It is Lebanon, not Israel, that faces a threat to its existence

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,1840842,00.html

The Franco-US resolution is an absurdity: it would give Israel immunity while denying Lebanon the right to defend itself

Ahmad Samih Khalidi
Thursday August 10, 2006
The Guardian


As Lebanon is brought to its knees, and Israeli leaders promise yet more of the same, there is something truly extraordinary about the manner in which the war on Lebanon is being portrayed as a war for Israel's survival, as if it were the existence of the Jewish state that were at risk.
Whatever else it may be, this is a war between palpable unequals: a giant nuclear-armed power with the most advanced western military hardware and a potential ground force of up to 650,000 trained men, against a tiny third-world guerrilla force of around 5,000 fighters, armed largely with second-hand former eastern bloc hardware (the first Katyusha rockets were developed in the early 1940s) and castoffs from Iran and Syria.

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If Hizbullah, as many have argued, is indeed the people of south Lebanon and the voice of Shia Lebanese empowerment, then the Israelis seem to believe that the best means of defeating them is to disperse them, uproot the communities in which they thrive, and destroy the infrastructure that sustains them and provides them with their means of livelihood.

That is why Israel has been pounding away at the Shia areas of south Beirut that Hizbullah evacuated even before the bombing began. That is why it is attacking Shia population centres in the Beka'a valley in the east of the country. And that is why it is deliberately depopulating south Lebanon, driving almost a million civilians northwards in the hope of destroying what remains of the area's infrastructure, so as to make it impossible for its residents to return home any time in the near future. As in Gaza - which has been hit by 12,000 artillery shells over the past six weeks - Israel is creating a system of free fire and buffer zones, where it will be free to act in response to any "provocation".

Sadly, there is really not much new here. Depopulation is a longstanding Israeli expedient, used sometimes for grand strategic purposes, as in the 1948 war in Palestine, and at other times for less grandiose aims, but no less painfully, as in Lebanon in the 1978, 1982 and 1996 invasions.

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poured across the border, since they were contained in Sabra and Shatila, since the enraged Lebanese murdered them there.

Lebanon has been a pawn since then. Existence? As a sovereign nation? WHAT SOVEREIGN NATION CONTAINS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION ARMING FOR WAR AGAINST A NEIGHBOR NATION AND DOES NOTHING? Lebanon is a hostage. And the Palestinians and Syrians and Iranians are sacrificing it.

Shouldn't you wonder why?

How dare Israel use their resistance to justify destroying Lebanon now!

Israel should be made once again to occupy what they've destroyed, and to pay the price for that occupation.

years ago they were forced out when Israel came into existence.
Why are now 800,000+ Lebanese refugees? they were forced out when Israel wanted to "flatten villages" in Southern Lebanon.

"WHAT SOVEREIGN NATION CONTAINS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION ARMING FOR WAR AGAINST A NEIGHBOR NATION AND DOES NOTHING?"

That nation would be Israel, that contains the terror organization called the Israeli "Defense" Force.

Will Palestine be moved into the buffer? Your dam right Lebannon should be afraid. And they should kick Hizbollah out of there for baiting Israel.

for inducing fear in a civilian population. Sounds like terror.

Israel is resorting to terror. If this isn't terror I don't know what is.

and now refuses to end it.

Overall, Lebanon's existence is threatened. It's a state that was built on a balance, and yielded a Christian-safe state in the region, one in which Xians had significant power and shared them with Druse/Sunnis/Shi'ites.

Palestinians had to be kept in camps. They'd upset the balance, the story went.

But demographics favor the more prolific Shi'ites. And Hezb gained power, and refused to acknowledge the authority of the government. Not a problem, when the sovereign government was wrangled by the Syrian puppeteers. After all, Syria liked Hezb, and they could squeeze the government from the top, bottom, and sides.

Thus the threat: sectarianism and ethnic division didn't die in a state with interreligious/interethnic power-sharing. The PLO did its magic, and then Iran stepped in--first with the current Sadr's dad, helping set up Amal; then directly.

Lebanon is facing a threat to its existence. And those that want to hold on to power are afraid to resist the challenger (which has been spun as 'challenging the resistance').