Will Qana tragedy be the turning point for the war?
If there were ever a need to provide further fuel for America's favorite diplomatic past-time, France-bashing, the French Foreign Minister served it up it in spades on Monday. Speaking during a trip to Lebanon, Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy declared, "In the region there is, of course, a country such as Iran - a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region."
Douste-Blazy's comments would be outrageous at any time, but coming a day after Israel's tragic targeting of an apartment block housing terrorists, missiles, rocket launchers…and - depending on conflicting reports - somewhere between 28 and 56 innocent civilians, including many children, who were killed in the blast, Douste-Blazy's words epitomize the double standard that has plagued Israel throughout all its battles, no less so in its current conflict with Hezbollah and Hamas.
Yes, the attack in Qana on Sunday was horrific. But sucking up to Iran isn't going to make Hezbollah stop hiding behind civilians, a tactic it has employed numerous times to turn the tide of world opinion as it did in Qana. Nor will the words of UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett who, referring to the deaths in Qana, said "it's absolutely dreadful, it's quite appalling."
Where were Ms. Beckett's words of shock and condemnation these past three weeks as Hezbollah has deliberately targeted Israel's cities, forcing over a million citizens into bomb shelters?
How did the apartment complex in Qana come to be targeted in the first place? After much scrambling, Israel released footage late Sunday night purporting to show a similar building being used as cover for the launching of dozens of Katyushas headed for Haifa, Afula and beyond (see image above of a Katyusha launcher).
The Israeli Air Force identified the building that collapsed as being a Hezbollah command center and said it had no idea there were civilians hiding in the bomb shelters. Israel says that it had warned residents to get out of town, dropping leaflets and making announcements by bullhorn.
In Gaza, Israel has taken this kind of advanced warning system to a new level: the army is now making telephone calls to the residents of a building about to be targeted for its use by terrorists in launching Qassam rockets against southern Israeli towns.
Did the Pesachov family near Safed get a phone call from Hezbollah before the Katyusha landed in the family's living room, killing a grandmother and her seven-year-old grandchild? Did Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah apologize to even a single Israeli the way all of Israel's top brass - from the Prime Minister on down - did immediately after the Qana incident?
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday urged the U.N. to condemn the air strike in Qana but, remarkably, the Security Council couldn't figure out the language and, blocked by objections to strengthen the language from Qatar of all places, for once showed momentary restraint "only" expressing its "extreme shock and distress."
Israel announced on Monday a 48-hour quasi-ceasefire - the Air Force would halt proactive missions, although it pledged to provide cover for ground forces and take out "imminent threats." U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hightailed it back to Washington after canceling a trip to Beirut, broadly telegraphing her intentions to get a full ceasefire in place by the weekend.
The Israeli army says it still needs 10-14 days to completely silence Hezbollah, but some generals on Monday were already hinting that all of Hezbollah's border bases within two kilometers of Israel could be cleared as early as Thursday. Another report optimistically claimed that Israel had taken out 2/3 of Hezbollah's long-range missile arsenal.
That won't stop the Katyushas, though, of which an estimated 9,000 still exist, but it could quell the clamoring and complaints within Israel that will erupt if the war is forced to be called off "too soon," providing the government and the army with at least some mild face saving.
Will Qana prove to be the turning point in the war with Hezbollah? It certainly was in 1996 when a stray Israeli shell aimed killed 102 civilians in nearly the same location, forcing the government of Shimon Peres to order an abrupt and early end to an Israeli counter-terror operation known as "Grapes of Wrath."
Ten years later, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz are singing a different tune. Olmert and crew undoubtedly knew "their" Qana moment would come and were ready for it.
"Israel is continuing to fight," Olmert declared in an address to the nation on Monday night as the cabinet to expand the ground operation - something that had been turned down just days before in favor of more air power. "We will stop the war when the threat is removed, our captive soldiers return home in peace, and you are able to live in safety and security … we are determined to come out victorious in this battle."
"We are fighting against ruthless terrorists and we will not stop until they are pushed back from our border," Olmert added. "We have to finish the operation," Defense Minister Peretz declared. "The army will expand and deepen its actions against Hezbollah."v Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon also downplayed the ceasefire in the air. "It is not stopping the war. If it ends today it means a victory for Hezbollah... and for world terror, with far-reaching consequences. Therefore this war is not about to end, not today and not tomorrow," he said.
Israel may, ironically, receive help in its PR campaign from an unlikely source - an anti-Syrian Lebanese group, which is claiming that Hezbollah gunmen deliberately "placed a rocket launcher on the building's roof" in Qana, then brought "invalid children inside, in a bid to provoke an Israeli response." The Lebanese website Libanoscopie, which is associated with the Christian "March 14 Forces" group, says that Qana was picked because it is already a symbol for "massacring innocent civilians" and that Hezbollah's plot was meant to turn attention away from Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's "Seven Points Plan" which calls for deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hezbollah.
It was Nachman Shai, though, who perhaps put it best. Writing on Monday, the former IDF spokesperson, who served in that capacity during the first Gulf War and who is currently the Director-General of the United Jewish Communities' Israel Office, addressed both the war and the public relations challenge.
"Israel must continue its military actions," Shai stressed. "I know this is a difficult decision, which some claim shows callousness and indifference. Nevertheless ... this kind of accident should not divert attention from the main challenge we face: a democratic, Western country which acts according to moral standards faces a fundamentalist terror organization that acts against and from within the civil population, intentionally and brutally. We must present and market these facts, repeatedly and persistently."
In a world where battles are fought both on and off the battlefield, carefully choosing one's words may be the best weapon Israel has against the international double standard.
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