Killing Time

The truth will set you free

Which is why they will never let you have it. Anyway. I dislike 'monocausal' explanations of complex phenomena: and the current invasion of Lebanon by the US/Israel is a case in point. It is obvious what the US gets out of it: Iraq swept off the front pages, Iran 'weakened' (assuming of course that Hizbollah is indeed being seriously hurt), the beginning of serious military movies against Iran and Syria, which paves the way for direct military action against them (Iran at least) by 2008 at the latest. But what does Israel get out of this? The key point that must be understood is that Israel is an imperialist power: it desires more land than it has. In world terms of course, the land it seeks is not a huge amount, but that's not the point. The point is that Israel covets the West Bank (amongst other places). And one of the other places it seeks is South Lebanon.

'Officially, Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon is an act of self-defense against Hezbollah's threat, aimed at creating a security buffer zone until the arrival of a "multinational force with an enforcement capability". But increasingly, as the initial goal of a narrow strip of only a few kilometers has now been extended up to the Litani River deep in Lebanon, the real motives behind Israel's invasion are becoming crystal-clear. It's about (de facto) annexation, stupid. This is a war to annex a major chunk of Lebanese territory without necessarily saying so, under the pretext of security buffer and deterrence against future attacks on Israel. Already, since the Six Day War, Israel has annexed the Sheba Farms, considered part of the Syrian Golan Heights, although the government of Lebanon has long complained that the 25-square-kilometer area was a part of Lebanon. Now the Israeli army is sweeping the area south of the Litani River as a temporary occupation. '

Make no mistake. The reason that the South Lebanese had leaflets dropped on them, encouraging them to move, was not to protect their lives. It was to tell them to get out of South Lebanon. This is ethnic cleansing. And the parallels are obvious: not just with the German seizure of the Sudetenland, but with the Serbian (Yugoslavian) desire to hold on to Kosova and the Russian desire to hold onto Chechnya. In all three cases, despite the pretexts, the key point is that the imperialist power intends to have 'hegenomy' (which may or may not amount to annexation) permanently.

If Hezbollah is defeated, then Israel will get away with it, and it won't stop there. That will be the effective end of the idea of a Palestinian state.

posted by Brendan @ 10:17 AM