GM:
Israeli version of its deliberate attack on Lebanon, in the backdrop of
kidnapping of two Israelis soldiers who had crossed into Lebanese
territory and were held by Hezbollah to exchange for its own kidnapped
civilians numbering in thousands languishing in Israeli jails, without
any prospect for their trial or early release ---- is not universally
accepted by the world. It only has blind and automatic approval of its
committed partners in state terrorism, the US and the UK head of
governments.
DD:
Israel's military campaign was launched in response to a series of
unprovoked, cross-border attacks from Lebanese territory, carried out by
Hezbollah on July 12.
GM:
According to various authoritative sources, it is the Israeli forces
that routinely entered Lebanese territory and were surprised by
Hezbollah attack that killed several soldiers and landed two soldiers as
Hezbollah war prisoners. Hezbollah instantly offered to trade them for
their own kidnapped prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel decided to take
this opportunity to invade Lebanon with air attacks with the declared
aim to finish off Hezbollah --- a threat of virtual genocidal scorch to
earth invasion of foreign territory.
DD:
Israel had no choice but to do what Lebanon has failed to do over the
past six years, ever since Israel 's complete withdrawal to the
international border safeguard the border from a terrorist takeover.
GM:
Israel did have a choice to trade prisoners and settle the matter in
time-honored peaceful manner of resolution of the conflicts. It is
Israel that was thirsting for an appropriate moment to invade Lebanon in
a broad conspiracy to subvert one by one all Arab neighbours as well as
Iran, as they all pose a challenge to US/UK/Israeli's hegamonistic
designs in the Middle East.
DD:
As a result of Israel's military operations, Hezbollah's lethal
capabilities have been dealt a major blow. Its fortifications were
dismantled and stockpiles of Iranian and Syrian missiles have been
destroyed, including about 80 per cent of the long- range missiles.
Southern Lebanon has been substantially cleared of the infrastructure of
terrorism. Hezbollah infrastructure all over Lebanon command and
control, communications, arms depots etc. were all crippled. There
is no doubt that Hezbollah, which has been secretive about its losses,
has been hurt much more severely than it is willing to admit. The most
conservative estimates of Hezbollah casualties stand at around 500
militants based on names of dead militants known to Israel. The
ceasefire of August 13 saw Israeli troops along the banks of the Litani
river, about 35 km from the international border a line which marks
the southern sector of Lebanon where Hezbollah had established itself
for years as a State within a State.
GM:
It is no surprise that Hezbollah and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese
civilians suffered in the brutal attack by Israeli war machine that
has no match for their rag tag fighting gears. The real surprise is that
not only Hezbollah resistance lasted weeks on end in the area
shooting off rockets into Israeli territory, while Israel had complete
control of air, land and sea around the Lebanon. Hezbollah proved to
Arabs that it can and it did take on the supposedly invincible Israelis.
In fact, Israel suffered its worst moments of defeat at the hands of a
resistance force that can hardly be a match to a well trained and well
equipped fighting machine that Israel has spent billions to arm and
deploy.
DD: A ceasefire
now in place, the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted on August
11, provides that the Israel Defence Forces in southern Lebanon will
withdraw only parallel to the deployment of the Lebanese army and
enhanced UNIFIL units, in order to prevent Hezbollah from retaking
control.
GM:
Time only will tell how Hezbollah will regroup. The stark fact is that
the placing of UNIFIL unit has completely frustrated Israeli attempts to
gain upper hand in Lebanon by occupying land and then move to find
excuses to invade Syria. Both nefarious plans have been
successfully stalled by Hezbollah.
Israelis
may hold propaganda advantage to paint Hezbollah as a 'terrorist'
organization --- a branding that US/UK/ISRAEL seems to have full
monopoly to append to all or any of their detractors; but the whole
Arab and Muslim world overwhelmingly holds US/UK/ISRAEL as state
terrorists who are flaunting international laws in their diabolical
plans to re-colonize the Middle East and Iran.
DD: The new
military realities on the ground are a critical element in the emerging
overall situation between Lebanon and Israel, but not the only one.
Resolution 1701 provides an opportunity to correct the mistakes of the
past and to create a genuine new reality in our region. It establishes a
binding arms embargo requiring all States to prevent the supply of arms
and weapons to militias and terrorists in Lebanon. It provides for a
radically different international force with a mandate and capabilities
to ensure that Hezbollah will not be rearmed and South Lebanon will be
free of armed militias and weapons. Not less important is the fact that
the resolution gives the government of Lebanon a real opportunity to
finally assert its sovereignty throughout the entire Lebanese territory,
including along the border with Israel.
A resolution
alone will do nothing if the tools set out in it are not utilised with
resolve and decisiveness. The resolution brings to an end 33 days of
intensive fighting, on one hand, and of diplomatic negotiations on the
other. But it is only the beginning. It presents Lebanon with a clear
choice between opening a new chapter or sliding back on the slippery
slope of terrorism and violence.
GM:
The UN Security Council resolution falls far short of Lebanese
government's demands on the invader nation to vacate its territory
forthwith. Israel is known to covet land that belong to others
and is the main trouble maker that thrives on bullying and brutalizing
its neighbours. Israel is a mortal threat to all its neighbours and will
never be accepted by them as a legitimate state, unless all Palestinian
refugees are brought back and settled in their homes in Palestine and
form the foundation of a real democratic nation.
DD: One has to
look at the strategic horizon to realise how significant Israel 's gains
are in this conflict that was imposed on Israel.
GM:
Every time Israel unleashes its forces on its neighbours, it dimishes
its legitimacy to be accepted as a peaceful state. Israel deludes
itself, if it imagines any gains from this conflict, inflicted by Israel
on Lebanese civilians including women and children. Israel has never had
such a bad press all over the world, as it has in this war of wanton
invasion of Lebanese territory and its public utilities infrastructures.
That unwarrented destruction in the name of 2 'kidnapped' Israeli
soldiers, was a clear sign of abject cruelty that Israel can muster on
command as the essential destructive nature and raison d'κtre of its
very existence.
DD: Israel's
unexpected large-scale military response was not anticipated by the
aggressor and its patrons in Tehran and Damascus . Hezbollah's military
muscle was built up, discreetly and efficiently, with a view to a more
critical crisis, at a timing more suitable to Syria and Iran. The
Hezbollah military card and its capabilities are now in ruins. Any
effort by Iran and Syria to replenish Hezbollah's stockpiles will now be
dealt with as a violation of Resolution 1701. Moreover, the presence of
UNIFIL forces, which under the new resolution have real powers, further
diminishes the prospect that Hezbollah may directly attack Israel and
start a war for Syria and Iran.
GM:
'Israel 's unexpected large-scale military response' is the
hallmark of all its past military aggression, and as such its
atrocities can never be unexpected by its adversaries.
DD: Beyond
Hezbollah's bravado and inflammatory declarations, no neighbouring
country will lose sight of Israel 's determination in the defence of the
nation and its people.
GM:
Like all bullies, Israel 's aggression on its neighbours are fully
expected but not dreaded. In fact, Israel 's weakness in taking in human
losses in any conventional or non-conventional conflict is the real
winning card held by Arab resistance. Howsoever lethal Israel's fire
power, the limit of its power is widely known to be its capacity to
suffer casualties. Israel can never improve on that weakness and this
gives its neighbour a distinct advantage over a period of time.
DD: The fact that
only a fraction of Israel's military might was deployed in Lebanon and
that it continued to act with restraint and chose not to escalate the
conflict, is also not lost.
GM:
Israel's invasion was out of all proportion to any so-called provocation
by Hezbollah's taking of two prisoners. The world is not dumb enough,
not to make out that the disproportionate fire power used by Lebanon
were meant for wider war strategies, which had to be stopped due to
heavy Israeli casualties, both in war zone as well as in its civilian
population. It was first time, back home hundreds of thousands Israeli
citizens tasted the dangers of war at their own soil and remained
shivering in thousands of shelters over each and every rocket
boom. This time war was fought on Israeli held territory and it did
affect the morale of its citizens who in greater numbers than ever
before started questioning the logic of un-winnable war that Israel
keeps on getting entangled into, without full public support within its
own country and without any justification. The fact that Hezbollah kept
launching its rockets targeting more and more cities and towns in Israel
proper and seriously damaged Israeli civilian morale, helped force
Israel not to further escalate the war and risk more and more of its
people getting killed. The limit on Hezbollah's side was the apparent
lack of matching lethal fire-power. Nobody can and could have predicted
what Hezbollah held as greater lethal weaponry than it had actually
deployed, if Israel had chosen to escalate the war.
DD: The Israeli
society has shown yet again its resolve to stand up against fanatic
terrorism which is being waged in the name of a skewed ideology.
GM:
On the contrary, the Israelis are in virtual revolt against the wanton
invasion and are calling for the scalp of Olmert Ehud and other generals
for deciding to go into Lebanon and commit Israel to a hopeless
misadventure. Israelis are not blind to world media castigating their
brutalities on Lebanese civilians, and agitated Israeli media is
breathing fire on the rest of world for unleashing anti-Israeli
'propaganda'. The more Jewish press is agitated against the rest of the
world, the more clearly it understands the real adverse condemnation of
the uncommitted world.
In
rather more graphic terms, a very committed and stauchly pro-Israel
American Zionist commentator, Judith Klinghoffer writes on the current
state of affairs in Israel:
"If
Ehud Olmert's fumbling performance during the second Lebanon War is
reminiscent of Levi Eshkol's fumbling performance before the
Six Day War, the tough spot Israel finds itself following this war is
reminiscent of the one she found itself before that war. The wolves on
her doorsteps have been emboldened. Iran warns
Israel to fear missiles Syrian president announces that
Hezbollah won and that the Golan Heights will
be liberated by Syrian soldiers and that the US plan for the
ME has collapsed."
Can
there be any more distressing picture of Israel 's utter defeat. No
Muslim writer could have done better analysis of Israel's current state
of despair with such truthful candor.
DD: The other
lesson learnt from this crisis is that the world is facing a dangerous
escalation by extremists who are the self-proclaimed enemies of the free
and democratic family of nations.
GM:
It is more of an Israeli delusion that they think they are
peacemakers and others are 'enemies of free and democratic family
of nations'. Their designs on other nation's territory, people and
resources are too well-known for them to delude themselves into posing
as lily-white peace-pigeons.
DD: Hezbollah's
war of terror against Israel is an attempt by Iran, which does not
conceal its intentions and hostility towards Israel, to destabilize West
Asia.
GM:
In comparison with the grand US/UK plans for the Middle East , Hezbollah
only wants its prisoners release and Sheba farms restored to Lebanon.
DD: Not
coincidently, the crisis in Lebanon comes at a time when Iran is
embroiled in a row with the international community over its nuclear
ambitions.
GM:
It is twisting of the fact, when the ambassador Deniali alleges that
'Iran is embroiled'. In fact Iran was deliberately embroiled by the
US/UK and Israel. The open threats that the US/UK/ISRAEL axis are
holding out for Iran, justifies all attempts by the targeted Iran to
prepare for its defense that should include minimal nuclear
deterrent like India, Pakistan and Israel .
DD: The key for
world peace and security cannot be left in the hands of terrorist
organisations and their sponsor States who publicly proclaim their evil
strategy.
GM:
The key to world peace and security is in fact in the hands of the
US/UK/Israel triumvirate. The more they brutalize people around the
world to impose their hegemony, the more they increase unrest among
their victims and the inevitable reaction. It is easy to term as
terrorism, all the reactions of the victimize masses, but that is not a
convincing proposition. The world is now fully aware who are the
troublemakers and warmongers. They thrive on creating chaos to meddle in
and come out as peacemakers, though in fact they are the aggressors out
to enslave weakened masses around the world.
DD: It is time to
call things by their names.
Israel has paid a
heavy price to bring about a real opportunity for a better future for
Lebanon, Israel and the region. The way the international community
handles the implementation of Resolution 1701 is a test case, being
watched worldwide by terrorist organisations and their patrons.
GM:
The resolution 1701, in so far as it falls short of Lebanese demands of
total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory and
releaser of all Lebanese prisoners held by Israel, is deeply flawed and
holds seeds of its own defeat, more at the hands of Israelis themselves.
