(Picture By Sebastian Scheiner)One aspect that all wars have in common, is the imposibility to understand certain lines of action. But this past (past?) war on Lebanon has left one unusual question unanswered. An essential piece of information is missing, thus we are unable to understand what's happened. The question is no other than, WHY WERE ISRAEL AND HEZBOLLAH IN WAR?
We, western world, are used to hear about those far away middle-easters killing each other, and seem to be comfortable with the situation. But when some of us go out to find out more, to listen what the political parts have to say, what newspapers have published, we end up with lots of contradicting information. Its normal. War is also fought in the media. But is tiring.
"According to some this is a ‘war on Israel’ by Islamofascist forces supported by Iran and Syria. Others claim it is a ‘war of resistance’ by Hezbollah, which is now apparently part of an ‘arc of resistance’ in the Middle East standing up to Western-backed Israeli aggression. Others still say that Israel’s incursions in Lebanon are the latest stage in an American grand plan to topple hostile regimes across the Middle East and replace them with US-friendly puppets. Or, if you listen to Israel itself, then this is a ‘war against terrorism’ to force Hezbollah 13 miles north of the Israeli border; if you prefer to believe Hezbollah then it is a ‘brave war’ by the guerrilla group to secure the release of their comrades from Israeli jails. Take your pick." Full Article from Brendan O'neill.
I have tried to simplify the situation to myself, to try to get to a reasonable conclusion. In any given war there is an attacker and a defender, (at least at the very begining of the war, later on the roles might change). The defender is obviously defending himself. Therefore, the reason why the war started, why the attacker attacked, must be something the attacker wants.
Going back to the war in Lebanon and adding the above conclusion, plus the fact that Hezbollah is military very inferior to Israel, so inferior that makes it unthinkable that they were looking for war, we obtain that we have to look at Israel and/or its allies for the reason of the war.
We were told during the first days of the crisis, that Israel's attack was in response for the capture of two soldiers by Hezbollah. Of course, the whole world protested for the completely out of proportion sionist response.
Israel's answer was, Wait a second. We are not only fighting for the two soldiers, we are also helping the world fighting terrorism, and helping Lebanon itself to get rid of the terrorist militia." There was less disregard this time (because nowadays, just saying that you are doing war on terror, you can do what you please) but still many people was asking how is it fu***ng possible to continuosly bomb civilians little kids included, saying that your aim is to defend them.
The third time they tried, they finally got to an answer that quieted most of the public. Ok, ok. Yeah, we didn't express ourselves correctly. What we want is to push Hezbollah, 30km into Lebanon, so they can't reach us with their rockets.
We cannot take any of these reasons as the real one because they don't make sense. Well, the last one might be half way right. Might it be that what they really wanted was something situates on those 30 Km? Certainly the reason is not only for the rockets not to get to them, because the rockets would have never been launched, had Israel not initiated the war.
So here we face, the first possible reason of being of this war (Sorry for getting here so slowly, but I find it necessary to show you how I arrive to my conclusions.): WATER.
While the US tries to capture the energetic resources in Africa, Eurasia and South America, Israel is looking for the control of river Litany in south Lebanon, as Terrell E. Arnold points out. But why? One of the main lacks of the hebrew state is water, and the reward for their incursion in Lebanon and the "cleaning out" of the 30 km in the south, is the water of the strategic river Litani. According to Arnold, from Israel'e perspective, there is no other potential source of drinkable water or for irrigation in the region. Since the 30's Ben Gurion, one of the founding fathers of modern Israel, ceived the borders of Israel reaching the Litany river, and others have designed pipelines and tunnels to transport its water to israel. If we have in mind that water equals life, that might explain Israel predisposition to kill and destroy to get those 30km.
What they where not expecting is that at last and international force will occupy that piece of land. Now they have to start worrying about how they'll manage to get water from the river. Stephen Farrell and James Bone from The Times announce the sterilization of the south of Lebanon. Israel has called thousands of soldiers to its north frontier to stablish a cushion zone against Hezbollah. As the Libanese refugees are pushed north of the Litani river no civilians are allowed back in the "cleaned" area. House would also be destroyed so nobody could leave there. Is this not an ETHNIC CLEANSING? But that is out of subject. Let's look at another possible reason.
As you'll notice, the reasons I'm posting are not exclusive one with the others. The next reason I take as real is US's PLANS FOR THE MIDLE EAST. Although there countless interest in the area that might "justify" the attack, we are only going to look at the most direct one. Israel's attack on Hezbollah, rather than defending itself from the shiite party, its eliminating the elemts that disuade George Bush from attacking Iran.
According to Edward Luttwak, after meeting with several US's government members the attack on Iran's nuclear installations was discarted fearing that Hezbollah's response would be bombing Israel. Ephraim Kam, expert in Iranian affairs from the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies in Israel in 2004 also wrote that the threat by Hezbollah to the north of Israel, was one of the main reasons US had to avoid attacking Iran. With this preventive attack, Israel has made Hezbollah "waste" their rockets being this launched without preparation, doing only a fraction of the damage they could have provoked with appropriate preparation and planning. Gerald M. Steinberg from Bar Illon University, said that "Israel pretends a US stand in which launching an attack on Iran is the only option."
Bush knows that confrontating Iran while Hamas and Hezbollah are strong in the area would have a high cost in every sense. In order to negotiate with Iran, they will be in a better position now that Hezbollah has been weakened. Matthew Kalman from the San Francisco Chronicle sent a report from Jerusalem according to which the campaing against Hezbollah has been months in preparation, even when the casus belli has been the capture of the two soldiers. "More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified." Read it all here.
If we have this in mind while recalling the declarations from the Bush administration that never opposed Israel's attack, we might be facing one of the true reasons for the war.
I will probably come back to this issue, but this is all for now. As I always tell you, there are many more facts out there. In my opinion, after searching and searching these are, simplified, the real reasons for the war. But you can too build your own opinion searching on your own.
Some interesting readings:
