The situation between Lebanon and Israel

I have to apologize. I've been doing a lot of one line, link to somewhere posts lately, and I've realized that I've never articulated my opinion on what's going on between Lebanon and Israel.

I'm not going to address the greater issues right now, that would take a far longer post than I really have time for, but let me address the current situation.

Both sides are wrong.

Lets start with Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been launching missile attacks into Israel for years now. Hezbollah has also been kidnapping Israeli soldiers and civilians for years now. In the past, missile attacks were met with silence more or less and Israel would negotiate with Hezbollah to do prisoner swaps in exchange for kidnapped soldiers. Hezbollah pretty much figured it was in for more of the same when it started this, latest round of violence. Hassan Nasrallah has stated as much. I don't think I need to actually explain why firing missiles and kidnapping is wrong. It's important to understand that while the political wing of Hezbollah represents about 40% of the Lebanese population, not everyone in Lebanon is part of Hezbollah, and even fewer Lebanese support Hezbollah's attacks on Israel.

In the other corner we have Israel. Israel has been suffering from continual attacks from Lebanon since Lebanon became independent from France. Most recently these have taken the form of the missile attacks and kidnappings noted above. Israel has tried in the past to stop these attacks though invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. That didn't work.

This leads to my issues with Israel right now. I might support it's current actions if I thought that they had a chance of stopping the missile attacks or stopping the kidnappings or even weakening Hezbollah, but they have not, and are not going to accomplish any of these things. As we can see, Hezbollah is now stronger than before and has even more support. What's amazing to me is that Israel's current actions have actually united Hamas and Hezbollah. Hezbollah is Shi'a. Hamas is Sunni. They basically represent two groups of people that have sought the eradication of each other since the creation of Islam. Israel has brought them together, however tentatively, and given them a common enemy.

Beyond the fact that this isn't going to work, Israel has sent mixed signals and messages throughout the whole war. They say they want the Lebanese army to take control of the border, then they bomb the Lebanese army. They say they want the UN to enforce a cease-fire, but then they bomb the UN. They tell the civilians to leave, but only after they've bombed every road and bridge that would allow the civilians to do so. They tell the civilians to leave and then they bomb the cars the civilians are leaving in. Finally they bomb the ambulances going to rescue the civilians.

I don't buy the excuse that Hezbollah are hiding amongst civilians and therefore it is okay to kill the civilians. There's almost a scary Katrina-esque parallel here. Israel has told the civilians to leave, where exactly are they supposed to go, and how are they going to get there? It seems that the poor and disabled are just doomed to die because they don't have the means to get out of the way of the Israeli hurricane.

I donated money to the International Federation of the Red Cross because I wanted to help the Red Cross provide for the hundreds of thousands of refugees that Israel has created.

Where do we go from here? We need an immediate cease-fire. We need to find a way for Israel to declare victory and go home before things get any worse. Israel has backed itself into a PR corner. It can't win and it can't stop the bombing until it wins, maybe it should just admit that this latest adventure was a mistake. Hezbollah needs to give the soldiers back, and it needs to agree to be disarmed or it at least needs to be integrated into the Lebanese army.

This whole thing just strikes me as so sad and so pointless. I really think that Hezbollah would have been disarmed sooner had it not been for this whole mess. Lebanon was beginning to have a real, vibrant economy and functioning political infrastructure. The militants were getting weaker. It was all going in the right direction. I just don't believe that Israel's actions, however justified, will bring it the peace it says it wants.

As a final note, I'll share this analogy that I came up with while lying in bed this morning. Israel and Hezbollah are like two kids fighting in the back seat of a car. Hezbollah (the little sibling) keeps poking Israel, so finally Israel (the older sibling) reacts and starts beating the crap out of Hezbollah. Mom (the UN) in the passenger seat screams at the kids to stop fighting, and dad (the US) stands up for the older sibling saying that maybe this time the Hezbollah will learn it's lesson. Eventually dad is going to have to pull over and pull the kids apart. I know it's flawed, as all analogies are, but I thought it fit anyway.

I leave for the desert in a week. I'll be totally out of touch with the outside world for almost 4 weeks. I'm looking forward to it.