Viewpoint

Why Does Israel Seek New Lebanon War?

Date: 12 March 2017 - 19:59

News ID: ۳۷۷۳۶

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

At a time when it’s pretty clear that the resistance group of Hezbollah doesn’t want another war with Israel, and the fact that Hezbollah is more focused on fighting against ISIL and Al-Qaeda in Syria than being involved in border skirmishes with Tel Aviv, the Zionist regime says another war with Lebanon is an inevitability.
Even though Israel was roundly criticized for the civilian toll of its 2006 invasion, many Zionist leaders are eager to make clear that the next war, which they consider an inevitability, will involve even more deliberate targeting of Lebanese civilians.
That includes education minister Naftali Bennett, who like many others, has been talking up the idea of deliberately targeting populated areas in the next war for years, and this is just the latest pretext to reiterate it. The real reason this narrative has been pushed is likely the reality that Israel’s military has a decidedly difficult time not killing civilians wholesale during wars, and simply wants to get a head start on justifying the criminal targeting of civilian homes. However, there’s more to this criminality:
It is the deafening silence and complicity of the United Nations in Israeli war crimes as well as America’s diplomatic support at the Security Council that always allows the usurper regime to provoke Lebanon and other Arab states by military operations and covert terrorist actions. It’s the same complicity that also provokes Palestinians by continued desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as raids, arrests and attacks against their property, including airstrikes against civilian objects in Gaza.
Some Western governments might try to blame Hezbollah and the Lebanese victims and link the tensions to suspicious border attacks. This is fine. But they fail to notice the oddly increasing frequency of Israeli threats and raids. They should at least ask why Israel carries out acts of provocation even when there have been no Hezbollah attacks?
The personal diary of Moshe Sharett, Israel’s first foreign minister and prime minister from 1953 to 1955, sheds light on this important question. The journal documents the rationale and mechanics of Israel’s "Arab Policy” in the late 1940s and the 1950s:
The policy portrayed is one of deliberate Israeli acts of provocation, intended to generate Arab hostility and thus to create pretexts for war, armed action and territorial expansion. Sharett’s records document this policy of "Sacred Terrorism” and expose the myths of Israel’s "security needs” and the "Arab threat” that have been treated like self-evident truths since its inception.
It’s a sign that the exceptional demographic and geographic alterations in the Israeli society have been brought about, not as the accidental results of the endeavor to guard Israel’s security, but by a drive for longer occupation, terror and vicious existence.
The irony is that whenever the UN Security Council or the Human Rights Council decides to act and issue resolutions critical of Israel, international Zionism comes to the rescue. This is obvious at the material level, as measured by flow of American funds and armaments, joint military operations, and diplomatic support. This special relationship appears at the ideological level as well. Western governments never arrest or prosecute Zionist leaders for committing war crimes in occupied territories, let alone for deliberating targeting civilians in the last Lebanon war.
Long story short, only an investigation mandated by the UN Security Council can ensure Israel’s cooperation, and it’s the only body that can secure some kind of prosecution and justice for the 2006 invasion of Lebanon – and hence prevent another deadly war on Lebanon.
Without a proper investigation there is no deterrent and the message – as referred by education minister Bennett - to the Zionist regime’s war machine remains the same: "In the next war, which is an inevitability, you can kill more Lebanese civilians. There won’t be any real consequences at the UN.”