/ 3 August 2006

Israelis line up behind campaign

Israeli public support for the war on Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon has been so overwhelming it has become hard to tell the doves from the hawks in the Jewish state’s generally fractious society.

One of the strongest examples of the wide consensus Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has mustered for the three-week-old offensive has been the surprise backing of Israel’s premier anti-war group, Peace Now, for the military campaign.

A Peace Now spokesperson, Yariv Oppenheimer, says the group has no plans to demonstrate against the fighting in Lebanon that followed a Hezbollah cross-border raid on July 12 in which eight soldiers were killed and two kidnapped.

The organisation was at the forefront of protests after Israel launched a large-scale invasion of its northern neighbour in 1982 with the declared aim of driving Palestinian guerrillas away from the border.

Israeli forces, under frequent attack by Hizbollah fighters, pulled out of Lebanon in 2000.

Back in 1982, many Israeli doves felt Israel had other options besides a war, which sharply divided the nation. This time, many believe Israel is fighting for survival, and polls show upwards of 80% of Israelis supporting the campaign.

”Everyone justifies the war,” Oppenheimer said. ”The position of Peace Now is this war is just and that Israel has every right to defend itself.”

Hezbollah has rained hundreds of rockets on northern Israel, killing 19 people. Another 37 soldiers have been killed in battle. The Israeli casualty toll is far less than in Lebanon where 643 people have been killed and about one million, or a quarter of the population, driven from their homes.

The intensity of Hezbollah rocket strikes, reaching unprecedented distances into Israel, has rekindled fears of a group many Israelis had hoped would cease to pose a threat after their army withdrew from Lebanon to a United Nations-sanctioned border six years ago.

Many look anxiously beyond Hezbollah to its regional backer Iran, whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be ”wiped off the map”.

Tehran has been the target of a concerted international effort to curb its nuclear programme, based on fears it could produce atomic weapons, though Iran denies such a plan. Israel is believed to be the region’s only nuclear power.

”Katyusha rockets are really a pain, but they don’t threaten to destroy the state. Iran getting nuclear weapons could lead to the destruction of Israel,” said Sam Lehman-Wilzig, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv.

Compounding Israeli anger at Hezbollah is that it attacked the Jewish state as its army was embroiled in battle on another frontier, against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, who had also captured a soldier in a cross-border raid.

Disappointment that a Gaza pull-out last year had failed to ease tensions after nearly six years of violence has also hardened the hearts of many in the Jewish state, experts say.

Only a small number of Israelis have protested against civilian deaths in Lebanon caused by Israeli strikes.

”You’re facing people who glorify death, efforts to get them [civilians] to leave don’t work and our soldiers get killed when you try to avoid [aerial] bombings, so at this point you say, let them be martyrs,” said Israeli analyst Yossi Alpher.

‘The elimination of the Zionist regime’

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad and other Islamic leaders demanded a halt on Thursday to Israeli attacks and weighed inclusion of Muslim forces in a future peacekeeping operation.

Aroused by restive populations back home and aghast at the mounting toll in heavily-Muslim southern Lebanon, select members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) gathered in special session more than three weeks after the start of the crisis.

It was Ahmadinejad, his hardline views on Israel reinvigorated by public backing from Iran’s supreme clerical leader, who animated the conference as it strove to get the OIC’s voice heard above the diplomatic din.

”Although the main cure [to the situation] is the elimination of the Zionist regime, in this stage an immediate ceasefire should be implemented,” Ahmadinejad, a charismatic figure who was treated like something of a rock star during a recent visit to Indonesia, told OIC colleagues.

”Britain and America, as the main associates of the Zionist regime in its offensive to Lebanon, should compensate Lebanon’s damages. Those governments should answer for their crimes in Lebanon,” he said in his speech, a copy of which was circulated.

He also urged Islamic and Arab nations to cut all political and economic ties to the Jewish state.

Summing up the frustration of many across the Muslim world, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia demanded: ”The question that may come up is why this meeting could not be convened earlier.”

Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon has killed more than 900 people and wounded 3 000 with a third of the casualties children under 12, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said in a video message to the conference.

He said a quarter of the population, or one million people, had been displaced.

Among those attending were the president of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation and the prime ministers of Muslim powerhouses Turkey and Pakistan.

Peacekeeping

”We must show preparedness to contribute forces for peacekeeping operations under the United Nations banner,” Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia’s Prime Minister and host of the conference, said in remarks prepared for delivery in closed session. ”Malaysia is ready to do that.”

As their leaders met behind closed doors, OIC diplomats said it was unclear whether the conference would in the end endorse a proposal to place Muslim ”Blue Helmets” under United Nations control. The draft under debate also calls for an inquiry into possible Israeli war crimes in its campaign against targets in southern Lebanon and Gaza.

”Many countries have expressed their readiness to send troops under the banner of the United Nations,” OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told reporters during a break.

”They asked the OIC to be more active in the peacebuilding process and in the rebuilding of Lebanon after a ceasefire establishes peace,” he said of the deliberations so far.

In addition, the OIC draft demands an immediate ceasefire, adding to the pressure on Israel and its superpower ally the United States to reverse course and agree to end the fighting first and then deploy peacekeepers.

It is unclear whether the Jewish state, as a party to the conflict, or the United States would accept direct Muslim participation in a peace-keeping operation. Many OIC member states do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. – Reuters