The Complex Lebanese Conflict

Recently, there has been a very serious escalation in the war between Israel and Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon. The situation is frightening: Israeli civilians are hiding in bomb shelters fearing another round of Katyusha rocket attacks, soldiers have been wounded and killed, while several Lebanese civilians have been wounded and many others are without electricity after an Israeli air-bombing of major power plants.

What is going on? If one listens to the rhetoric coming from each side, it sounds like a kindergarten quarrel. It is important not to get caught up in the rhetoric and instead analyze the recent events in their historical context.

Israel became militarily involved in Lebanon only because the Lebanese government--dissolved during its long civil war--could not restrain terrorist organizations using its territory to strike against Israeli civilians. After repeated attacks on Israeli towns, the Israeli Defense Force entered Lebanon and established an approximately nine-mile wide security zone. As CNN reported on Feb. 9, "Israel established the zone to protect its northern settlements from cross-border guerrilla attacks."

In other words, this is not a conflict over borders. Israel does not claim that this security zone is within its boundaries. The Israeli occupation of this zone is, and has always been, considered temporary. Indeed, the shorter the occupation lasts, the better. It was established, and is maintained, solely to protect northern Israeli villages against attacks from terrorists within Lebanon. The current Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, was elected on the promise that he would, among other things, speedily pull out Israeli troops from the Lebanon security zone. This will only happen when Israel can guarantee the safety of its citizens.

On February 9, the Society of Arab Students (SAS) handed out fliers attacking Israel for "target[ing] Lebanese civilians." If this were a full and accurate representation of situation in Lebanon, we should be outraged at Israel's aggression.

However, the issue is not that simple. We cannot judge a complex political problem from a one-sided snapshot of occurrences. Instead, it is necessary to look back at both the history of the past three decades and the context of the past few weeks. The Israel-Lebanon conflict is a piece of the broader Israel-Syria conflict and cannot be explained in a four-point flier.

In evaluating the current unfortunate state of affairs, we must understand that there is a lot more to the story. The Israeli security zone exists in southern Lebanon to protect Israeli civilians from terrorist attacks originating in Lebanon. The recent air strikes were in response to the serious escalation in terrorist activity of Hizbullah and other organizations in south Lebanon over the past two weeks. According to the Associated Press, within the eight days prior to the strike, five Israeli soldiers were killed and 12 more wounded in Hizbullah attacks. These terrorists attacks, according to CNN reports, were launched from within Lebanese villages, using the Lebanese civilians as a human shield. In order to avoid Lebanese civilian casualties, Israel chose not to attack those targets.

We must go beyond the rhetoric and realize that the recent occurrences are part of a very complex political issue, not unilateral attacks lacking any historical context.

As is commonly known, the major power broker in Lebanon is Syria, the true occupying power in Lebanon. Indeed, after the recent Hizbullah terrorist attacks, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright called Syria and requested that they put a stop to the terrorism in Lebanon. We agree with the SAS that the current state of affairs is tragic. We call upon them to join us in protest against Syria and the terrorist organizations within Lebanon that it supports, according to the Feb. 14 edition of the New York Times. The Syrians are hurting the interests of both the Israelis and Lebanese civilians, all of whom desperately want an end to the occupation and violence.

Only with the recognition that the conflict is historically-based and incredibly complicated can the one-sided rhetoric end and meaningful debate begin. We pray, along with the Society of Arab Students, for a speedy end to this bloody conflict and for a broad-based and permanent, just peace in the Middle East. Our hearts are with the wounded and the families, Israeli and Lebanese, who have lost their loved ones over the course of this tragic conflict.

Jonathan M. Gribetz '02 and James A. Goldfeier '02 are co-presidents of Harvard Students for Israel (HSI). Benjamin A. Flusberg '01, a past president of HSI, and Rachel L. Brown '01, co-president of HSI also contributed to the writing of this piece.