It is hard even to begin to comprehend, from this distance, the scale of the devastation that has been wrought, in a matter of weeks, in Lebanon. It is, in some ways, harder to believe.
Over the past fifteen years, since the end of the Lebanese civil war, the changes for the better there must have seemed like a miracle to those who had lived through the worst of the violence, especially in Beirut. The country had been allowed to get up of its knees and to begin a process of rebuilding. There was a growing feeling of optimism among the people, of the kind of glimmer of contentment that comes with believing that the worst is over. That was cemented last year, with the withdrawal of Syrian troops, the last 250 soldiers having departed in April of 2005.
Now they have been plunged back into misery, displacement, uncertainty and despair by the sustained assault mounted on the country by Israel.
Of course there is a horribly tortured history to all of this. Amid all of the other tensions and conflicts in the region, the character of Lebanon was changed radically with the influx of Palestinians, displaced by Israel, tipping the balance in the population between Christians and Muslims. As a result, the country is riven with sectarianism, and – more recently – the intense rivalry that exists between the Shi’ite muslims and the combined Sunni, Christian and Druze communities contained within what is a small country.
At the heart of the problem are Hezbollah, the mostly Shi’ite, pro-Syrian political party and militia, led by Hasan Nasrallah, who effectively control Southern Lebanon – and whose refusal to disarm is seen as an affront by many Lebanese as well as by Israel.
But they have been around for a long time, and will not simply be wished away. Nor is it likely that they will be easily ground into submission.
However, if the influence of Hezbollah is far from a benign one, the immediate flashpoint for the latest explosion of violence in the area was in fact an incursion by the Israeli Army into Lebanon. In the small town of Ayta al-Sha’b, Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and then offered to trade them for three Lebanese fighters being held prisoner in Israel. It had been done before, in a swap overseen by the former Israeli Prime Minister, the usually hawk-like and uncompromising Ariel Sharon – so this was not an entirely unrealistic demand in the circumstances.
If the Israelis had said fine, a prisoner swap it is, then that would have been the last of it. And if they didn’t want to go that route, there were other diplomatic channels open to them.
But they chose war instead, beginning a merciless and often indiscriminate pounding of Lebanon which has at the last count resulted in close to 400 dead and rising.
There is no justification in hell or on earth for what the Israeli government have done. However one views the capture of the troops – and it is well to remember that the Israeli army had no right to be in Ayta al-Sha’b – their reaction has been entirely disproportionate.
Hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed. Dozens of children are among the dead. Their homes have been destroyed. Communities have been forced into exile. The scale of the destruction of infrastructure has been immense. Electricity and water supplies have been hit. Bridges have been raised. Nothing apparently is sacred in this brutal assault, nothing at all.
Of course, we knew that Israel was capable of this, and worse. We also knew that they would be backed, even in the most bloody and terrible pogrom on the Lebanese, by the warmongers in George Bush’s government and of course by Mr. Bush himself.
But the complicity of the governments of Europe, and the west generally, in the Israeli attack has been deeply shocking. Who would have imagined EU governments blithely overseeing the evacuation of their citizens while the Lebanese are abandoned as cannon fodder? The effect has been to give the Israelis carte blanche to murder innocent people under the pretext that this is some kind of defence of the realm.
There is a desperate need now for Jewish people, or people of Jewish background, all over the world to make their voices heard against the murder of innocents currently being carried out by the Israeli government. The contribution by Jewish people or people of Jewish extraction to music, art and literature has been immense. I think of artists like Saul Bellow, Ayn Rand, J.D.Salinger, E.L. Doctorow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, Paul Auster, Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Harold Pinter, Grace Paley, Serge Gainsbourg, George Gershwin, Burt Bacharach, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Marc Bolan, Mick Jones – I don’t need to go on, do I? – and how wonderful, inspiring and full of humanity their work is. And I know that there are Jews of conscience who do not support the ongoing injustices against the Palestinian people for which the Israeli government has been responsible.
The voices of these people need to be heard. Only if their views are expressed with sufficient power and clarity, both within Israel and outside, are we likely to see the shift in political thinking within Irsrael that will be necessary to bring the hostilities and injustices within the middle east to an end…