By Uri Avnery, 15.7.06
THE REAL aim is to
change the regime in Lebanon and to install a puppet government.
That was the aim of
Ariel Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It failed. But Sharon and his
pupils in the military and political leadership have never really given up on
it.
As in 1982, the present
operation, too, was planned and is being carried out in full coordination with
the US.
As then, there is no
doubt that it is coordinated with a part of the Lebanese elite.
That's the main thing.
Everything else is noise and propaganda.
ON THE eve of the 1982
invasion, Secretary of State Alexander Haig told Ariel Sharon that, before
starting it, it was necessary to have a "clear provocation", which
would be accepted by the world.
The provocation indeed
took place - exactly at the appropriate time - when Abu-Nidal's terror gang
tried to assassinate the Israeli ambassador in London. This had no connection
with Lebanon, and even less with the PLO (the enemy of Abu-Nidal), but it
served its purpose.
This time, the necessary
provocation has been provided by the capture of the two Israeli soldiers by
Hizbullah. Everyone knows that they cannot be freed except through an exchange
of prisoners. But the huge military campaign that has been ready to go for
months was sold to the Israeli and international public as a rescue operation.
(Strangely enough, the
very same thing happened two weeks earlier in the Gaza Strip. Hamas and its
partners captured a soldier, which provided the excuse for a massive operation
that had been prepared for a long time and whose aim is to destroy the
Palestinian government.)
THE DECLARED aim of the
Lebanon operation is to push Hizbullah away from the border, so as to make it
impossible for them to capture more soldiers and to launch rockets at Israeli
towns. The invasion of the Gaza strip is also officially aimed at getting
Ashkelon and Sderot out of the range of the Qassams.
That resembles the 1982
"Operation Peace for Gallilee". Then, the public and the Knesset were
told that the aim of the war was to "push the Katyushas 40 km away from
the border".
That was a deliberate
lie. For 11 months before the war, not a single Katyusha rocket (nor a single
shot) had been fired over the border. From the beginning, the aim of the
operation was to reach Beirut and install a Quisling dictator. As I have
recounted more than once, Sharon himself told me so nine months before the war,
and I duly published it at the time, with his consent (but unattributed).
Of course, the present
operation also has several secondary aims, which do not include the freeing of
the prisoners. Everybody understands that that cannot be achieved by military
means. But it is probably possible to destroy some of the thousands of missiles
that Hizbullah has accumulated over the years. For this end, the army chiefs
are ready to endanger the inhabitants of the Israeli towns that are exposed to
the rockets. They believe that that is worthwhile, like an exchange of chess
figures.
Another secondary aim is
to rehabilitate the "deterrent power" of the army. That is a codeword
for the restoration of the army's injured pride that has suffered a severe blow
from the daring military actions of Hamas in the south and Hizbullah in the
north.
OFFICIALLY, THE Israeli
government demands that the Government of Lebanon disarm Hizbullah and remove
it from the border region.
That is clearly
impossible under the present Lebanese regime, a delicate fabric of
ethno-religious communities. The slightest shock can bring the whole structure
crashing down and throw the state into total anarchy - especially after the
Americans succeeded in driving out the Syrian army, the only element that has
for years provided some stability.
The idea of installing a
Quisling in Lebanon is nothing new. In 1955, David Ben-Gurion proposed taking a
"Christian officer" and installing him as dictator. Moshe Sharet
showed that this idea was based on complete ignorance of Lebanese affairs and
torpedoed it. But 27 years later, Ariel Sharon tried to put it into effect
nevertheless. Bashir Gemayel was indeed installed as president, only to be
murdered soon afterwards. His brother, Amin, succeeded him and signed a peace
agreement with Israel, but was driven out of office. (The same brother is now
publicly supporting the Israeli operation.)
The calculation now is
that if the Israeli Air Force rains heavy enough blows on the Lebanese
population - paralysing the sea- and airports, destroying the infrastructure,
bombarding residential neighborhoods, cutting the Beirut-Damascus highroad etc.
- the public will get furious with Hizbullah and pressure the Lebanese
government into fulfilling Israel's demands. Since the present government
cannot even dream of doing so, a dictatorship will be set up with Israel's
support.
That is the military
logic. I have my doubts. It can be assumed that most Lebanese will react as any
other people on earth would: with fury and hatred towards the invader. That
happened in 1982, when the Shiites in the south of Lebanon, until then as
docile as a doormat, stood up against the Israeli occupiers and created the
Hizbullah, which has become the strongest force in the country. If the Lebanese
elite now becomes tainted as collaborators with Israel, it will be swept off
the map. (By the way, have the Qassams and Katyushas caused the Israeli
population to exert pressure on our government to give up? Quite the contrary.)
The American policy is
full of contradictions. President Bush wants "regime change" in the
Middle East, but the present Lebanese regime has only recently been set up by
under American pressure. In the meantime, Bush has succeeded only in breaking
up Iraq and causing a civil war (as foretold here). He may get the same in
Lebanon, if he does not stop the Israeli army in time. Moreover, a devastating
blow against Hizbullah may arouse fury not only in Iran, but also among the
Shiites in Iraq, on whose support all of Bush's plans for a pro-American regime
are built.
So what's the answer?
Not by accident, Hizbullah has carried out its soldier-snatching raid at a time
when the Palestinians are crying out for succor. The Palestinian cause is
popular all over the Arab word. By showing that they are a friend in need, when
all other Arabs are failing dismally, Hizbullah hopes to increase its popularity.
If an Israeli-Palestinian agreement had been achieved by now, Hizbullah would
be no more than a local Lebanese phenomenon, irrelevant to our situation.
LESS THAN three months
after its formation, the Olmert-Peretz government has succeeded in plunging
Israel into a two-front war, whose aims are unrealistic and whose results
cannot be foreseen.
If Olmert hopes to be
seen as Mister Macho-Macho, a Sharon # 2, he will be disappointed. The same
goes for the desperate attempts of Peretz to be taken seriously as an imposing
Mister Security. Everybody understands that this campaign - both in Gaza and in
Lebanon - has been planned by the army and dictated by the army. The man who
makes the decisions in Israel now is Dan Halutz. It is no accident that the job
in Lebanon has been turned over to the Air Force.
The public is not
enthusiastic about the war. It is resigned to it, in stoic fatalism, because it
is being told that there is no alternative. And indeed, who can be against it?
Who does not want to liberate the "kidnapped soldiers"? Who does not
want to remove the Katyushas and rehabilitate deterrence? No politician dares
to criticize the operation (except the Arab MKs, who are ignored by the Jewish
public). In the media, the generals reign supreme, and not only those in
uniform. There is almost no former general who is not being invited by the
media to comment, explain and justify, all speaking in one voice.
(As an illustration:
Israel's most popular TV channel invited me to an interview about the war, after
hearing that I had taken part in an anti-war demonstration. I was quite
surprised. But not for long - an hour before the broadcast, an apologetic
talk-show host called and said that there had been a terrible mistake - they
really meant to invite Professor Shlomo Avineri, a former Director General of
the Foreign Office who can be counted on to justify any act of the government,
whatever it may be, in lofty academic language.)
"Inter arma silent
Musae" - when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent. Or, rather: when
the guns roar, the brain ceases to function.
AND JUST a small
thought: when the State of Israel was founded in the middle of a cruel war, a
poster was plastered on the walls: "All the country - a front! All the
people - an army!"
58 Years have passed,
and the same slogan is still as valid as it was then. What does that say about
generations of statesmen and generals?