War – Part One

By Eliezer Yaari

This war goes beyond the abducted soldiers, the katyusha missiles and the strength of the home front. As the fighting continues and the smoke clears, it is becoming apparent that the current series of battles is a protest call by Shiite Islam against the present order of states and nations as we know it today. The essence of the war and Hizbullah’s preparation for it, is the denial of nationhood as the basis for self-determination, and even the start of a snubbing of Arab ethnicity in an attempt to position Islam as the core building block of mankind’s social organizing in the contemporary world.

Hizbullah’s actions over the years in preparing this particular war are a clear challenge against the Lebanese entity, which it sees as a creation of hated European colonialism, and a negation of that country’s communities and peoples that have no place in the world outlook emanating from Teheran. What is interesting is that the Arab states, bound together on a basis of nationality, secular or Sunni Islam, understood long before us that the Iranian confrontation will not allow them the space to exist. This is the reason that they too support Israel’s actions in clipping the Iranian claws that have grown on the Mediterranean coast in the midst of an idyllic port where the Lebanese lead the good life. What interest does Iran have in the continued existence of chic Beirut?

Out of self-defense and a desperate attempt to reclaim its sovereignty and Lebanon’s crumbling nationhood, Israel is for the moment serving Iranian propaganda. Israel is the local bad guy, the sole murderer, butchering and wiping out the Muslim world and so Israel itself must be eradicated. The war against Israel is the foundation stone in Iran’s attempts to build a pan-ethnic framework and is a glue holding together its Islamic ambitions: a pan-Islamic state with no place for Mubarak or King Abdullah-style governments in which there is Islamic law with Iran at its center, controlled by tribal communal organizations that obey Sharia law and Iranian power.

Over the past generation Israel has built its continued existence on the basis of diplomatic agreements with its neighboring states. The present Iranian initiative threatens Israel’s ability to exist in the Middle East. The importance of this war goes beyond being just another outbreak of hostilities that will end peacefully based on agreed borders. From Iran and Hizbullah’s point of view there are no agreed-upon borders and Hamas shares this outlook. In the Israel-Palestine conflict, the civil-secular sector of the Palestinian people shares the concept of fixed borders. However, this sector was pushed aside in the recent elections and it is not clear if they will ever return to power. With this in mind, this war more than anything else reflects the need to sink Iranian ambitions once and for all. It is difficult to believe that this ambitious war, which from the beginning has sought to save Israeli and Lebanese sovereignty, will not end without dealing with the heart of the matter -- Iran’s imminent nuclear capability. This would bring nuclear weapons into the terror equation and the solution for this cannot be found in Southern Lebanon or Northern Israel. The world must deal with this immediately, and the war, which began nearly two weeks ago will not be the first battle in a terrible war of regional destruction. At the same time, if the national diplomacy framework is rehabilitated, this war will open a series of new arrangements, not only Egypt and Jordan but also Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, in a process that will not really concern those sitting in bomb shelters in Haifa praying that all this will come to an end.

One more thing. I completely understand why all those seeking peace, who uphold human dignity and rights, are not opposed to this war and its results. This war has two sides and on one side 14,000 missiles have been prepared and all the other things we know about. I welcome the fact that here we can demonstrate freely. Yet last week when Sunni and Shiite Muslims slaughtered each other and mosques and buses were blown up and innocent passers by were massacred I didn’t hear about a single demonstration to stop the killing – not in Nazareth or Nablus, Kalanswa or Damascus, Beirut or Cairo. How good it is that here we are at liberty to speak out.