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Israel's Intent and Goals and Those of Its US AllyThe US is always fully aware well in advance of any significant operation Israel intends to undertake. As that small but powerful nation's paymaster and benefactor, Israel wouldn't dare under most circumstances not keep its most valued ally fully in the loop and most concerned about having its full compliance. That's rarely ever a problem though as both nations share a common interest in the Middle East. For Israel it's primarily security against potentially hostile neighbors, its intent to assure pro-Israeli regimes in the region, and its ability to expand its undeclared borders beyond where they now are to wherever it's able to do it and get away with it. Israel already controls the choicest parts of the West Bank, the Syrian Golan Heights it captured in the 1967 war and never returned, and the 25 square kilometer Shebaa Farms area of South Lebanon it never relinquished after seizing it as well in the 1967 war. It's maintained its occupation of both areas after the end of hostilities with Syria nearly 40 years ago and its withdrawal from Lebanon in May, 2000, 22 years after it first invaded this defenseless country.
Like Israel, the US also has a clear interest in the Middle East that's elementary to a grade schooler with any intelligence. The region has about half the world's acknowledged oil reserves and for over half a century has been viewed by US officials as a treasure of almost unimaginable strategic and economic value. That view has prevailed at least since the historic meeting on the USS Quincy in early 1945 near the end of WW II between Franklin Roosevelt and Saudi King ibn Saud to begin a relationship that would later assure US access to Saudi oil and the beginning of its dominance in the region in return for this country's agreeing to provide security for the monarchy.
Israel's well-planned actions against Hamas and the Palestinians and Hezbollah and the people of Lebanon are part of the same regime-changing strategy. In the Occupied Territories it's to destroy Hamas as an independent-minded political entity and replace it with a compliant one like Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas willing to serve Israel's interests and not those of the Palestinian people. In South Lebanon, it's essentially the same thing - to destroy Hezbollah as a political and resistance force, remove its resilient threat to Israeli hegemony in the region, and replace it with an Israel-friendly Lebanese government in full control of the country.
The Evolution of Israeli-Hamas Relations
Israel wasn't always hostile to Hamas it now views as an enemy it intends to destroy. In the 1980s, the Israeli government lent it support to check the growing authority and legitimacy of the PLO that had suspended retaliatory attacks and wanted to pursue a political solution with Israel that Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at the time explained Israelis would never agree to and, in fact, said he went to war with Lebanon in 1982 to prevent. But once established, Hamas rose in prominence largely due to its well organized and effective social service network that provides such essential services as food assistance, health care, education, daycare and other charitable aid to Palestinians in great need of them. But Hamas also has a military or resistance wing that has engaged in attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians in retaliation for Israel's war of attrition against the Palestinian people that's caused decades of immiseration with little relief or outside support to offset it.
Because of that, Israel was horrified when the January, 2006 election didn't turn out the way it thought it had carefully arranged and Hamas won a clear majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Without the larger than life figure of Yasser Arafat to lead it, the Palestinian people finally rejected the dominant Fatah party and its post-Oslo history of corruption and subservience to Israeli authority. From the start, it was clear Israel had a single aim - to destroy Hamas as a political entity by any means. The Ehud Olmert led Kadima government planned it, the IDF trained in preparation for it, and it just awaited a convenient pretext to initiate what began on June 25.
The Hezbollah Story
The Hezbollah story is quite similar. It was born out of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the oppressive occupation that followed. Hezbollah was formed to resist the occupation, expel the Israelis, and it remained an effective opposition force to Israel ever since. It's major base of support is in the Southern Lebanon Shiite region and Northern Beka'a valley it controls that's up to one-third of the population. It's also likely supported by the estimated 400,000 Palestinian refugees in the country who live in overcrowded camps, struggle to achieve their basic needs, have no legal rights, and get no government aid or protection. Hezbollah is also a major political force and is represented by 11 lawmakers in the Lebanese Parliament and has two government ministers in the country's cabinet. But it also maintains a military wing as a needed deterrent to Israeli oppression that up to now has been the only effective force against it in the region. That's why Israel's aim has always been to eliminate Hezbollah and now initiated on July 12 what looks like all out war, the reinvasion of Lebanon that followed on July 22, and possible occupation of the country ahead if it decides that's what's needed to achieve it. It never was able to do it before and likely won't succeed now whatever strategy it follows. But Israel is determined and seems intent to follow the strange and doomed to fail policy of "always wrong but never in doubt." It won't be any different this time, but once again Israel appears to be repeating past mistakes and making its victims pay the harsh price for them.
Throughout Israel's occupation of Southern Lebanon in 1980s and 90s that price was severe indeed, but Hezbollah's committed resistance nonetheless finally succeeded in getting the IDF to withdraw from the country in May, 2000. After 22 years of failing to subdue a resilient South Lebanon, it's hard to believe Israel is once again willing to try and in so doing inflict mass death, suffering and destruction on the innocent people throughout this country that are no match for the IDF militarily in a head-on confrontation. But it goes unreported and undiscussed in the mainstream that if Israel really wanted to end retaliatory attacks against its territory and people, the easy sure way to do it is to stop provoking the Palestinians and Hezbollah by attacking them first. The fact that it hasn't done it shows it won't and doesn't want to because in a state of peace and calm it would be unable to avoid the political solution it never intends to negotiate in good faith.
Israel instead prefers to continue the policy it began against Lebanon in 1968 when the IDF conducted terror raids and military aggression against the country that included attacking the Beirut airport and destroying 13 civilian planes on the ground claiming it was in retaliation for an attack by Lebanese trained Palestinians targeting an Israeli airliner in Athens. IDF incursions into Lebanon continued in the 1970s against the PLO including the major invasion into Southern Lebanon, the "Litani River Operation." It was launched in March, 1978 to establish an occupation zone that Israel put the Christian South Lebanon Army (SLA) in place to man when it withdrew its forces weeks later.
But Israel reinvaded the country in June, 1982 in force with intent to stay, remaining until Hezbollah forced it to withdraw in May, 2000. Before it did, however, the IDF managed to kill about 18,000 mostly innocent civilian Lebanese and Palestinians. Yet, despite the carnage, the IDF was unable to destroy Hezbollah which resisted effectively including against Israel's April, 1996 17 day "Operation Grapes of Wrath" that accomplished nothing but more death and destruction. Today, Hezbollah under its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, is stronger than ever and is gaining support beyond its Shiite base and near autonomy in the South in response to the Israeli inflicted atrocities committed in the current conflict. It now remains to watch and speculate where this conflict is heading.
The Road from Palestine and Lebanon May Lead to Iran and Syria
The US and Israeli plan may be to escalate the current Palestinian and Lebanese conflicts and extend them to Iran and Syria. It's a real possibility and the most serious threat at this time with all its potentially dreadful consequences. Whether it will or won't happen only high-level insiders in both countries know for certain, and even they may be unsure until the current conflicts play out further. If it's undertaken, this added escalation will have unknown hazards for all involved combined with the increasing out-of-control conflict in Iraq and the one in Afghanistan fast heading in the same direction. At this time, whether the Washington neocons in charge of things, the Pentagon and the Likudnik spin-offs in the Olmert Kadima party are willing to risk going further is anyone's guess.
The Threat to Iran
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