John Kerry: Crisis diplomacy insufficient in Middle East

Crisis diplomacy insufficient in Middle East

By John Kerry
Thursday, August 10, 2006

Watching the news from the Middle East these days is an exercise in heartbreak. As Israel continues its military operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah and missiles rain on northern Israel, our hearts go out to people suffering all across the region.

The death of every child - Lebanese in Qana or Israeli in Haifa - is tragic. A just and lasting peace can only be achieved by addressing the underlying problems.

Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorism, and the Israelis can count on the United States. We must put Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria on notice that wiping Israel off the map and killing civilians are not the legitimate ends and means of foreign policy.

At the same time, the Lebanese must know that Americans also care about protecting civilians and preserving their fragile democracy. We must make clear that we remain committed to creating the base for lasting peace.


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I once visited an Israeli town near the Lebanese border, Kiryat Shemona and went into shelters where terrified Israeli kids go when the rockets start falling. Now that Israel has withdrawn to an internationally-recognized border with Lebanon, why is Hezbollah still firing rockets?

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We can’t rely only on crisis diplomacy. There’s no better way to ensure another crisis another day. We need sustained, preventative diplomacy to address underlying problems before they explode.

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http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=152137&srvc=home

The unprovoked, indiscriminate and utterly inexcusable kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and rocket attacks by Hezbollah should be universally condemned. Those who ordered it should be brought to justice. It has ignited a conflict that Hezbollah cannot win, but which could engulf the region if a way is not found to stop the spiral of violence from widening.

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We are committed to protecting Israel’s security and we support Israel’s right of self defense, including going after Hezbollah fighters who often launch their attacks from civilian areas.

But for Israel’s sake, for ours and especially – especially -- for the sake of innocent lives on both sides of these battle lines, it is vitally important to ask whether destroying Lebanon – not Hezbollah, but destroying Lebanon -- will make Israel more secure or instead rally Muslims behind Hezbollah and give rise to further hatred and insecurity. I believe that continued bombing of civilian areas in Lebanon will not destroy Hezbollah, but in a perverse way, it may strengthen it.

At the same time, the Lebanese must know that Americans also care about protecting civilians and preserving their fragile democracy. We must make clear that we remain committed to creating the base for lasting peace.

Hizbullah's attacks stem from Israeli incursions into Lebanon

In the Monitor
Thursday, 08/10/06

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html

By Anders Strindberg

NEW YORK – As pundits and policymakers scramble to explain events in Lebanon, their conclusions are virtually unanimous: Hizbullah created this crisis. Israel is defending itself. The underlying problem is Arab extremism. Sadly, this is pure analytical nonsense. Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations-monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.

In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, for instance, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by unprovoked Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel has assassinated its enemies in the streets of Lebanese cities and continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. What peace did Hizbullah shatter?

Hizbullah's capture of the soldiers took place in the context of this ongoing conflict, which in turn is fundamentally shaped by realities in the Palestinian territories. To the vexation of Israel and its allies, Hizbullah - easily the most popular political movement in the Middle East - unflinchingly stands with the Palestinians.

Since June 25, when Palestinian fighters captured one Israeli soldier and demanded a prisoner exchange, Israel has killed more than 140 Palestinians. Like the Lebanese situation, that flare-up was detached from its wider context and was said to be "manufactured" by the enemies of Israel; more nonsense proffered in order to distract from the apparently unthinkable reality that it is the manner in which Israel was created, and the ideological premises that have sustained it for almost 60 years, that are the core of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict.

<>These groups will continue to enjoy popular legitimacy because they fulfill the need for someone - anyone - to stand up for Arab rights. Israel cannot destroy this need by bombing power grids or rocket ramps. If Israel, like its former political ally South Africa, has the capacity to come to terms with principles of democracy and human rights and accept egalitarian multiracial coexistence within a single state for Jews and Arabs, then the foundation for resentment and resistance will have been removed. If Israel cannot bring itself to do so, then it will continue to be the vortex of regional violence.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html

• Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.