By Liu Qiang
Fighting broke out in Lebanon after Hezbollah armed elements
fired at Israeli targets and took two Israeli soldiers prisoner on
July 12, hot on the heels of Hamas' abduction of Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit on June 25, which triggered tension in Gaza Strip.
The escalating hostilities in Lebanon are straining the regional
security situation to the limit.
Neither side shows any signs of backing down.
Hezbollah leaders claim that the two Israeli soldiers were taken
prisoner in order to exchange them for top Hezbollah officials in
Israeli jails and show support for Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "We dream of peace. We
do not seek war or a head-on confrontation. But, if necessary, we
shall not flinch from them."
The military strikes reflect Israel's new strategic intentions,
while exhibiting Olmert government's tough stance towards
safeguarding the national interests of the Jewish state.
With retaliation as the point of departure, Israel tries to
morally justify its military strikes, which were launched after
Hezbollah first took the two Israeli soldiers prisoner.
Israel unleashed the military operations to rescue the two
hostages and is uncompromising in doing so. This demonstrates to
the Israeli public, the top authorities believe, the government's
firm determination to safeguard the national interests at all cost,
even risking the war. It was also aimed at exhibiting the
competence and decisiveness of Olmert as the new prime minister.
All this combines to serve as a rallying point for the national
spirit of the Jewish state whose survival has ever been on the
balance.
Also, Israel hopes that the military strikes will overawe
extremist elements in the region and force the Lebanese and Syrian
governments to rein in Hezbollah.
Despite the fact that Israel emerged victorious from previous
Middle East wars, the security situations around the country has
not improved fundamentally, with Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical
Islamic organizations repeatedly staging assaults against Israeli
targets.
Backed by its overwhelming military might, Israel launched the
strikes in the hope of intimidating the extremist elements and
putting heavy pressure on the Lebanese and Syrian governments.
The campaign is also meant to counterattack Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "venomous verbal attacks" that Israel should
be "wiped off the map." Iran is allegedly Hezbollah's financial
underwriter.
The international community responded quickly after the
hostilities started. The United Nations and the leaders of major
world powers urged the parties involved to exercise the utmost
restraint and stop the Middle East from plunging into a regional
war.
The G8 Summit issued a joint statement on July 16, demanding
that extremist elements immediately stop terror attacks against
Israel.
But responses vary widely as different nations have different
stances on the Middle East issue.
US President George W. Bush, for instance, said that Israel had the
right for self-defence but warned that it refrain from toppling the
Lebanese Government.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the extremist
elements backed by Iran and Syria should be condemned.
French President Jacques Chirac called on both Israel and
Lebanon to exercise restraint and work for a ceasefire.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that Israel's Lebanon
offensive "is raising our fears of a new regional war" and urged
world powers to intervene.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said: "The Middle East
peace process is dead." He suggested that the only way to restore
the peace process would be to submit the matter to the United
Nations Security Council.
Liu Zhenmin, China's deputy permanent representative to the
United Nations expressed the Chinese Government's concern about the
developments in Lebanon at the emergency session of the UN Security
Council on July 14, appealing that all parties involved exercise
utmost restraint and try to defuse the current crisis via
diplomatic means.
Liu said that Israel's disproportionate use of force in Lebanon
not only devastated the country's infrastructure and caused great
harm to the Lebanese people, but also encroached upon Lebanese
sovereignty and caused a severe humanitarian crisis.
In view of all this, the Chinese Government demanded that Israel
stop its military offensive and lift its air and sea blockade of
Lebanon. At the same time, Liu, on behalf of the Chinese
Government, urged Hezbollah to stop firing rockets at Israeli
cities and release the abducted Israeli soldiers as soon as
possible.
Liu said that any further violent acts taken by any side could
ignite the powder keg, referring to the extremely fragile security
situation in the region. He warned that further violence would only
serve to make an already bad situation even worse.
Judging from the current regional and international situations,
it will take some time to end the military conflict in Lebanon.
First, the United States does not favor an immediate
ceasefire.
The US position is that a ceasefire would be a temporary halt in
hostilities, and what everyone wants is a solution that eliminates
the threat posed by Hezbollah.
Second, Israel has not yet achieved its expected goals.
Third, Arab countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
said Hezbollah provoked the conflicts. Taking this into account, it
would be difficult for Arab nations to face Israel as a united
front.
In addition, Syria and Iran can do little but give verbal
support to Hezbollah. Iran, in particular, is already caught in a
diplomatic impasse over its nuclear program. It is therefore
unlikely that Iran will take substantial steps to support Hezbollah
militarily, risking economic sanctions from the United States and
other Western countries or even military strikes from the United
States and Israel. It calls for particular caution now that the
United States already suspects that Iran has encouraged Hezbollah
to provoke the conflicts with Israel in order to divert
international pressure away from its nuclear program.
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert gave his conditions for a
ceasefire in his speech delivered at the Knesset on July 17 the
release of the abducted Israeli soldiers, Hezbollah stopping
launching rockets at targets within Israel, and the deployment of
Lebanese army along the Lebanon-Israel border.
In the opinion of this author, the ceasefire could not be put in
place unless the United Nations sends peacekeeping forces to
establish a buffer zone or a demilitarized zone between Israel and
Lebanon, and, in addition, that all the conditions mentioned in the
previous paragraph are met.
The consequences of the current conflicts will remain for a
fairly long time to come, even if a ceasefire is brought about or
brokered by international intermediaries. Military action should
never be the first choice in maintaining regional peace in the
Middle East. Dialogue should always be the preferred option.
Retribution goes on and on in endless cycles if force is always
used to settle disputes.
The author is the director of the Institute for
International Relationship Studies affiliated to the Jiangsu
Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.
(China Daily July 20, 2006)
