The Price of the
Coexistence of War and Peace in Lebanon
By: Dr. Joseph Hitti
July 16 /2006
The Lebanese people cannot have their cake and eat it too. They have two
basic options to choose from:
Option 1 – There is NO state of war with Israel. This means that like Egypt
and Jordan, and even the majority of Palestinians, Lebanon no longer assumes
Israel to be the theoretical enemy. As a result, certain actions need to be
undertaken by the Lebanese, officially and otherwise. These actions, at a
minimum, are as follows:
- Disarm and disband Hezbollah, with the help of the United Nations.
- No longer consider Shebaa to be occupied. Instead treat Shebaa for what it
is, a dispute over a sliver of land that has been complicated by a long history
of illegal land grabbing behavior by Syria and previous Israeli-Syrian wars and
whose status needs to be determined legally under certification by the United
Nations. This removes the “Resistance” argument from Hezbollah.
- Send the Lebanese Army to the border.
These actions will immediately pacify Lebanon and put it on a course of
normalization that it has lacked for the past 35 years.
Option 2 – There IS a state of war with Israel. This means that like Syria
and Iran, Lebanon considers Israel an enemy in principle, an enemy that is an
immediate threat and that has territorial and other ambitions over Lebanon. As
a result, the following actions and positions will be natural logical
consequences of this second option:
- Do not disarm or disband Hezbollah. Instead, grant Hezbollah – and any other
movement or party that wants to join the “Resistance”, including the Lebanese
Army itself – the right to fight Israel as necessary.
- Consider the Shebaa Farms to be occupied Lebanese territory that must be
liberated by force.
- Send the Lebanese army to the border to fight side-by-side with all the
Resistance movements operating in the border region.
This second option will not pacify Lebanon because it is logical to expect that
a state of war with Israel will have consequences that range from a lack of
economic development on the mild side, all the way to the devastation we
witness today.
There is really no viable third option, an “in-between” option, as the past
thirty some years have proven to the Lebanese. It is illogical to expect
Lebanon to be simultaneously in both a state of war and a state of peace. You
cannot on one hand be sanctioning the actions of private “Resistance” movements
against an enemy, continuously mobilizing mentally and emotionally your
population against the enemy, complaining about the occupation of land by that
enemy, refusing to send the Army to the border in violation of international
resolutions, and at the same time, expect your country to enjoy peace, be
economically developed and enjoying booming tourism seasons and vibrant
reconstruction, and most importantly, the respect of the international
community.
Lebanon officially agreed to the Blue Line after the UN-certified Israeli
withdrawal in 2000. Lebanon accepted UN resolution 1559 and its clauses
pertaining to disarming all militias. Lebanon is still bound by the 1989
Taef Agreement that also stipulates the disarming of all militias. Lebanon has
repeatedly stated that it remains bound by the 1949 Armistice Line
separating Lebanon and Israel. Syria has indicated that it relinquishes its
claims to sovereignty over the Shebaa Farms. There is consensus among the
Lebanese that Shebaa is Lebanese. It is expected that Israel will immediately
withdraw from Shebaa the moment the UN certifies an official cession of
sovereignty by Syria to Lebanon over the territory. The international community
has taken a unified position to helping Lebanon remove itself from a situation
of war and into a situation of peace, with several resolutions passed to that
effect. All the preceding is a platform for a peaceful Lebanon that is
uncoupled from the ideological traps of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. So why do the Lebanese insist on pretending to “liberate” when
everything else indicates that they aspire to peace and tranquility? Why the
forced coexistence of good and evil, of contradictory positions and
self-defeating and masochistic behaviors? Why do the Lebanese follow the
ideological inanities of the puppet Hezbollah that is manipulated by the
Iranian puppeteer and suffer the consequences, when they claim to want peace
and live by the Mediterranean dolce vita?
The choice is simple: If the Lebanese government wants to liberate Palestine, it
has to say so and act according to a state of war, like Syria and Iran. It has
to raise armies, buy missiles, impose the state of emergency, train its
population to withstand acts of warfare, establish alliances with other
countries to fund and arm the state of war, such as with Iran and Syria.
If the Lebanese government wants peace, it has to say so and act accordingly.
Which means abandon the idea of liberating Palestine and let the Palestinians
do that, disarm Hezbollah and all the other “liberation” militias and
movements, dispatch its army to the border like any sovereign state does, and
focus on developing Lebanon economically, technologically and otherwise, like
Egypt and Jordan are doing.
When Lebanon was first dragged into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, circa in
1970, by the Syrian-PLO tandem, the Lebanese fell into the trap head first.
They willy-nilly supported the Palestinians and gave the PLO sovereignty over
the south of the country. Israel “defended” itself and invaded in 1982,
ridding Lebanon of the PLO. Then, Iran and Syria invented Hezbollah to replace
the defunct PLO, and Lebanon was back to square one in the vicious cycle of
violence. After the Israeli withdrawal of 2000 and the Syrian withdrawal of
2005, who can the Lebanese blame today, if not themselves, for the
ambiguity, the incoherence and the deceitful double-standard of their position?
No wonder then that no one believes the Lebanese crying wolf anymore. All
Lebanon’s “friends” have turned the cold shoulder to a Lebanese Prime Minister
begging for a cease-fire, complaining about Hezbollah not having consulted him
before taking its reckless actions, and still complaining about Israel’s
occupation of Palestine. The UN yesterday had nothing to say about the
violence, and the US, the EU, Russia and even the Arabs like Saudi Arabia,
Egypt and Jordan are telling the Lebanese: We told you so. You want to
“liberate”? Then go ahead and liberate yourselves from the duality of peace and
war, from the confusion of positions, and from your own self-inflicted
tragedy.
Dr. Joseph Hitti
*Joseph Hitti, President of New England Americans for Lebanon
*Political Commentator
*Active Lebanese Lobbyist in the USA
E.mail
joehittimass@yahoo.com
Boston, Massachusetts-USA