti-Totalitarianism I wrote: "For all its flaws, errors, defeats and disasters, the Labour Party has done important and admirable things in foreign policy."

The Independent does a public service today by inadvertently reminding us of the truth of this, with (if you think the role of a newspaper is to exhort rather than report) quite an effective front page condemning the government for its stance on the crisis in Lebanon.

For my part, I agree with the view of Tony Blair that "If [the violence] is to stop, it has to stop by undoing how it started. And it started with the kidnap of Israeli soldiers and the bombardment of northern Israel. If we want this to stop, that has to stop." For those who recall the 1982 Labour Party conference's call for "a democratic secular state of Palestine" (code of that time for the abolition of the Jewish state), there is irony now in a Labour government's apparently being criticised by the Tories for being muted in its criticisms of Israel. As a Labour sympathiser of long standing, I'm pleased to see it.

Labour in 1982 was scarcely a politically informed or responsible cause; innocent of the incendiary language of Middle East politics, the party drew an illegitimate political inference from the Lebanon war of that year. For many reasons, I opposed that war, which incidentally failed in its goal of excising a PLO mini-state in southern Lebanon, by creating a vacuum that was speedily filled by Hizbullah. Israel's actions now are not comparable to that war, nor - except in one indirect sense - is the issue to do with Palestinians' just demand for an independent state. This is argued in a good letter in today's Guardian by Colin Shindler of SOAS:

An outright victory over Hizbullah, as David Grossman argues (Comment, July 20), is impossible, but it may be considerably weakened militarily. The Israelis have learned the lesson of 1982 by not mounting a ground invasion of Lebanon. At that time, Sharon disobeyed cabinet orders to clear a 40km swathe of territory of Palestinian fighters and marched on Beirut instead. The war in 1982 was marked by duplicity from the outset, when Begin used the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London to remove PLO military forces from southern Lebanon. Unlike the current situation, a ceasefire had been in place, which the PLO honoured, and the organisation was not in possession of long-range missiles. In 1982, Israel did attempt regime change through a tacit alliance with the new Lebanese president, Bashir Gemayel. In this case, the Israelis are fearful of toppling the Lebanese government.

Unlike 1982, the political consensus in Israel has not been broken and is reflected by the miniscule [sic] turnout for anti-war demonstrations. The broad peace camp differentiates between the Palestinian issue and the evacuation of settlements - and military initiatives by Hizbullah, which they see as an Islamist appendage of Iranian imperialism which has little interest in locating a just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I would add that the violence in Lebanon is connected indirectly to the cause of an independent Palestinian state in the sense, and only in the sense, that that goal will be well served by the weakening of rejectionist groups in Lebanon and Gaza that do not wish for a pacific two-state settlement between a secure Israel and an independent Palestine.

As I am largely not blogging till next month, I haven't written anything on this subject as yet. I recommend, though, the Guardian article by the novelist David Grossman (the title of which is a little misleading), cited in the letter above, and an article by the philosopher Michael Walzer in The New Republic (link requires free registration). Walzer discusses the dilemma that Israel must strive to minimise (not avoid entirely) civilian casualties while fighting an enemy that hides behind civilians, and concludes:

It will probably take the international community--the United States, Europe, the United Nations, some Arab states--to bring the Lebanese army into the south of the country and make it an effective force once it is there. And it will take a similar coalition to sponsor and support a Palestinian government that is committed to two states with one permanent and peaceful border and that is prepared to repress the religious militants who oppose that commitment. Until there is an effective Lebanese army and a Palestinian government that believes in co-existence, Israel is entitled to act, within the dialectical limits, on its own behalf.

This is my view too. For an alternative opinion see Mary Ann Sieghart's column in today's Times. I cite this because it's criticism from a thoughtful commentator as opposed to much that is written in the British press at the moment. (For the record, I very much disagree with the judgement of my friend Stephen Pollard on the BBC's coverage. I have many criticisms of BBC journalism as it's currently practised, but I do not consider the BBC's news output is politically biased either in general or specifically on this issue.) The kicker is in Mrs Sieghart's conclusion:

Mr Blair has moved too swiftly from defending Israel’s right to exist to supporting Israel right or wrong. It is bad for the Middle East and it is dangerous for Britain. He ought to know better.

This is a false dichotomy of extraordinary blatancy. I would be concerned, as any liberal or progressive ought to be, if the PM's stance were one of "defending Israel's right to exist". Israel has a right to sovereignty and independence; in order to exercise sovereignty it needs to protect its civilians from rocket attacks from a private army backed by a theocratic tyranny. When I assert the need for an eventual settlement (I do not see it happening any time soon) encompassing two states, I do not write of Palestine's "right to exist"; I wish to see a sovereign and independent Palestinian state. As I understand the PM's position - and I believe I understand it perfectly, because it's stated clearly - the PM does not "support Israel right or wrong": he defends Israel's ability to act as a democratic and sovereign state must. He is right.