Of Course!
Now I understand. Now what’s happening makes sense.
Juan Cole cuts through the rhetoric to the heart of the Israeli demands:
1. The return of two captured Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah
2. A withdrawal of Hizbullah to the Litani River, 30 mi. or so north of the Israeli border deeper into Lebanon.
3. Cessation of rocket attacks on Israel
It is worth noting that if this is what Israel wants, two of the three could have been gotten without reducing the entire country of Lebanon to rubble. They could have traded 3 Hizbullah members in their custody for the 2 Israeli soldiers. And, if they hadn’t gone wild bombing everything in sight it is unlikely Hizbullah would have shelled them on this scale in the first place.
As for the demand that Hizbullah withdraw (presumably this means its paramilitary fighters) to the Litani, that talking point will inspire the profoundest fear in the Lebanese that Israel is essentially attempting to move its border north and make the Litany the new border, thus staking a clear claim on the waters of the river, which Israelis have coveted since 1948. It is a non-starter politically, though whether it can be attained with violence is yet to be seen.
[You should read the item that follows this quote if you think Professor Cole is one-sided, unless you think referring to the leader of Hezbollah as a meglomanic, war criminal, and mad bomber is complimentary.]
Westerners think of oil as the most precious liquid in the Middle East, but value is determined by scarcity – there’s a lot of oil, but damn little water.
If you study the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank you will notice the coincidence with available water resources. The Israelis withdrew settlements from the Gaza Strip because, among other lacks, they were having to supply drinking water from Israel. The ground water in Gaza is brackish and overused because of the large Palestinian population.
This whole mess is, was, and always will be at its core about water. Israel is using the Hezbollah raid as an excuse to acquire another water source. Moving the border 30 miles further north is absurd, Hezbollah has already demonstrated that their rockets have extended ranges, so that move won’t provide security.
11 comments
Most interesting…thanks for the short-hand version of the Middle-east Up in Flaming bombs synopsis.
Yikes…and not a real Diplomat in Sight! *blech*!
Karen, I lived in California for over a decade and have a sensitivity to water issues. Much of Western politics is about water issues, and we are starting to have issues down here.
If you have never seen the movie Chinatown, it eventually gets around to exposing the issue.
I’ll agree with everything Cole says except this – “They could have traded 3 Hizbullah members in their custody for the 2 Israeli soldiers.”
Baloney. Since when did Hezbollah or Hamas trade so many Israeli prisoners/kidnap victims for so few in return? The ratio is always tremendously higher. it’s quite true Nasrallah has said there could be an exchange, but he declined to say how many. Past experience doesn’t point to as little as three.
They ask for thousands and settle for a few. Israel cleans out its prisons of people who have served their sentence and claims it is part of the exchange. It would have been the three Hezbollah plus everyone that didn’t pose a threat, but Israel wanted to deport.
The part people miss about these exchanges is that those released are banned from Israel and the occupied territories. By doing this in these exchanges they do something that the Israeli Supreme Court won’t permit, deportation without a hearing. The US isn’t the only government that doesn’t like checks and balances.
The real point is that negotiations on a prisoner exchange should have been initiated through Egypt or Jordan before everyone started blowing things up. There is always time to blow things up, but there is no way to reverse the process.
Israel is being pure stupid with this action; I wouldn’t go so far as to say they had sympathy in the Arab world, but Hezbollah didn’t have that many cheerleaders after the initial incident – there were plenty of Arab voices condemning Hezbollah’s actions, and Israel should have taken advantage of it.
But they didn’t; Olmert seems to be rather anxious to establish his “Yee Haw” credentials and has put the inmates in charge of the asylum. It’s distressingly familiar.
The prisoner exchange ratio is pretty heavily weighted away from Israel. Should prisoners be released back into the general population? That’s a judgement I hesitate to make, as I don’t live surrounded by people sworn to kill me. If I did, I suspect I’d be pretty quick to pull the trigger, too.
Israel has plenty to answer for; what country doesn’t? And yes, some of it is pretty unforgiveable. But you have to view Israel’s actions against two dynamics – living in a rough neighborhood, and that collective survival trauma. I just don’t belong to the “Everything Israel does is evil” crowd.
Don’t misunderstand me, the Israeli government isn’t evil, it’s stupid, just like the American government. Its thinking is poisoned by testosterone.
If Israel had gone to Egypt to act as an intermediate, Egypt would have gotten a much needed boost in the Islamic world by demonstrating a benefit to dealing with Israel, and Israel would have been downgraded as the “great Satan” by being reasonable.
Hezbollah would have lost prestige by causing needless trouble. You have to remember that Hezbollah is Shi’ia and not trusted by the Sunni governments with Shi’ia minorities.
Now Hezbollah is being sold as a supporter of the Palestinian cause, which is not really true in the politics of Lebabon.
As for prisoners, not everyone in Israeli jails is political, they have plenty of common criminals to release and pad the figures.
I think Brian’s points are very interesting since they highlight a rarely raised point… There is always a lot more than meets the eye…
I also would say that there are a number of dynamics at play in Israel. I cannot imagine the cultural trauma they endured. However, let’s remember that there have been many other groups that have endured similar experiences while the world merely watched (Armenians, Rwandans, etc.). However, I must point that it may be helpful for traumatized countries to be approached in similar ways as traumatized individuals, support, structure, limits, and careful interventions… We don’t let Vietnam vets go on shooting rampants when they have flashbacks and merely state, “They’ve been through a lot.” I don’t see why we should allow countries to do just that.
Squeaky, you’re right on the money. The ‘situation’ is certainly not black & white, and there are so many layers and dimensions that it’s just Bush-ignorant to think a simple ‘disarm Hezbollah’-type solution or ‘give the land back to the Palestinians’ will make everything end happily ever after.
Neither should Israel be expected to forswear military force when fools like Iran’s Ahmadinejad openly advocate for Israel’s destruction.
I don’t mean to offer Jewish trauma as an excuse for being the neighborhood bully, but it is critical to understanding how Israel will react to provocation, perceived or otherwise. Using the example of the traumatized war veteran – we don’t condone a shooting rampage, but we don’t deliberately provoke it, either.
I like Cole’s stuff
A major problem for all concerned is that everyone, including Israel’s enemies know exactly how Israel will respond, and that is being used as a weapon against the real interests of all of the people in the area.
Everyone should just ignore Ahmadinejad. He doesn’t even have the power to allow women to watch football matches in Iran. His position isn’t as powerful as Prince Charles in the United Kingdom. He doesn’t control the military or the Iranian foreign ministry, so people should just ignore him. The last official move he was able to get away with was to complain about young Iranians walking dogs. He should be viewed as similar to, but less powerful than Rush Limbaugh.
[…] Back in mid July Juan Cole provided me with the epiphany that produced Of Course. […]