In Lebanon, history on repeat

Robert Fisk’s Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon is a book in which history, and the experiences of its author, pass in cycles. Over nearly thirty years (1976-2001) Fisk lives through and reports on a nightmarish series of wars, good intentions turned sour and large-scale massacres by nearly all the military parties involved in Lebanon.  As one of the only journalists to remain in Beirut throughout the entirety of the chaotic ‘80s, his endurance is remarkable and exhausting for the reader.

In the book’s closing line, he writes, “A day after that last visit of mine to Sabra and Chatila, on 6 February 2001, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel.”  Sharon, the complicit general on whom much of the blame was deservedly placed for the massacres of unarmed Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila, comes full circle, from embarrassment to a renewed and more powerful position within the Israeli government.  The implications are clear and consistent with the rest of Fisk’s narrative; Lebanon is not a country where justice prevails—indeed, it seems no one does, from conventional armies (Israel and Syria) to peacekeepers (UN and US) to the myriad militias that have thrived in the absence of a unified government (the Amal, Phalange, PLO etc.).  Certainly the Lebanese civilians suffer the most, needlessly and to none of their own volition.

Sharon’s political rebirth is also prescient in implying that history will continue to move in a cyclical fashion much as it has throughout the time of Fisk’s reporting.  The massacres at Sabra and Chatila marked the moment in which the Western world, as well as much of the Israeli population, finally awoke and put its foot down, at least for a short while.  Although the months of Israeli carpet bombing in Beirut and Southern Lebanon that had preceded it were anything but humane, this act, committed by the Phalange under the watch of the Israeli army, possessed a perverse lust for cruelty and violence that tipped the scales against the anti-“terrorist” mission in Lebanon.  It should have been a “never again” moment, in which the humanity compromised by war is rediscovered in the face of an egregious act.  Instead, it proved to be one of the many lessons forgotten, to then be learned and forgotten all over again.

Fast forward to today, two and a half years after Israels’s latest endeavor in Lebanon, an ill-fated attempt to punish Hizbollah for having kidnapped Israeli soldiers.  After engrossing myself in the relatively recent history of the country, I realized how little we hear about the current state of the nation.  A quick Google News search finds Robert Fisk himself (now with The Independent) at the top of the list.  The five year anniversary of Rafiq Hariri’s assassination, demonstrations in Beirut and anger tempered by a pragmatic knowledge that Syria, who almost certainly had a role in Hariri’s death, is an essential ally and should be coddled.  As usual, the foreign hand behind the puppet’s mouth.  On that same subject, Iran has pledged its support of Hizbollah in the event of an Israeli attack.  From Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

“If they (the Israelis) want to repeat the mistakes of the past (by attacking), then their case should be closed once and for all and the region delivered from their evil ways.”

Though little credence should ever be given to the words of the Iranian President, it does appear that tensions are once again rising on the Southern border.  Power dynamics have shifted—Hizbollah’s military capabilities, buttressed by Iran, are purported to have grown to the point of posing legitimate resistance to the Israeli army.  Alliances have also evolved; just this week, the US sent a diplomat to meet with President Bashir Assad of Syria, formerly dubbed a “state sponsor of terrorism” and a beneficiary of Lebanon’s awkward proxy status.  All of this points to a new dynamic in Lebanon that is yet somehow so familiar.  On the entire page of “News from Lebanon” there is scant mention of the actions and desires of the Lebanese themselves.  “Lebanon as victim in waiting” says one headline, an appropriate classification for a people who must, even in times of relative peace, live under the shadow of war.
As much political maneuvering as takes place inside and around the country, the results seem to always be of the same mold. Foreign armies leave embarrassed, unsure of what went wrong, while the Lebanese are left to sort out their own divisions shaped by years of political interference.  Unlike the PLO, Hizbollah are indeed Lebanese; they grew out of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon and now have a stake in Parliament.  But ultimately, as a military entity, they are little more than an extension of Iran and its ambitions in the region.  If this next chapter in Lebanese history follows the narrative of the past, it will likely mean more suffering for a people who have already endured more than any should.  The necessity of war should always be challenged but in Lebanon the question is as pertinent as ever: what is it all for?