An Eye in the Kingdom of the Blind

As I mentioned in an earlier posting President Chirac: "Israel wishes to destroy Lebanon" Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is bankrupt of ideas and hopes to emulate his predecessor’s tough image by his disproportionate retaliatory tactics against both Hamas and Hezbollah, but in reality killing Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, including many women and children.

But it seems there is also the traditional suspicion that Israel really wants a set of tame or weak neighbours. Its most powerful erstwhile foe, Egypt, is already safely in American pockets, and so is Jordan. The potential of Iraq as a deadly foe has been neutralised, at least for many years to come, by the American invasion and brought-about civil war.

Iran is some distance away, and the stupid Americans has been controlled into conducting an international demonising campaign against the Persians. There remains Syria, quiet and dangerous, but still can be easily overcome - perhaps next on the Israeli-US agenda.

But what has been worrying to the Israelis have been two unexpected factors:

(1) The rise of Hamas, and very much to the chagrin of the USA and Israel, democratically elected too, with strong probabilities of a clean and uncorrupted Palestinian administration; and

(2) The democratic rise of Lebanon and its swift recovery from its decade-long civil strife.

This is what Amin Saikal, professor of political science and the director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the ANU, has to say:

Why has Israel overreacted? It is using the abductions to achieve a wider goal. In the case of the Palestinians, it has been deeply troubled by the rise to power of the radical Islamist group Hamas through a democratic election early this year. Although Israel initially backed the formation of Hamas in the late 1980s as a counter to the secularist Palestine Liberation Organisation, which it then rejected as a terrorist organisation, it has increasingly found it expedient to do everything possible to prevent Hamas from governing and strengthening the forces of political Islam in the region.

Israel's ultimate objective seems to be to cause the demise of the Hamas Government, and a civil war between the PLO and Hamas supporters as a way out of negotiating a possible end to its occupation. In this, it has had the support of Bush, who has been unhappy with the outcome of the Palestinian process of democratisation.

Similarly, Israel has been increasingly uncomfortable with the growth of Hezbollah and the speed of Lebanon's recovery following its civil war and democratisation, especially since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 20 years of costly occupation.

Since its foundation in 1948 Israel's policy in historical Palestine has been to do whatever it takes to ensure that its Arab neighbours remain weak and divided. On this basis, while it has neutralised the Egyptian and Jordanian regimes through peace treaties and American influence, and the US has paralysed Iraq as a threat to the Jewish state, Israeli leadership has been keen to ensure favourable regime change in Syria and its regional ally, Iran, along with the destruction of the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Israel is seeking to destroy not only Hezbollah, but also Lebanon. Its wider objective is to set back Lebanon's reconstruction by years so that it could never rival Israel politically and economically, as well as to undermine the chances of any US-Iran agreement over Iran's nuclear program.

Israel has embarked on a dangerous game. Syria and Iran will not leave Hezbollah in the lurch.

The situation that Israel has generated by its overreaction will leave both Israel and the US vulnerable to wider accusations of a Jewish-Christian conspiracy against Islam, and an upsurge in secular and religious radicalism among Arabs and Muslims.

This can only assist al-Qaeda and its supporters, and may well illustrate once again the immaturity of the Israeli leadership, and the naivety of the US in handling the Middle East conflict.

In the face of such erudite analysis, all KTemoc can possibly add are 5 items of summarisation:

(1) Israel wants its neighbours to be as corrupt and dictatorial as possible and in continuous internal dissent (exemplified by Fatah vs Hamas; & the Lebanese civil war), with the Arab people always living in disease-ridden slums and poverty, for Israel to feel safe,

(2) Christian Right driven USA is abetting the Jewish State in its diabolical strategy of “One Eye in the Kingdom of the Blind is King”,

(3) As far as the USA is concerned, f**k democracy, liberty, non-corruptibility, prosperity and well-being for the people of Israel's neighbours,

(4) The involved Arab leaders are stupid enough to be manipulated by the Israelis into fighting among themselves,

(5) Religion is the root of all the trouble in the Middle East, whether it's the Christian Right's belief in promoting and preserving a Holy Land that must be walked upon by "Hebrews", or a Judaism's promotion for its people's "rights" to some blood-soaked dirt in that region, or the perpetual Sunni vs Shiite antagonism that has worked to Israel's benefits.