August 23, 2006
HEADLINES FROM LEBANON

Desperate to Escape: Christians Flee Lebanon
Archbishop tells church to stay in Lebanon: 'You'll make it'
Maronite cardinal concerned about Christian exodus

FROM THE MAILBAG
VIA John and Gloria (in Jerusalem): Thanks to God we are well, and although I cannot claim to speak for all Christians, my impression is that they are suffering most from the immediate and total decline of tourism. Many have been laid off work until pilgrims and tourists return. As Christians, we are indeed warned to expect 'wars and rumours of wars' (Mk 13,7-8). As an Israeli, though, this war has been a very sad, disappointing and frustrating episode, which has left us with a particular sense of foreboding for the future.

With the outbreak of war on July 12th, the whole of the northern region of Israel, including all of Galilee, became a war zone, with 100-250 rockets a day falling mainly on the populated areas. By the end of the 34 days of war 3,790 rockets had been counted. Between a half and two thirds of the population fled southwards, and the rest lived in bomb shelters. Life in Jerusalem carried on much as before, except for the frequent roar of warplanes overhead, and the sudden departure of all the tourists and pilgrims. Jewish and Arab refugees from the North filled up some of the vacancies left by the tourists. The more elderly and infirm filled up our clinics! From the very start of this war things have not gone well for Israelis. After only a few days, our cleaner at the clinic, a lady accustomed to wars, admitted to me that the IDF troops did not 'shine' as they used to. Elite troops were being seriously challenged in the battlefield, 2 Apache helicopters crashed into each other, another was brought down by 'friendly' fire. Too much emphasis was put on the aerial bombing campaign, which lead to outrageous civilian casualties and was rightly condemned. Armed Hezbullah guerillas kept returning to the places which the IDF had claimed they had cleared and controlled. The troops were painfully vulnerable to Hezbullah's state-of-the-art anti-tank weapons, which easily pierced the armour of the latest Merkava tanks from a distance of several kilometers. So Israeli casualties were higher than expected on the battlefield. The rockets could not be stopped, so casualties were also rising on the home front. One rocket fell into a group of IDF reservists relaxing on a Kibbutz near the border, killing 12 outright and wounding many more. The foreign media seemed to ignore Israeli suffering and report the war mainly from the 'other side'.

The Israeli government was also not up to the mark. The prime minister announced victory at a ludicrously early stage. Then for upwards of two weeks his government hesitated to send an adequate fighting force into the areas of Lebanon that were controlled by Hizbullah, south of the Litany River. The full ground force finally started moving only 48 hours before the ceasefire came into effect. This final push cost many more lives (including another helicopter and its crew), but of course it was too late to make any serious impact on Hizbullah. What should have been a swift and effective combined operation to take Hizbullah out of southern Lebanon turned out to be slow, hesitant, and only very partially effective. In 34 days and at the cost of 118 soldier's lives, it probably achieved only about a half of what it set out to achieve. At that point the government only too eagerly accepted the diplomatic solution known as UNSCR 1701.

It remains to be seen whether this resolution will actually help to remove Hizballah's militia from the scene. Signs are that it will not. Today, 5 days after the ceasefire, the Jerusalem Post's analyst (Barry Rubin) is announcing that "the whole basis of the ceasefire is on the verge of collapse", since "Hizbullah will not even accept the minimum actions needed to activate" it. In clear contradiction to the terms of the ceasefire, Hizbullah retains its arms and continues to move freely throughout southern Lebanon, taking up positions again near the Israeli border. Nasrallah has refused to discuss disarming his militia at this time, or removing them from the areas south of the Litany River. As expected, neither the Lebanese Army nor the UNIFIL troops appear willing to disarm them. The international troops have not yet arrived to stop more weapons arriving from Syria. And, of course, the 2 kidnapped Israeli troops have still not been released. Failure to implement UNSCR 1701 may actually turn out to be a far greater disaster for UN credibility, than the fact that the UN took so long to achieve a ceasefire.

So from here it appears that Nasrallah has every reason to celebrate. He has actually increased his standing in the Arab world and is already acting as the de facto ruler of Lebanon. We have seen that nothing in Lebanon can happen without his permission, including the deployment of the Lebanese Army. The ineffective implementation of the ceasefire will give him the opportunity to consolidate his leadership politically (as Hamas has done in the PA), regroup his militia (if Nasrallah becomes the country's formal leader through elections, they may eventually become the backbone of the Lebanese Army) and retain his remaining stock of 10,000+ missiles, which continue to threaten Israel from virtually every region of Lebanon. No doubt Hizbullah will soon receive even more powerful missiles from the Iranians. It will not be surprising therefore, if fighting starts up again in the near future.

With Lebanon well on the way to becoming a mini-Iran, it is clear that we are just at the beginning of a wider conflict conceived and inspired by the Iranians, with the purpose of destroying Israel from within (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc) and from without - from Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Iranian nuclear weapons will provide this Islamist alliance with a nuclear 'umbrella' within a few years, meaning that every minor conflict could rapidly turn into a nuclear confrontation resulting in the desired annihilation of Israel. Not surprisingly, then, the Israelis regard the Iranian's pursuit of nuclear weapons as an existential threat which needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later (within 2-3 years at the most), and the failure of diplomacy at every turn is making military force seem inevitable. Although the military aims would simply be to destroy the installations of the Iranian nuclear project, nobody doubts that the Iranian reaction would take it far beyond that. So a regional war bringing all the members of the Iranian alliance (Iran, Iraq, Syria, and now Lebanon) against Israel is the least we should expect. If, as seems likely, the US and other Western countries are involved in the attack against Iranian nuclear sites, there will also be global repercussions, such as economic instability caused by huge rises in oil prices, and Islamist insurrections throughout the Western world aimed at bringing down the West's economy and civilization.