The situation is Israel and Lebanon at the moment is truly tragic, so much death and destruction and so many people displaced. Arguably in began in 1982, when the IDF invaded Lebanon and killed 19,000 people – the children of that war have now come of age.
We have situation that seems to be escalating by the day with no end in sight and a Prime minister who refuses to call for a ceasefire. He sees it as a pointless exercise and is in charge of a government that has exported £25m worth of arms to Israel in the past 18 months. We also have a US president who cannot criticise Israeli tactics, as they seem to be very similar to the ‘shock and awe’ tactics he employed in the Iraq war. Israel claims that there response is part of the ‘war on terror’…it seems that war on terror is becoming justification for tyranny and is becoming a terror in its own right.
And yet there are always two sides to the story – Israel has the right to protect it’s citizens, no country should feel under daily threat by terrorists and Hezbollah has consistently over the past decade launched attacks into Israel. When I was living in Haifa I worked at guesthouse on the on top of mount Carmel and I could climb onto the roof of the guesthouse and see the Lebanese border. During the time I was there the Israeli government launched operation ‘Grapes of Wrath’ where they bombed Hezbollah posts in southern Lebanon and from the top of the guest house I could see and hear the bombs exploding.
However, war is not the way the bring about a long-term sustainable peace, it creates more anger and alienation, it may prevent Hezbollah from attacking this year but they’ll be back with a new more radical form of terrorism.
Israel can learn something from both Hezbollah and Hamas who have both created a cultural and social infa-structure in their regions, running schools and hospital clinics, and therefore creating good will and building relationships with the local people. Israel should perhaps follow their example and try to build friendship with their neighbours rather than terrorising them and creating the next generation of suicide bombers and Hezbollah guerrillas.
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