The
Politics Of Proportionality
By Remi Kanazi
20 July, 2006
Countercurrents.org
For
many Americans, the recent assault on Gaza and Lebanon makes perfect
sense. Two attacks on Israeli soldiers by groups in Gaza and Lebanon,
and the subsequent capture of three Israeli prisoners, were “unspeakable
provocations,” but a sordid feeling overcomes all those who have
been closely watching the events unfold in the Occupied Territories
and Lebanon. The Israeli government, reinforced by American steadfastness
and the international community’s capitulation, set the rules
for the one-sided catastrophe. Israel can freely pound Gaza, batter
south Lebanon, and hammer Beirut, but if Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah or
any other Palestinian or Lebanese civilian lifts a finger to defend
themselves or their country against Israeli military aggression, it
is tantamount to crimes against humanity.
The “reaction”
against Hezbollah and Hamas has involved an intense bombing campaign—targeting
civilian infrastructure and the innocent population. In the past six
days, more than 230 Lebanese have perished at the hands of Israeli forces,
nearly all of whom were civilians. The scene in Gaza is equally bleak.
Since the start of the month, the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) killed
nearly 100 Palestinians. The damage in Lebanon is already estimated
to be in the billions—a staggering sum for a nation with a 2005
Gross Domestic Product of 20 billion dollars. The economic blockade
imposed on the Occupied Territories has driven up the rates of poverty,
malnutrition, and unemployment.
Israel used the capturing
of the three Israeli prisoners as a pretext to wage a larger war on
the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories and Lebanon. Still bitter
about Hezbollah forcefully driving the Israeli military out of south
Lebanon in 2000 and emboldened by Hamas’ election sweep in January,
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reaffirmed that Israelis “will
not be held hostage to terror.” But Israelis, as Olmert maintains,
“will fight with all the strength we are capable of,” which
includes the use of terrorism against civilian populations. At no point
is it appropriate for a United Nation’s member state, a signatory
to the Geneva Conventions, and a self-proclaimed “moral democracy”
to act in this manner.
Suppose Israel didn’t
occupy the Shebaa Farms and it didn’t frequently incite and intimidate
the Lebanese population with military operations, sonic booms, border
attacks, and the abduction of Lebanese civilians: Israel’s recent
attacks would still constitute war crimes. Under no circumstance is
a nation allowed to attack another sovereign nation’s civilian
population with the use of physical force, economic strangulation and
collective punishment due to a “provocation” caused by a
non-government entity—particularly when the aggressor state is
accusing other nations of orchestrating the attacks. While 23 members
of Hezbollah are representatives in the Lebanese parliament, Hezbollah
is not the Lebanese government, nor does Israel claim it to be. Furthermore,
many critics are condemning Israel for its “disproportionate use
of force.” While many of these critics astutely recognize the
brutality inherent in Israel’s offensive, it is necessary to note
that proportionality does not apply to the endangering of civilian life
and the collective punishment of the civilian population; civilians
must never be targeted.
Some Israelis now fear the
bombing of Lebanon will have an adverse effect on the public relations
of Israel. Their concern is valid. Just as the 1982 Israeli invasion
of Beirut was a moral stain on the Israeli state, the image of innocent
dead Lebanese on the front page of the New York Times and TV clips of
bloodied women and children being carried away on stretchers is having
a significant impact on American society. The American mind has become
accustomed to witnessing scenes of Israelis running for cover, but now
the images are of Lebanese—Arabs—and Americans are finding
themselves coming to the same horrific conclusion: this is wrong. The
first sign of American disapproval came a few weeks ago when the US
media aired a video which showed a little girl on a Gaza beach hysterically
searching for her family after an Israeli attack. American minds will
start to change if they are consistently exposed to the atrocities inflicted
upon the Palestinian and Lebanese people. This is Israel’s greatest
fear. Israel’s force is maximized by its ability to constantly
buttress the notion that it is a nation of victims. The longer Israel
indiscriminately attacks Lebanon—the further support for Israel
will wane. This is not to infer, however, that the US media is providing
equal coverage of the conflict now consuming Lebanon. Yet, these glimpses
into the suffering of populations that the American mind has been trained
into believing as foreign, as non-human, and as the “enemy,”
provides a possibility for change.
Although European support
for the Palestinian people is overstated in America, Europeans tend
to be more understanding of Arab issues, given their large Arab and
Muslim populations. Furthermore, many European media outlets are more
balanced in their coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the
greater Arab/Israeli conflict than the outlets in the US. Nevertheless,
an unbiased picture of the conflict in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories
has yet to emerge in the Western press. Some European leaders have been
outspoken in their criticism for Israel’s “disproportional
force” against Lebanon. Their diplomatic effectiveness, however,
has been hindered by the US administration’s unwavering support
for the state of Israel.
Over the last few weeks,
a number of protests condemning Israel’s assault on Gaza have
induced many Arab-Americans and supporters of human rights to come out
of the woodwork. On July 18, more than a thousand people came out to
protest Israel’s destruction of Lebanon and the Occupied Territories
at the Israeli Mission to the UN, dwarfing the previous protests.
In the US, the sense of outrage
from the Lebanese and Arab community has been unlike anything I’ve
ever seen. People are angry, disgusted, and enraged by these recent
events. Over time, many Arab-Americans became desensitized to the violence
engulfing Iraq and the Occupied Territories. The events in Lebanon,
however, have politically energized many Arab-Americans generally disinterested
in the “politics” of the Middle East. A few reasons may
attribute to this. First, the US is home to a large Lebanese population.
25,000 Lebanese-Americans, currently under siege in Lebanon, have yet
to be evacuated from the nation. Second, in the minds of many Arab-Americans,
Beirut—once considered the “Paris of the Middle East”—
was nearing that status again. Third, many Lebanese and Arab-Americans
I’ve spoken with were stunned by what’s seen as an attack
on the Lebanese government, the indiscriminate bombing of Beirut, the
striking of both Christian and Muslim neighborhoods and interests, and
the expansive attack on the civilian population and infrastructure.
Many Lebanese believed that after a 15 year civil war, the calming of
inter-religious tensions, and an end to the Israeli occupation, that
they were on a better footing. Yes, governmental corruption consumed
the state, the economy was in tatters, and political unrest still existed,
but the Israeli incursion that started last week was simply a hit they
couldn’t afford to take.
Israel lost its moral compass
through its creation. The “disproportional use of force”
against the indigenous civilian population of Palestine has been its
cardinal sin. The firm policy of keeping an ethnic Jewish majority through
means of violence and might is a cancer that will always plague the
state. Today, the majority of the Israeli population is rallying around
Olmert and Israel’s absolute right to “defend” itself.
This tends to be the case when Israel is engaging in a military offensive.
The US population has not always been as supportive of its government’s
use of military force. Americans eventually turned on the war in Vietnam;
many are now turning on the war in Iraq. Just as most Americans understood
that Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the massacres in Haditha, and the recent
raping of the 14-year-old Iraqi girl by US soldiers were wrong, they
immediately realized that the attacks on the innocent people of Lebanon
were deplorable. It is too soon to tell how strongly this will affect
the American outlook, but one can only hope that it produces a change
of unprecedented proportions.
Remi Kanazi is the primary writer for the political
website www.PoeticInjustice.net
He lives in New York City as a Palestinian American freelance
writer, poet and performer and can reached via email at [email protected]