Saturday, July 29, 2006
No ceasefire.
Some bloggers have been reluctant to comment on the situation in Lebanon reasoning that they don’t know a great deal about it. Neither do I, but I feel I must comment on some aspects.
Firstly as I understand it, Hezbollah don’t recognise the right for Israel to exist and have called for the Jews to be “driven into the sea”.
Secondly they have been firing rockets against Israel and in particular into civilian areas. That there has been minimal loss of life from these is only down to their ineffectiveness and doesn’t lessen the malice of the deed or the potential of the threat posed.
Thirdly they have kidnapped two Israeli servicemen.
The current situation has come about as a direct result of the third action, but the other two are also significant.
Civilian casualties and targets in war. I’m no international lawyer and I don’t know what international law says regarding these, in any event for me it is irrelevant. My view is that it is wrong to target and attack civilian and civilian infrastructure targets per se. In any war though you have to incapacitate military targets, any element of infrastructure that can be used militarily in an offensive manner is in my view a legitimate target, so roads, railways, ports and airports are legitimate; hospitals (including those used by the military) are not. If there are military targets in civilian areas then it is legitimate to attack those targets provided your goal is to prevent those targets being used militarily; also in any such attack you must attempt to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, but even the certain knowledge that civilians will be killed in the attack does not in my view de-legitimise the target.
I don’t believe (obviously I don’t know) that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians.
It seems clear now that Hezbollah have been spending quite some years in preparing military positions, without any regard to, or possibly deliberately in, civilian areas. It also seems that they didn’t think their recent actions would provoke the Israeli response they have, but that’s just their bad judgement; it isn’t remorse, or a desire for a peaceful solution.
Now one of the reasons a ceasefire might be called in a war is that both sides need the time to re-group and reinforce so they might bilaterally agree a ceasefire, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. What appears here is that one side has, without realising what they’re doing, stirred up a hornet’s nest and found it’s bigger than they thought. That’s not ceasefire time, that’s surrender time. That aside, there is a fundamental reason why no ceasefire is possible, and that is Hezbollah who want the ceasefire refuse to recognise Israel’s right to exist. How can you have a ceasefire (except a temporary one) with an enemy that refuses to recognise your right to exist? Of course, you cannot.
There isn’t a single Western country that should be calling for a ceasefire, it will solve nothing; all it would do is prevent Hezbollah from getting what they deserve. It would make Hezbollah stronger and it would put us in the West in a much weaker position; and we know from experience that the same types of people target us and have caused death and destruction to civilian life here. If we called for a ceasefire we wouldn’t be any safer, we’ll still be targets, and the preachers of hate would use it as an example of just how soft we are; I’ll admit to not being well informed of events in Lebanon, but I suspect I might have heard, if after the suicide bombs in London there had been an outcry from Lebanese civilians about that attack on civilians or calls from them for the Islamic extremists to cease attacking us. I doubt a ceasefire would be used to even attempt to negotiate a long lasting and peaceful settlement. All it would achieve is to allow Hezbollah to keep the strength they have built up and they will use any ceasefire to grow stronger still. Civilian casualties would perhaps cease temporarily, but what happens the next time? An even worse conflict?
If Hezbollah want a ceasefire then they must recognise the right of Israel to exist; they must agree to give up substantial armament to be destroyed by a United States led UN operation; they must return the kidnapped soldiers; and they must cease and apologise for their rocket attacks into Israel. If they were to do that then there might be something that some sort of peace could be built on and I’d argue a ceasefire would be worth trying. Until they’re prepared to do that, let them face the Israelis who they’ve provoked. I don’t like war, or the idea of war, but I can’t see the point in Israel pulling back from this, just to have to fight a bigger and greater danger in a few years time.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
Firstly as I understand it, Hezbollah don’t recognise the right for Israel to exist and have called for the Jews to be “driven into the sea”.
Secondly they have been firing rockets against Israel and in particular into civilian areas. That there has been minimal loss of life from these is only down to their ineffectiveness and doesn’t lessen the malice of the deed or the potential of the threat posed.
Thirdly they have kidnapped two Israeli servicemen.
The current situation has come about as a direct result of the third action, but the other two are also significant.
Civilian casualties and targets in war. I’m no international lawyer and I don’t know what international law says regarding these, in any event for me it is irrelevant. My view is that it is wrong to target and attack civilian and civilian infrastructure targets per se. In any war though you have to incapacitate military targets, any element of infrastructure that can be used militarily in an offensive manner is in my view a legitimate target, so roads, railways, ports and airports are legitimate; hospitals (including those used by the military) are not. If there are military targets in civilian areas then it is legitimate to attack those targets provided your goal is to prevent those targets being used militarily; also in any such attack you must attempt to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, but even the certain knowledge that civilians will be killed in the attack does not in my view de-legitimise the target.
I don’t believe (obviously I don’t know) that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians.
It seems clear now that Hezbollah have been spending quite some years in preparing military positions, without any regard to, or possibly deliberately in, civilian areas. It also seems that they didn’t think their recent actions would provoke the Israeli response they have, but that’s just their bad judgement; it isn’t remorse, or a desire for a peaceful solution.
Now one of the reasons a ceasefire might be called in a war is that both sides need the time to re-group and reinforce so they might bilaterally agree a ceasefire, that doesn’t appear to be the case here. What appears here is that one side has, without realising what they’re doing, stirred up a hornet’s nest and found it’s bigger than they thought. That’s not ceasefire time, that’s surrender time. That aside, there is a fundamental reason why no ceasefire is possible, and that is Hezbollah who want the ceasefire refuse to recognise Israel’s right to exist. How can you have a ceasefire (except a temporary one) with an enemy that refuses to recognise your right to exist? Of course, you cannot.
There isn’t a single Western country that should be calling for a ceasefire, it will solve nothing; all it would do is prevent Hezbollah from getting what they deserve. It would make Hezbollah stronger and it would put us in the West in a much weaker position; and we know from experience that the same types of people target us and have caused death and destruction to civilian life here. If we called for a ceasefire we wouldn’t be any safer, we’ll still be targets, and the preachers of hate would use it as an example of just how soft we are; I’ll admit to not being well informed of events in Lebanon, but I suspect I might have heard, if after the suicide bombs in London there had been an outcry from Lebanese civilians about that attack on civilians or calls from them for the Islamic extremists to cease attacking us. I doubt a ceasefire would be used to even attempt to negotiate a long lasting and peaceful settlement. All it would achieve is to allow Hezbollah to keep the strength they have built up and they will use any ceasefire to grow stronger still. Civilian casualties would perhaps cease temporarily, but what happens the next time? An even worse conflict?
If Hezbollah want a ceasefire then they must recognise the right of Israel to exist; they must agree to give up substantial armament to be destroyed by a United States led UN operation; they must return the kidnapped soldiers; and they must cease and apologise for their rocket attacks into Israel. If they were to do that then there might be something that some sort of peace could be built on and I’d argue a ceasefire would be worth trying. Until they’re prepared to do that, let them face the Israelis who they’ve provoked. I don’t like war, or the idea of war, but I can’t see the point in Israel pulling back from this, just to have to fight a bigger and greater danger in a few years time.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
