Europe & Lebanon: talk is cheap

As Patrice de Beer wrote last week, France has received a boost to its diplomatic image through its work in securing UN resolution 1701, which brought a halt to fighting in Lebanon.

But, as the saying goes, a week is a long time in politics, and in the week that has passed France, and most of Europe have gone from heroes to zeroes. After weeks of bitterly castigating Israel for the reckless disregard shown for civilian lives in its Lebanese campaign – championing the rights of the Lebanese people – European leaders are scrambling over each other to abandon them.

France, in particular, must come in for some strident criticism. After offering to lead the UN force in Lebanon, (which would have involved committing thousands of ground troops) a paltry 400 troops are now being sent, only half of whom are combat infantry.

The reason given for this stunning volte face is that the force's mandate is 'unclear', and could leave European troops in a dangerous situation. This is particularly galling insofar as France, along with the United States, wrote the resolution that they are now claiming is too vague.

As Jonathan Freedland points out in an article for the Guardian this morning, the danger inherent in this mission can hardly have come as a surprise to anyone in Paris or Rome. He says:

"That this operation would entail risk was obvious the moment an international force was suggested. The clue was in the word "force". If this was a walk in the park, the UN would have asked for a multinational platoon of boy scouts and girl guides to patrol southern Lebanon."

Europe has been strident in its criticism of US military adventurism, particularly in Iraq, and the cost in human lives it inevitably creates. Europeans, however, have been far more reluctant to acknowledge that their own history, the legacy of the destruction of much of the continent in WWII in particular, is now preventing it from taking action in situations when failure to do so also has a high civilian death toll.

The deaths caused by Dutch troops putting their hands up and refusing to fight to defend the UN 'safe haven' of Srebrenica in Bosnia, handing over 8,000 people to be slaughtered or by UN troops standing by in Rwanda as hundreds of thousands died in a campaign of ethnic cleansing make a mockery of our continent's claims to believe in human rights, or indeed the value of human life.

Europe's leaders now face a stark choice: put up or shut up. If they are unwilling to support the ceasefire in Lebanon with substantial numbers of ground troops, then they should abandon the shabby pretence that they give a damn about whether the people of Lebanon live or die. Otherwise, the time has come to back up rhetoric with actual actions.