By Malcolm Siret & Jessica Reed
The force with which Israel has hit back at the Lebanese people - for acts carried out by the Shia Muslim organisation Hezbollah (now with an important presence in the Lebanese parliament) – has met calls for Israel to be more "balanced" in its latest response to rocket attacks on the city of Haifa.
The past six days of strikes have seen high numbers of civilian casualties, roads have been blocked or destroyed, Beirut Airport has suffered two heavy bombardments and hundreds of people are struggling to evacuate.
There is a belief among members of the Lebanese community that they are being punished for electing Hizbollah into parliament, and that the "kidnapping" by the group of two Israeli soldiers last week was a miscalculated mistake.
The Montreal-based Canadian family killed last sunday by Israeli air raids provoked strong reactions in the Canadian blogosphere. It prompted countries such as the United States, the UK and France to repatriate their citizens from Lebanon as soon as possible, as current efforts to remove those caught up in the violence is adding fear among the civilians of Lebanon that they are being "cut-off” or “isolated” from the rest of the world.
According to activist and blogger Matthew Good, "there are some 16,000 Canadians in Lebanon, whose Cedar Revolution prompted some to claim not so long ago that President Bush’s attempts at democratizing the region were working. Now, it seems, because of the actions of a militant minority, the wholesale destruction of parts of Lebanon are excusable, even passed off as ‘defensive’".
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Back in the blogosphere, some posted eloquent entries about their own experiences reminding us that the first side-effects of wars are the innocent civilians, who are often hit the hardest. This Phd student started his own blog to document his thoughts as the hostilities began:
"Just now, as I was writing, I heard a fighter jet diving outside my window, and then a boom. As I look out, I can see leaflets slowly falling to the ground down by the Corniche. Either more propaganda against Hizballah, or perhaps a warning of more strikes to come? Whatever they want to say, I’m not interested. I understand that Israel wants security, but what they are doing now will not bring security; they are planting the seed for a new generation of fierce enemies. I can hear distant rumbling now. I wonder how many humans they are killing this time."
Another blogger points out:
"Yes it is our fault for not being strong enough or united enough to establish the rule of law and spread the Lebanese army on all Lebanese territory. But there is no love lost between the Lebanese people and the Israeli leadership. We have been invaded, abused, bullied, and humiliated by Israeli occupation forces for many years. Entire families were butchered by Israeli artillery. And now this? Do you seriously expect us to believe that leveling this country's frail infrastructure is going to bring you your soldier and bring Hizbollah to its knees? (...) Hizbollah is screwing us over, but so are you. Now do I still want peace with you? Yes. Peace not alliance.."
There is one thing commenters and bloggers seem to agree on. Innocent civillians are targetted- civilians who are, according to this openDemocracy forums' user, "involuntarily squeezed in between the fighting parties".
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Meanwhile, the respective roles of Iran and Syria are still to be exposed and assessed. Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, used Bush's semantics this week end when he used the term ‘Axis Of Terror’ to describe Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and Iran, as influential intellectual Noam Chomsky says "there's every reason to believe that Hezbollah has its own motivations."
Fortunately, George W Bush seemed to have the answer to all crises this afternoon, just as the G8 Summit reached its end. Having a private discussion with Blair in front of open microphones he offered his analysis: “See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit."
Elsewhere in the blogosphere: Andrew Sullivan from the Time admits that "the situation is far too fluid to come to any quick decisions, or to prompt any hasty actions". The Lebanese Political Journal Blog offers a fascinating first person account.
