NASRALLAH VIOLATES LEBANESE SOVEREIGNTY
In rejecting the French/US ceasefire proposal, the Lebanese government backed by the Arab League urged the world to accept their idea that Lebanese Army forces could be dispatched to the border with Israel, replace Israeli troops and make an international peacekeeping force unnecessary. We can assume that Lebanese President Siniora believes that the world has forgotten the threat his defense minister made on July 20th that the Lebanese Army would join Hezbollah in the fight if Israel launched a widespread invasion. Siniora is asking the international community to trust that a Lebanese Army force would somehow be able to control Hezbollah in spite of the fact that Lebanon clearly demonstrated its inability to do just that when given the opportunity under UN Resolution 1559 two years ago.
Lebanon's government would like to believe it is still in a position to control events after Hezbollah invaded Israel from Lebanese territory and after the Jewish state has been pounding Lebanon with bombs for weeks. Now faced with a massive ground invasion, the Lebanese Prime Minister wept in a meeting with the heads of the Arab League, which had urged him not to accept the French/American proposal. One has to wonder if Mr. Siniora's tears were a reflection of his own frustrated impotence, as Arab leaders, whose countries face no such threat of war, stand on the sidelines and blithely determined the fate of the Lebanese people.
To understand the position of Lebanon, which had nothing to gain from this war, which will be the ultimate loser in terms of life and property no matter what the outcome, is to get at the crux of the problem in the Middle East. The psychology of the Arab world when it comes to military conflict with Israel abhors the idea of defeat, because it has been defeated in every war it has engaged in with the Jewish state. Now it intends on sacrificing Lebanon to an unnecessary conflict, seemingly inured to the decimation of the country's infrastructure and loss of life so it can turn Hassan Nasrallah into a hero for withstanding the Israeli onslaught and preserve the idea that Israel should be viewed as a pariah.
In the beginning days of the crisis Siniora and numerous Lebanese government spokespeople had declared that Lebanon "disavowed" Hezbollah's cross-border incursion into Israel. If this was truly the case, they should have ordered the arrest of Hassan Nasrallah for his role in violating Lebanese sovereignty. That, however, would have taken a measure of courage that Mr. Siniora does not have.
In rejecting the French/US ceasefire proposal, the Lebanese government backed by the Arab League urged the world to accept their idea that Lebanese Army forces could be dispatched to the border with Israel, replace Israeli troops and make an international peacekeeping force unnecessary. We can assume that Lebanese President Siniora believes that the world has forgotten the threat his defense minister made on July 20th that the Lebanese Army would join Hezbollah in the fight if Israel launched a widespread invasion. Siniora is asking the international community to trust that a Lebanese Army force would somehow be able to control Hezbollah in spite of the fact that Lebanon clearly demonstrated its inability to do just that when given the opportunity under UN Resolution 1559 two years ago.
Lebanon's government would like to believe it is still in a position to control events after Hezbollah invaded Israel from Lebanese territory and after the Jewish state has been pounding Lebanon with bombs for weeks. Now faced with a massive ground invasion, the Lebanese Prime Minister wept in a meeting with the heads of the Arab League, which had urged him not to accept the French/American proposal. One has to wonder if Mr. Siniora's tears were a reflection of his own frustrated impotence, as Arab leaders, whose countries face no such threat of war, stand on the sidelines and blithely determined the fate of the Lebanese people.
To understand the position of Lebanon, which had nothing to gain from this war, which will be the ultimate loser in terms of life and property no matter what the outcome, is to get at the crux of the problem in the Middle East. The psychology of the Arab world when it comes to military conflict with Israel abhors the idea of defeat, because it has been defeated in every war it has engaged in with the Jewish state. Now it intends on sacrificing Lebanon to an unnecessary conflict, seemingly inured to the decimation of the country's infrastructure and loss of life so it can turn Hassan Nasrallah into a hero for withstanding the Israeli onslaught and preserve the idea that Israel should be viewed as a pariah.
In the beginning days of the crisis Siniora and numerous Lebanese government spokespeople had declared that Lebanon "disavowed" Hezbollah's cross-border incursion into Israel. If this was truly the case, they should have ordered the arrest of Hassan Nasrallah for his role in violating Lebanese sovereignty. That, however, would have taken a measure of courage that Mr. Siniora does not have.
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