do israel's intentions with lebanon align with the west's?

ok, "the north" - sorry!

getting rid of hizbullah (the stated aim, however difficult) and empowering the lebanese govt (er, dropped the ball there guys) would be good western aims, i think.

trashing the lebanese economy, not so much.

i think pretty much everyone in the west/north would've signed up to empowering the lebanese government. i think that's totally secondary to israel.

i must admit i'm stumped

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerGuest.jhtml?itemNo=739842

The gist: The U.S., like Israel, wants Hezbollah disarmed in accordance with the U.N. resolution. Disarmament by the Lebanese government has been impossible because Hezbollah parlimentarians wield enough power to veto any efforts. So the U.S. wants Israel to damage Hezbollah. However, since Hezbollah strongholds are often embedded in densely populated civillian areas, casualties are high, and if (or when) the casualties get too high, the U.S. will no longer be able to support Israel's actions and will have to force a resolution.

Not my opinion necessarily, just summarizing.

It wasn't long ago, don't forget, that Bush was claiming Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" as a victory for democracy in the Middle East.

putting aside, i guess, the question of "what does israel think it's doing", which is the central one here, the most mysterious and opaque to me - if you're right that the us would be happy to see hezbollah decimated (and i don't think you are: the us would simply like hezbollah to give up while still maintaining some kind of legitimacy with shiite lebanese - a tough row to hoe; a destroyed hezbollah would leave an unviable power vacuum - it's the balance of force that has kept the border somewhat stable since israel withdrew its occupation, and the explicit deal that went with it: israel refrains from attacking lebanese civilians, and hezbollah refrains from attacking israeli civilians - this is all up in smoke now) - but, let's say that's what the u.s. wants for the sake of argument - why does it want this?

I don't buy this at all. Hezbollah has been gradually arming itself with missiles since the pull-out, and the Hezbollah cross-border attack on Israeli soldiers was a pretty obvious move to violate any "agreement."

xpost

If "give up" meant "disarm," then the U.S. might live with it. But the U.S. has no interest in an armed and hostile-to-its-interests "political party" staying in power just to maintain some sort of *balance.*

UH.

Hurting OTM.

armies have a way of doing that

gbx it's true that is just wild speculation - i was kinda hoping someone would set me straight on it - could you elaborate on your "UH"? even just a teensy weensy bit? my gut instinct is that a "disarmed" or "decimated" hezbollah would be dangerous to israel in that its lack of muscle would lead to unpredictable results: someone even more extreme would fill the power vacuum, OR moderates like abbas would gain more traction - both would be potentially disastrous

mitya not exactly, but i do believe the west has a kind of template for the resolution of conflict, which is de-escalation leading to negotiated settlement.

I'm sure that Hizbollah has armed itself recently. Does this mean israel has been scaling down its weapons purchases?

i don't understand this fully. i guess last year was seen as a step toward minimizing syrian control of lebanon; and the end of that process has to be the disarmament of hizbullah; ie the lebanon has to control its own territory. flowing from this is the assumption that no other armed force could replace them.

(how much more extreme can you get anyway?)

Imagine if, say, the Aryan Brotherhood was about 10 times its current size and held a handful of seats in U.S. congress. Do you think anyone would worry about disarming them for fear of a "power vacuum?"

It's also a matter of what Iran and Syria want.

We do that in part out of good sense, because prior to Iraq we tended to recognize pretty much what Tracer's talking about -- that if a particular population is militant about something, it's much easier to control their known militant groups than to take apart those groups and leave yourself with a unorganized, unpredictable, and militant public. Hence our recognition that there's some tipping point at which a militant group can be defanged by drawing it into a real political process (and therefore giving it something to loose -- some small bit of power or leverage that can be forfeited by returning to militarism).

bwahahahaha

they have even said: these attacks by israel make us very glad

In other words, if the U.S. thought that Hezbollah could keep the border calm, and that we had any leverage to bargain effectively around their actions, I'm not sure we'd be looking to decimate them -- they'd be a useful point of control. Thing is, the border is distinctly uncalm, and Hezbollah is proving a bigger tool for Syrian power and an increasingly radicalized Iran, so ... that line of thinking ends.

Hurting, if Hezbollah were considered at all "useful" to us, in the terms described above, I'm not sure we'd be looking to decimate them on principle just for being armed!

But the idea of any possibility of Hezbollah keeping the border "calm" is downright laughable! Without Hezbollah, Israel and Lebanon would have almost no reason for tensions!

I.e. if they sat armed and autonomous along the border and the border were calm, we presumably wouldn't have much of a problem with them, and the thinking would be what Tracer outlined above -- decimate them and the border becomes a problem again. But yes, like you say, they have made the border un-calm, and hence the usefulness is deemed at an end.

The larger thread has various Stratfor links I've been slamming up with their take on it, FWIW.

Meantime, George Will wonders at certain people.

-- Tracey Hand (tracerhan...), July 18th, 2006.

Oh give me a break. In what modern nation is it considered legitimate to have an armed political party?

eventually this would be a problem. you can't really be autonomous, as a foreign-backed armed gang.

NROWorld must still be reeling; it's been two days since Will publicly aired a rough draft of that column on the Stephanopoulos show and they haven't responded.

syria is a total cipher in this game, they don't control shit. If they step up as a diplomat or a mediator they could have some effect, as our commander in chief alluded to at G8, but other than that I can't see that they have any significant contributions to make to the eventual outcome.

I don't think israel or the west care about lebanon much beyond a place where a famous band of shitte rebels hangs out, at the moment.
Iran's reaction is the only one that matters.

as for what hezbollah thinks it's doing, that has been addressed, NRQ, upthread - it is obviously a cynical ploy to create the exact kind of extreme reaction israel has now provided it, thus sidelining abbas, who it could be argued represents the end of both israel's territorial ambitions and hezbollah's raison d'etre

which nations in the middle east are you calling modern again?

Podhoretz acknowledged it briefly. But that's it, so far.

Right, which was happening back when Hezbollah was just an armed militia and not a party with representation. But Israel pulled out of Lebanon and Hezbollah was incorporated into the government. Seems like part of the deal ought to be that Hezbollah disarms. The U.N. thought so too.

-- Tracey Hand (tracerhan...), July 18th, 2006

nah, the cost for them is far too great for that to be the case.

TOMBOT probably closer to the money here.

Ahmad Samih Khalidi of Oxford, a former Palestinian negotiator, points out that both the Hamas action that led to Israel's assault on Gaza and the Hezbollah action that led to the current bombardment of Lebanon were military efforts that targeted miltary objectives - not acts of terrorism but in his words "straightforward tactical defeats"

most of it is a blatantly one-sided account of the last 40 years that helps no-one.

"Israel is staking a claim to the exclusive use of force as an instrument of policy and punishment, and is seeking to deny any opposing state or non-state actor a similar right. It is also largely succeeding in portraying its own "right to self-defence" as beyond question, while denying anyone else the same."

but i literally don't see his point with this. of course israel wants a monopoly on the use of force. what kind of 'balance' can there be here? should lebanon allow the (cough) "non-state actors" of hizbullah rights no viable state can allow to groups inside its borders.

the problem here is that israel "going in strong" has meant killing about 200 civilians so far, which breaks the deal between hzblah and isrl - "don't fuck with civilians" - which prompts the question "what is israel thinking" and from there, "is that what israel's western allies want"?

no, not particularly, though i'm sure it would *like* one, much as the US does.

in the interests of balance, maybe israel should just tell hizbullah to keep on keepin' on or something.

Hezbollah gets plenty of help from Iran and may or may not be taking direct orders from it.

I find this sad and shameful. I am not sure what the right course is though.

abbadavid i'm kind of amazed you seem to sympathize with a nation that kills hundreds of civilians in order to maintain a "don't fuck with me" status - if a person behaved that way they would be sent to a lunatic asylum

But I don't entirely sympathize with Israel on this one, I'm just trying to explain Israel's motivation, which is what you asked.

The only alternative explanation I see is the WWIII-scenario - Israel wants to create a larger regional war and draw in the U.S. (or alternately, the U.S. is behind/cooperating with this plan all along), so that it can take out Iran and Syria once and for all. I haven't ruled this out, but I'm kind of waiting to see what happens before I jump to that rather massive conclusion.

and "breaking the back" of hezbollah is just not going to happen, at least judging by the past 24 years

so, what does israel think it's doing? OK OK, i'll spill the beans - the columnist i read on this had a very cynical take on it: israel wants to ensure the peace process does not get a chance because it would have to give up the spoils of its victories; if things get fought out on the battlefield israel gets plenty of reason to continue annexation of land it wants and gives up nothing. the mindset is not "de-escalation --> negotiated settlement", it's "promote extremist elements and then say 'how can a modern nation negotiate with these barbarians'"

it's very very cynical and certainly does not, i think represent the mindset of mainstream israel, but to my mind is the only strategy that fits israel's actions of the past few weeks

xpost - haha now THAT is cynical!! dangggg

yes, but those reputations are something that need to be maintained? every ten years you get a new generation of hotheads, a new international environment. when better to test israel than a moment when the US is mired down in iraq and afghanistan, and has fairly "hot" political issues with both iran and north korea?

Hahaha, given the general course of events over the last 20 years, I don't think Israel would need to actually do anything to advance that aim.

Also, how exactly can Israel pursue "continued annexation" and how can they benefit from it? All Israel has been doing since it gave up Sinai is basically wrangling over the same three slivers of land that it occupies. Not to mention that incorporation of the territories into Israel is like the Israeli right's #1 worst fear right now, because of the so-called "demographic problem."

yeah david, i think it's important to remember that the extremists are carrying the day right now and that both israel AND hezbollah are capable of much greater subtleties than are currently on display right now; both hezbollah and hamas get painted as these wild-eyed crazies but they're very politically canny, and it's really that that provoked my question; leaders don't generally get to be leaders by being insane; i think israel's on-the-face-of-it insane retaliation against lebanon has a deeper intention, and i think it has very little to do with disrupting hezbollah's command and control

But aside from that, what exactly do YOU think is Israel's motivation? Do you really buy that columnist's argument? Because it makes about zero fucking sense.

it's too expensive to remind Iran directly - again, lebanon is just another country in wrong place, wrong time.

to go back a bit, tracer have you ever heard of the uss liberty?

It doesn't work as a political play, and the earlier stuff about this as a 'military victory' is even sillier. Wow, stole 2 soldiers, you sure defeated that Israeli army.

I agree with "Politically canny =/= sane." The leader of the KKK may know how to play the political game within his organization and rise to the top, but a. he's still crazy and b. that doesn't mean that his actions are necessarily going to benefit the KKK's cause.

They have Microsoft Project over there, too, you know.

That's the point though, the way they act, they totally have no need for it.

i see nothing canny in hamas's starvation policy or in these kidnappings.

Okay, I have to admit I'm a bit baffled by this one. Perhaps my history is off; if so, feel free to correct me. But it seems to me that the history here indicates roughly the same sequence of events that Tracer was thinking through upthread. So far as I understand it, Hezbollah only came significant (or useful to the foreign powers that fund them) during a pre-existing conflict between Israel and Lebanon (or anyway the PLO in Lebanon). One could even argue that it was the vacuum created by that conflict that allowed Hezbollah to take up such an autonomous role in southern Lebanon. So I'm not sure why it'd be weird for Tracer to ask if crushing Hezbollah might create a problematic vacuum -- the same way someone a couple decades back might have wondered if rooting through southern Lebanon might end with a group like Hezbollah going strong in the area.

Or was that quoted bit above just supposed to mean now? (Like, as of right now, Lebanon and Israel would have no huge problems if not for Hezbollah?) Which seems true but ahistorical.

Which I actually don't mean as a criticism, just a question -- the same one in the thread title. In other words, how sure is Israel really that going after Hezbollah this way actually improves their position? (According to their go-to speakers, it improves their positions in some kind of principle-oriented way that doesn't have to do with Hezbollah -- the implication lurking there seems to be that, you know, this is some kind of battle between Israel and Iran, being fought through the proxy of Hezbollah.)

Israel, a 19 year old country, while already at war with the entire Middle East, probably isn't going to attack the most powerful country in the world just to spice things up.

think about it for a sec: perhaps maybe for american citizens israel's current incursion into, well, acting like us is perhaps worth EXAMINING how their intentions align with ours? and that in perhaps, in that examination, it is worth looking back to a time when their intentions didn't align with us as they weren't our client-state yet? or is that just conspiracy-mongering, to bring up the past. because, you know, if we bring up '67 somebody might bring up '82 and sabra-shatila or perhaps why the fuck 200+ marines done got blown up in beirut in '83 or gee why don't you just call me an anti-semite?

Also, this discussion is kinda messed from the start. "Israel's intentions"? Israel doesn't have intentions...it has a bunch of crazy people and a multitude of political beliefs, and it always has. You really can't personify countries like this. Even if we defined Israel's intentions as the combined will of the political leaders, the people in control back in 1967 are not the people in control today.

I'm not going to call you an anti-semite.

oh hurting, give it up already.

so in his book yes the west's intentions (making everywhere safe for liberal capitalist democratic blah blah) do veryu much align with israel.

but on some points, viz the greater syria and why the lebanon whould welcome it, i think he's on the pipe.

Hi dere! There are a handful of closet anti-Semites on ILX, but you're definitely not one of them.

by the way, I personally happen to know that hstencil makes jack shit.

NAME NAMES! It is ages since we had an ILX witchhunt. I ACCUSE MARTIN SKIDMORE OF BEING A SECRET RASCIST.

it is essentially true that the French drew the Lebanon-Syria borders in such a way as to make Lebanon as big as possible, in the belief that it would be more pliable and pro-French in the long-term. There was a vague "Mount Lebanon" entity in the 19th century, a kind of semi-autonomous bit of Turkish Syria (sanjak of Damasacus or something, can't remember) where the Maronites got to run things for themselves without having the Turks massacare them too often, but it was very small, not including either Beirut or Tripoli.

arguments on this basis that Lebanon is actually a part of Syria tend to be fairly popular in Syria, but less so in Lebanon.

i didn't know that, and it is interesting, but it's not greatly relevant, in terms of what would be a just lebanon-syrian settlement, today. tariq ali seems to think that there may well be a pro-syrian majority in the lebanon, if only it were allowed to show itself (pro-western organizations have swamped the place). arguments for nation-statehood based on historical precedents have tended to be less compelling than on-the-ground present-tense realities, though the former have an important ideological role.

fairly unpopular with a lot of lebanese, even.

Tariq Ali is mad if he thinks that there is a majority in Lebanon that favours union with Syria. The only idea less popular there would be union with Israel.

Ali 2: "The country's confessional chequerboard has never allowed an accurate census, for fear of revealing that a substantial Muslim - today perhaps even a Shia - majority is denied due representation in the political system."

Ali 3: "The killing of Rafik Hariri provoked vast demonstrations by the middle class, demanding the expulsion of the Syrians, while western organisations arrived to assist the progress of a Cedar Revolution. Backed by threats from Washington and Paris, the momentum was sufficient to force a Syrian withdrawal and produce a weak government in Beirut."

i think the drift of his thoughts here is that syria/hizbullah should run tings in lebanon.

The first is a prominent Israeli leftist saying the U.S. neo-con policy is harming Israel:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746312.html

The second a prominent U.S. neo-con saying that Israel is failing the U.S. neo-con agenda:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301258.html

Naw, not anyone, just you.

(xxpost)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1217413.ece

israel is totally calling the shots right now, FFS.

The first thing by itself does nothing to establish motive/cause, and the second thing is highly subjective - it's usually based on the idea that we're "doing more harm than good to our interests by turning the region more against us." Even if this is true, the U.S. has rarely made it a high priority to avoid angering the populations of countries they get involved with, so I don't see it as evidence that the U.S. would go against what it perceives to be its own interests for Israel's sake.

Right, but that doesn't mean that the CIC and his cab' are controlled by Israel, they're just incompetent.

Now's the part where we bring up Perle, Wolfowitz, etc. as though these *powerful Jews* have somehow brainwashed the much more powerful Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice into doing Israel's bidding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/nyregion/04trail.html?_r=1&oref=slogin