Lebanon Shoulders More Damage Than is Acknowledged; Israel Needs Self-Examination
By Michael Lee-Murphy ‘07
News Reporter
The people of Lebanon deserve better. They deserve better than what Israel has dealt them, and they deserve better than what the world has dealt them. They have died in far greater numbers in this new Israeli-Lebanese war than innocents in Israel, yet the United States, and much of the world has not seemed to notice.
There is no doubt that Israel has both the right to exist and to defend itself. However the action’s taken by Israel in this summer’s war have gone far beyond these rights. The bombing of exclusively civilian homes and shelters beyond Israel’s borders are acts of hostility and aggression, not defense. The killing of four unarmed UN observers, the bombing of a shelter in Qana killing 28 (16 of whom) were children, and the reduction of southern Beirut to rubble all indicate over-aggression and a willingness to openly target innocents on the part of the Israeli military. This extreme reaction has been supported and sustained by a US foreign policy that meanwhile consistently opposed a cease fire in Lebanon, making it one of the few countries in the world to do so. Additionally, the United States has encouraged Israel’s belligerence in both Gaza and southern Lebanon by providing military funding and diplomatic bolstering.
A report, compiled and released by Amnesty International, points to the targeted destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure. The Beirut International Airport was among the first bombed targets in the war, and was repeatedly bombed throughout the attacks. By targeting job-providing institutions such as the plastics factory in Tyre, and the pharmaceutical plant in Showeifat, the Israeli Defense Forces have not only killed masses of civilians, but have also crippled the economic sector. So much so, the Lebanese government estimates put the unemployment rate at approximately 75 percent. Of the 1,183 deaths on the Lebanese side, UNICEF has reported an estimated 1/3 of them to be children. The two government hospitals in Bint Jbeil and Meis al-Jebel were completely destroyed by the IDF, and more sustaining heavy damage. Israel’s blockade of Lebanon had made it impossible for supplies and any kind of aid to be delivered to the bombed out town of Lebanon, and thus exacerbated the humanitarian crises there. Many Lebanese were also trapped in the war zone, as it was the policy of the IDF to bomb any moving vehicle south of the Litani River from August 7 onward.
As a result of these heinous war tactics employed the IDF, and a pledge made by Hezbollah to rebuild southern Lebanon, many of the country’s secular, moderate Muslims, who would have opposed Hezbollah’s actions at the start of the war, are now driven to support these same guerillas because at this point they are the only hope for civilian support in south Lebanon.
Much has been said about the Hezbollah tactic of filling their rockets with ball bearings to inflict as much death and destruction as possible, but very little has been said about the Israeli use of cluster bombs which are woefully inaccurate and intended to cause intense, indiscriminate damage.
Opposition to the way in which the Israeli government handled the war in Lebanon is present among Israeli civilians as well. A poll conducted of Israelis by the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot concluded that 63% of Israelis felt that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should step down because of his mishandling of the war.
While Israel does have the right to defend itself, it does not have the right to engage in war crimes and the systematic targeting of civilians in the same manner as Hezbollah. As the English journalist Robert Fisk accurately noted, Israeli has killed far more civilians than it did guerillas, while Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, killed more Israeli combatants than it did civilians. With damage estimated at US $3.5 billion, and a terrorist guerilla army spearheading the relief effort, one needs to seriously consider the question posed by Lebanese president Fouad Siniora: in the eyes of the world, “Are [the Lebanese] children of a lesser God?”
