[E-rundbrief] Info 424 - Avnery: The Real Aim. Israels Army in Lebanon.

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 424 - Uri Avnery (Israel): The Real Aim (of 
Israel's army invading Lebanon).

Bad Ischl, 15.7.2006

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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The Real Aim

Uri Avnery

15.7.06

THE REAL aim is to change the regime in Lebanon and to install a 
puppet government.

That was the aim of Ariel Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It 
failed. But Sharon and his pupils in the military and political 
leadership have never really given up on it.

As in 1982, the present operation, too, was planned and is being 
carried out in full coordination with the US.

As then, there is no doubt that it is coordinated with a part of the 
Lebanese elite.

That's the main thing. Everything else is noise and propaganda.


ON THE eve of the 1982 invasion, Secretary of State Alexander Haig 
told Ariel Sharon that, before starting it, it was necessary to have 
a "clear provocation", which would be accepted by the world.

The provocation indeed took place - exactly at the appropriate time - 
when Abu-Nidal's terror gang tried to assassinate the Israeli 
ambassador in London. This had no connection with Lebanon, and even 
less with the PLO (the enemy of Abu-Nidal), but it served its purpose.

This time, the necessary provocation has been provided by the capture 
of the two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah. Everyone knows that they 
cannot be freed except through an exchange of prisoners. But the huge 
military campaign that has been ready to go for months was sold to 
the Israeli and international public as a rescue operation.

(Strangely enough, the very same thing happened two weeks earlier in 
the Gaza Strip. Hamas and its partners captured a soldier, which 
provided the excuse for a massive operation that had been prepared 
for a long time and whose aim is to destroy the Palestinian government.)


THE DECLARED aim of the Lebanon operation is to push Hizbullah away 
from the border, so as to make it impossible for them to capture more 
soldiers and to launch rockets at Israeli towns. The invasion of the 
Gaza strip is also officially aimed at getting Ashkelon and Sderot 
out of the range of the Qassams.

That resembles the 1982 "Operation Peace for Gallilee". Then, the 
public and the Knesset were told that the aim of the war was to "push 
the Katyushas 40 km away from the border".

That was a deliberate lie. For 11 months before the war, not a single 
Katyusha rocket (nor a single shot) had been fired over the border. 
 From the beginning, the aim of the operation was to reach Beirut and 
install a Quisling dictator. As I have recounted more than once, 
Sharon himself told me so nine months before the war, and I duly 
published it at the time, with his consent (but unattributed).

Of course, the present operation also has several secondary aims, 
which do not include the freeing of the prisoners. Everybody 
understands that that cannot be achieved by military means. But it is 
probably possible to destroy some of the thousands of missiles that 
Hizbullah has accumulated over the years. For this end, the army 
chiefs are ready to endanger the inhabitants of the Israeli towns 
that are exposed to the rockets. They believe that that is 
worthwhile, like an exchange of chess figures.

Another secondary aim is to rehabilitate the "deterrent power" of the 
army. That is a codeword for the restoration of the army's injured 
pride that has suffered a severe blow from the daring military 
actions of Hamas in the south and Hizbullah in the north.


OFFICIALLY, THE Israeli government demands that the Government of 
Lebanon disarm Hizbullah and remove it from the border region.

That is clearly impossible under the present Lebanese regime, a 
delicate fabric of ethno-religious communities. The slightest shock 
can bring the whole structure crashing down and throw the state into 
total anarchy - especially after the Americans succeeded in driving 
out the Syrian army, the only element that has for years provided 
some stability.

The idea of installing a Quisling in Lebanon is nothing new. In 1955, 
David Ben-Gurion proposed taking a "Christian officer" and installing 
him as dictator. Moshe Sharet showed that this idea was based on 
complete ignorance of Lebanese affairs and torpedoed it. But 27 years 
later, Ariel Sharon tried to put it into effect nevertheless. Bashir 
Gemayel was indeed installed as president, only to be murdered soon 
afterwards. His brother, Amin, succeeded him and signed a peace 
agreement with Israel, but was driven out of office. (The same 
brother is now publicly supporting the Israeli operation.)

The calculation now is that if the Israeli Air Force rains heavy 
enough blows on the Lebanese population - paralysing the sea- and 
airports, destroying the infrastructure, bombarding residential 
neighborhoods, cutting the Beirut-Damascus highroad etc. - the public 
will get furious with Hizbullah and pressure the Lebanese government 
into fulfilling Israel's demands. Since the present government cannot 
even dream of doing so, a dictatorship will be set up with Israel's support.

That is the military logic. I have my doubts. It can be assumed that 
most Lebanese will react as any other people on earth would: with 
fury and hatred towards the invader. That happened in 1982, when the 
Shiites in the south of Lebanon, until then as docile as a doormat, 
stood up against the Israeli occupiers and created the Hizbullah, 
which has become the strongest force in the country. If the Lebanese 
elite now becomes tainted as collaborators with Israel, it will be 
swept off the map. (By the way, have the Qassams and Katyushas caused 
the Israeli population to exert pressure on our government to give 
up? Quite the contrary.)

The American policy is full of contradictions. President Bush wants 
"regime change" in the Middle East, but the present Lebanese regime 
has only recently been set up by under American pressure. In the 
meantime, Bush has succeeded only in breaking up Iraq and causing a 
civil war (as foretold here). He may get the same in Lebanon, if he 
does not stop the Israeli army in time. Moreover, a devastating blow 
against Hizbullah may arouse fury not only in Iran, but also among 
the Shiites in Iraq, on whose support all of Bush's plans for a 
pro-American regime are built.

So what's the answer? Not by accident, Hizbullah has carried out its 
soldier-snatching raid at a time when the Palestinians are crying out 
for succor. The Palestinian cause is popular all over the Arab word. 
By showing that they are a friend in need, when all other Arabs are 
failing dismally, Hizbullah hopes to increase its popularity. If an 
Israeli-Palestinian agreement had been achieved by now, Hizbullah 
would be no more than a local Lebanese phenomenon, irrelevant to our 
situation.


LESS THAN three months after its formation, the Olmert-Peretz 
government has succeeded in plunging Israel into a two-front war, 
whose aims are unrealistic and whose results cannot be foreseen.

If Olmert hopes to be seen as Mister Macho-Macho, a Sharon # 2, he 
will be disappointed. The same goes for the desperate attempts of 
Peretz to be taken seriously as an imposing Mister Security. 
Everybody understands that this campaign - both in Gaza and in 
Lebanon - has been planned by the army and dictated by the army. The 
man who makes the decisions in Israel now is Dan Halutz. It is no 
accident that the job in Lebanon has been turned over to the Air Force.

The public is not enthusiastic about the war. It is resigned to it, 
in stoic fatalism, because it is being told that there is no 
alternative. And indeed, who can be against it? Who does not want to 
liberate the "kidnapped soldiers"? Who does not want to remove the 
Katyushas and rehabilitate deterrence? No politician dares to 
criticize the operation (except the Arab MKs, who are ignored by the 
Jewish public). In the media, the generals reign supreme, and not 
only those in uniform. There is almost no former general who is not 
being invited by the media to comment, explain and justify, all 
speaking in one voice.

(As an illustration: Israel's most popular TV channel invited me to 
an interview about the war, after hearing that I had taken part in an 
anti-war demonstration. I was quite surprised. But not for long - an 
hour before the broadcast, an apologetic talk-show host called and 
said that there had been a terrible mistake - they really meant to 
invite Professor Shlomo Avineri, a former Director General of the 
Foreign Office who can be counted on to justify any act of the 
government, whatever it may be, in lofty academic language.)

"Inter arma silent Musae" - when the weapons speak, the muses fall 
silent. Or, rather: when the guns roar, the brain ceases to function.


AND JUST a small thought: when the State of Israel was founded in the 
middle of a cruel war, a poster was plastered on the walls: "All the 
country - a front! All the people - an army!"

58 Years have passed, and the same slogan is still as valid as it was 
then. What does that say about generations of statesmen and generals?

(Deutsche Fassung: www.uri-avnery.de)

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