Mid East Crisis: The Solution is Lebanese Sovereignty

As the rightous voltures gang up on Israel in the West, they would do well to heed to voices from the East who know perfectly well what started this futile escalation. Anybody with a dispassionate and logical view at things, would know that the only solution to this conflict is the return of the Israeli soldiers, the ceccation of hostilities; and the final and complete disarmament of Hezbollah in order to evoke for the first time a true Lebanese sovereignty in Lebanon.

France and Russia have gone condemning the Israeli overreaction. As I have stated times before, the motivations for this are clear: Russia is seeking Muslim support for its operations in Chechnya while France wishes to avoid a re-run of the 2005 riots in Paris. If their interest is truly peace in the Eastern front, they must call for an end to Hezbollah's hostage taking of Lebanon. Though the fears of France and Russia of a Muslim reaction to the support of this logic are understood; they are nevertheless misplaced. It is enough to look at reacions from the Arab world to this conflict as oppose to previous ones in order to understand that taking the right stand is not the risky venture it once was.

As I have previously mentioned, opinion coloumns in the Arab world clearly do not see the logic that stood behind the attack by Hezbollah other than having "Lebanon charge its credit card for Syria and Iran's ambitions" as one reporter put it. And indeed in the Arab League summit that took place this Saturday, corresponding voices were heard. While the tone was unsurprisingly critical of Israel, it was not the unilateral support Nasserallah had hoped for. Syria along with two others found itself in opposition to a large group of Arab heavyweights such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq and others. Clearly seeing things for what they are is not as risky as it once was. But what are those clear things that everyone must see? It is Lebanon's sovereignty, that is both the cause of this problem and the solution to it.

Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, pointed to it in Friday's Security Council session. "You know" he said to his Lebanese colleague, "that what we are doing is right and that at the end of all of this, a free Lebanon would be the main benefector". He could not put it in any better words. Just like the Hamas government who was starting to wane from its rhetoric anti-Israel line before being dragged by Hamas in Syria; so is Lebanon now being dragged by Hezbollah into a conflict no Lebanese wants to take part in. And so if any solution to this must come, it would be in the form of Lebanon regaining its sovereignty from Hezbollah by disarming the Shi'ia militia and establishing true Lebanse sovereignty throughout Lebanon in accordance with UN resolution 1559. This can only be done if the International community presses to do so and does not act like France and Russia who are seeking a way to gain points from all ofthis in the Muslim world.

All this must be done quickly before the human toll on both sides and particularly on the Lebanese side rises. Israel cannot be the victim's of the Lebanese government's lack of ability to establish its sovereignty.

Tags:
Middle East, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Arab League, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, France, Russia.