peace.seeker.27 a écrit :

August 7, 2006
Goliath Pretending to be David
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.

If there were any remaining illusions about the purpose of Israel's
war
against Lebanon, the draft United Nations Security Council resolution
calling for a "cessation of major hostilities" published at the
weekend
should finally dispel them. This entirely one-sided document was
drafted, the Hebrew-language media have reported, with close Israeli
involvement. The top adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud
Olmert, talked through the resolution with the US and French teams,
while the Israeli Foreign Ministry had its man alongside John Bolton
[yet another of Israel's men, Ed.] at the UN building in New York.

The only thing preventing Israeli officials from jumping up and down
with glee, according Aluf Benn of the daily Haaretz newspaper, was
the
fear that "demonstrated Israeli enthusiasm for the draft could
influence support among Security Council members, who could demand a
change in wording that may adversely affect Israel." So no
celebration
parties till the resolution is passed.

Instead, in a ploy familiar from previous negotiating processes,
Israel
submitted to the US a list of requests for amendments to the
resolution. When Israel agrees to forgo these amendments, it will, of
course, be able to take credit for its flexibility and desire to
compromise; Lebanon and Hizbullah, on the other hand, will be cast as
villains, rejecting international peace-making efforts.

The reason for Israel's barely concealed pleasure is that Hizbullah
now
faces an international diplomatic and public relations assault in
place
of the unsuccessful Israeli military one. Israel, and the United
States, are trying to set a series of traps for Hizbullah -- and
Lebanon too -- that will justify Israel's reoccupation of south
Lebanon, the further ethnic cleansing of the country, and a widening
of
the war to include Iran, and possibly Syria.

The clues have not been hard to decode. The US Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice, characterized the aim of the resolution as
clarifying
who is acting in good faith. "We're going to know who really did want
to stop the violence and who didn't," she said. Or, in other words,
we
are going to be able to blame Hizbullah for the hostilities because
we
have offered them terms of surrender we know they will never agree
to.

The main sticking point for Hizbullah is to be found in the
resolution's requirement that it must stop fighting and begin a
process
of disarmament at a time when Israeli forces are still occupying
Lebanese territory and when there may be a lengthy, if not
interminable, wait for their replacement by international
peacekeepers.
Not only that, but the resolution allows Israel to continue its
military operations for defensive purposes: Hizbullah only has to
look
to Gaza or the West Bank to see what Israel is likely to consider
falling under the rubric of "defensive".

Hizbullah has been stockpiling weapons since Israel's withdrawal in
May
2000 precisely to create a "balance of deterrence", to make Israel
more
cautious about sating its appetite for occupying its neighbors'
lands,
particularly when the neighbor is a small country like Lebanon
without
a proper army and divided into many sectarian groups, some of which,
for a price, may be willing to collaborate with Israel.

This time, however, as Israeli troops struggle back towards the
Litani
River and their initial goal of creating a "buffer zone" similar to
the
one they held on to for nearly two decades, the Lebanese are rallying
behind Hizbullah, convinced that the Shiite militia is their only
protection against Western machinations for a "new Middle East".

Israel and Washington, however, may hope that, given time, they can
break that national solidarity by provoking a civil war in Lebanon to
deplete local energies, similar to Israel's attempts at engineering
feuds between Hamas and Fatah in the occupied Palestinian
territories.
Certainly, it is difficult to make sense otherwise of Israel's
bombing
for the first time of Christian neighborhoods in Beirut and what
looks
like the intended ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims from Sidon, which
was leafletted by Israeli war planes at the weekend.

On the US-Israeli view, a nation of refugees living in an open-air
prison cut off from the outside world and deprived of food and aid --
a
more ambitious version of the Gaza model -- may eventually be
persuaded
to take their wrath out on their Shiite defenders.

Hizbullah understands that the proposal to bring in a force of
international peacekeepers is another trap. Either the foreign troops
will never arrive, because on these Israeli-imposed terms there can
be
no ceasefire, or, if they do arrive, they will quickly become a proxy
occupation army. Israel will have its new South Lebanon Army,
supplied
direct this time from the UN and subsidised by the West. If Hizbullah
fights, it will be killing foreign peacekeepers not Israeli soldiers.

But Israel knows the international force is almost certainly a
non-starter, which seems to be the main reason it has now, belatedly,
become so enthusiastic for it. Senior Israeli government officials
were
saying as much in the Hebrew media on Sunday.

Israel's Justice Minister, the increasingly hawkish Haim Ramon,
summed
up the view from Tel Aviv: "Even if it is passed, it is doubtful that
Hezbollah will honor the resolution and halt its fire. Therefore we
have to continue fighting, continue hitting anyone we can hit in
Hezbollah, and I assume that as long as that goes on, Israel's
standing, diplomatically and militarily, will improve."

Israel hopes it will be able to keep hitting Hizbullah harder -- at
less cost to its troops and civilians, and with improved diplomatic
standing -- because in the next phase, after the resolution is
passed,
the Shiite militia will find that one arm has been tied, figuratively
speaking, behind its back.

Not only will Washington and Israel blame Hizbullah for refusing to
agree to the ceasefire but they will seek to use any retaliation
against Israeli "defensive" aggression -- including, presumably,
further invasion -- as a pretext for widening the war and dragging in
the real target of their belligerence: Iran.

This subterfuge was voiced at the weekend by Israel's ambassador to
the
UN, Dan Gillerman, who told the BBC that if Hizbullah fired at Tel
Aviv
-- which it has threatened to do if Israel continues attacking Beirut
-- this would be tantamount to an "act of war" that could only have
been ordered by Iran. In other words, at some point soon Israel may
stop blaming Hizbullah and turn its fire -- defensively, of course --
on Iran.

This linkage is being carefully prepared by Olmert. On Monday,
according to the Hebrew press, he told some 50 government
spokespeople
what message to deliver to the foreign media: "Our enemy is not
Hezbollah, but Iran, which employs Hezbollah as its agent." According
to Haaretz, he urged the spokespeople "not to be ashamed to express
emotion and appeal to feelings".

So in the coming days, in the wake of this US-Israeli concoction of
an
impossible peace, we are going to be hearing a lot more nonsense from
Israel and the White House about Iran's role in supposedly initiating
and expanding this war, its desire to "wipe Israel off the map" and
the
nuclear weapons it is developing so that it can achieve its aim.

The capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 will be decoupled from
Hizbullah's domestic objectives. No one will talk of those soldiers
as
bargaining chips in the prisoner swap Hizbullah has been demanding;
or
as an attempt by Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to deflect
US-inspired political pressure on him to disarm his militia and leave
Lebanon defenceless to Israel's long-planned invasion; or as a
populist
show of solidarity by Hizbullah with the oppressed Palestinians of
Gaza.

Those real causes of hostilities will be ignored as more, mostly
Lebanese, civilians die, and Israel and the US expand the theatre of
war. Instead we will hear much of the rockets that are still landing
in
northern Israel and how they have been supplied by Iran. The fact
that
Hizbullah attacks followed rather than precipitated Israel's massive
bombardment of Lebanon will be forgotten. Rockets fired by Hizbullah
to
stop Israeli aggression against Lebanon will be retold as an
Iranian-inspired war to destroy the Jewish state. The nuclear-armed
Goliath of Israel will, once again, be transformed into a plucky
little
David. Or at least such is the Israeli and U.S. scenario.

[Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook08072006.html

In any case, Iran and Syria have been warned (inclusively by other
Arab states) not to interfere with the dispute between Israel,
lebanon, and Hizbollah.
They won't intefere, and the US and Israel will not have any occasion
to launch an "acceptable" attack on these countries.
Besides, the Arab League is dealing with the issue, and they will take
control of the decision process at the UN, in case it get stalled, or
in case Israel makes the most of the delays to launch more military
actions in Lebanon.
The Arab league would just sky-rocket gas prices, and the UN will have
to find a solution (i.e. the US will have to cooperate with the UN so
that a solution emerges)
Iran know they have much better to do than retaliate in a war that
geographically is not their concern, and does not have to be their
concern.
Iran has other and higher ambitions.
And Syria won't play the Villain either in the show with Israel. They
just want to have their say in Lebanese affairs, and they already had.
The main concern for Israel now should be the growing antisemitism in
the US, rather than border dispute. This will blossom anytime when the
US face difficulties with new challengers (e.g. china, India, etc.)